Daily Reports (2026/10/13-20, NIKA2 run 81, Cryo run 93)
Observers on-site: Remi Adam, Dana Alina, Golshan Ejlali, Wonju Kim,
AoD: Ste B.
Operators: Kike (day), Mario (night)
Shifts:
4 a.m. to 10 a.m. (LT): Dana
10 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (LT): Wonju
4:00 p.m. to 10 p.m. (LT): Remi
10 p.m. to 4 a.m. (LT): Golshan
Important
Focus offsets shall be measured on Ar1
Pointing offsets shall be measured on Ar2
Pool-Account usage: Accounting of observing times
Calibration observations like pointing, focus, and calib_1scan (the latter in case of NIKA2-Pol only, aimed at characterizing the instrumental polarization) which are conducted before and during project observations are part of the project time. Note that all proposals include such overheads in the time and sensitivity estimates. This holds for total power and polarimetry observations.
Other calibration observations which are important for all projects like beam maps, skydips, or calib_1scan for absolute flux calibration may be accounted under the pool account (nikaX-YY, where X = s,w and YY = year).
- When conditions are unstable and it is unclear whether project observations make sense at all, calibrations may be accounted to the pool account.
Book-keeping of important scans
We ask you to please keep track of focus sequences (as much as possible) and beam maps (always). Thanks.
Focus sequences
Please fill the Table with the Ar1,2,3 focus values as follows. At best, make one table per day.
Focus sequences
Scan nr
Target
Ar2
Ar1
Ar3
Polarized?
Notes
20261014s44-48
Uranus
2.07
1.42
1.45
no
tau~0.48, starting NIKA2, initial guess Ar1 1.5 mm, interestingly all three Ar2 parabolas agree and seem to point to where the Ar2 beam is round! Running another focus sequence centered on Ar2...
49-53
Uranus
1.73
out
out
no
starting at 2.07 mm (to check Ar2), beam on best Ar2 focus is elongated again (checked on pointing)
56-60
Uranus
out
1.35
1.38
no
refocus on Ar1 again, start at 1.4 mm
80-84
3C273
edge (1.96)
1.52
1.54
no
started at 1.4 mm
105-109
2251+158
1.81 (marginal)
1.36
1.43
no
focused at 1.39
Beam maps
Similarly, if any beam maps (total power) are taken:
Beam maps (99 sub-scans)
Scan Nr
Target
Focus
Notes
October 13th, Tuesday
10:30 LT: Dana, Golshan, Wonju and Stefano arrived at the telescope. Remi is here since last week. First briefing about safety and rules.
14:00-16:00 LT, All together.
- Maintenance time
- Briefing to decide the shifts
- explanations to the observers and refreshing of NIKA2 basics (incl. daily reports, pools page, Tapas filling, typical NIKA2-pol session, priorities, pointing on Ar2, focus on Ar1, book-keeping of focus sequences, etc...)
16:00-22:00 LT, Remi.
- @17:15 we try with EMIR (030-26), but the clouds are too thick. @18:30, the weather is improving and we try again, but it is still not sufficient.
- after another couple of attempts, finally @19:00 LT the sky permits to observe 030-26 (EMIR bkp). Observing setup-1 of G49.49-0.39 and G49.00-0.30
22:00-04:00 LT, Golshan.
- I continue with EMIR all night long. Projects 030-26 and 026-26
October 14th, Wednesday
4:00-10:00 LT, Dana + Stefano.
- we take over at 4 a.m. and continue with EMIR: 025-26.
- @06:00 LT tau(225) is approaching 0.4. We switch to NIKA2. We activate all PIIC monitors, etc. Total power 23 Hz for now. Lost KIDs 43/6/49
- Focus tests on Uranus (see table above)
- 093-26 three targets
- @07:45 LT we switch to TP 47 Hz, lost KIDs 30/11/30
- 083-26 0.5 repetitions of IC0342
- The NIKA2 make-imbf did not produce the imbf of scan 20261014s70 (IC0342, big scan). SB tried to connect to mrt-fits1 to produce the file manually, but the connection did not work. SB notified the IT group.
@08:30 LT (circa) scan 71 was cancelled because of Antenna oscillations. After this, the Antenna did not react anymore to the PaKo commands. After few attempts, it started to observe again. But after a while, Grafana "died" and Kike contacted AJ to see what's going on. Now it's 9:15 LT and we wait. -> we restart @10:34 in the next shift. Total time lost: ~2h (technical problems).
AB: main script of project 092-26 (N2EDF) was modified by request.
(Partial) explanation a posteriori: network overload, it's not clear yet what triggered it. Zabix did not stop but became very slow. Even the oscillations were not real, but were a software artifact. It does not seem that the trigger was the size of the 20261014s70 scan (because it is comparable to others - such as beam maps - that we can handle safely), but somehow those scan 70 might be related to the problem we experienced today.
10:00-16:00 LT, Wonju.
- 10:34 LT: we restart (in total, 2h lost to technical problems)
- NIKA2 total power observations for 093-26: several targets.
- 12:37 LT: Thick clouds, we stop.
It turns out that EMIR warmed up after the power cut that happened around 14:30. Dave is coming tomorrow to cool it down. Meanwhile Kike has prepared cables etc for tomorrow's operation. Meanwhile, EMIR is not usable. We are now (19:20 LT) stopped because of the clouds. We won;t be able to restart operations until the sky will be good enough for NIKA2 (tau<=~0.4).
16:00-22:00 LT, Remi. No observations. In the clouds and then EMIR not working when it would have been possible to give it a try. At 9pm, the weather is good enough and we start with NIKA2. We take some time to start because the mirror was not correctly positioned.
- 21:30 we start NIKA2 TP 47. 88/20/60 lost KIDS (we will re-tune after pointing/focus).
22:00-04:00 LT, Golshan.
- 22:00 re-tune 17/9/26 lost KIDs, Yeah
- calibrators (MWC349, CRL2688, NGC7027) and skydip
- 083-26 ... reps of IC0342
October 15th, Thursday
4:00-10:00 LT, Dana.
10:00-16:00 LT, Wonju.
16:00-22:00 LT, Remi.
22:00-04:00 LT, Golshan.
October 16th, Friday
4:00-10:00 LT, Dana.
10:00-16:00 LT, Wonju.
16:00-22:00 LT, Remi.
22:00-04:00 LT, Golshan.
October 17th, Saturday
4:00-10:00 LT, Dana.
10:00-16:00 LT, Wonju.
16:00-22:00 LT, Remi.
22:00-04:00 LT, Golshan.
October 18th, Sunday
4:00-10:00 LT, Dana.
10:00-16:00 LT, Wonju.
16:00-22:00 LT, Remi.
22:00-04:00 LT, Golshan.
October 19th, Monday
4:00-10:00 LT, Dana.
10:00-16:00 LT, Wonju.
16:00-22:00 LT, Remi.
22:00-04:00 LT, Golshan.
October 20th, Tuesday
4:00-10:00 LT, Dana.
10:00-16:00 LT, Wonju.
16:00-22:00 LT, Remi.
22:00-04:00 LT, Golshan.