Daily Reports
Observers on-site: Michael Mattern, Marie-Anne Carpine, Paul Law, Carsten Kramer and Stergios Amarantidis (AoD).
Operators: Gloria (day), Sergio (night).
All times are in Local Time.
Feb 18th, Tuesday
Maintenance: during maintenance CD fixed E1 (apparently the issue was found) and we conducted some tests with E0,1,2,3 (just tuning in some corresponding frequencies for each band).
15:00-22:00: Stergios: Basic training on NIKA2/EMIR observations. 15:00 LT: Wind gusts up to 20m/s thus we wait a couple of minutes for the weather to improve. At 16:21 LT we started with tuning with EMIR to project 143-24. Spindle errors and homology at scan 18, 19, 20, 21 (good start...). Manuel and Gloria think that this is caused as side effect after working on the emergency switch. Reset solves this problem. Trying with the 143-24 project. It doesn't work (either a focus observation). JT was contacted, the operator restarted odp but still plots are not created. The chopper was the culprit as it had been left in manual mode, we repeat a pointing test to see if we get the data and it works! Moving ahead with the observations.
Marie-Anne: Observing 143-24, mediocre conditions, we did calibrations on uranus, mars and 0458-020. We are observing NGC1977, map 4 vert. and then maps 1 to 4 horizontal. Spindle error but no scan lost (when changing project to test). Continuing with NGC1977 - project 143-24 (using the source 0430+052 for pointing; brightest source nearby) completing a forth repetition on the vertical maps. The weather though is quite unstable...
22:00-04:00: Carsten: Switching to 186-24. 1spindle error at the start. Weather instable, tau225 fluctuating around ~0.4 with clouds moving through. Pointing on 0851+202 showing quite some instabilities. Switching to test and trying Mars. Pointing stable on Mars and on 0851+202. Focus ok. 22h25: Start of wsw observation of J0956+3625, which still needs 3.5h. Scan 143 interrupted by spindle error at 23:34. One wind alarm during scan 145: 20m/s peak. Wind increasing with average values of ~10m/s. Scan 153, wind peaks at 20m/s, tracking errors reach 3". Pointed wobbler switched observations at elevations up to 84.0deg. Wind peaks reach 21m/s -- too high. Stop at 00:45. Start again at 1:15. 89deg elev is too high - cancelled. Pointing/Focus on Mars. Start at ~86deg elevation. Wind still high. 03:13 all loops on J0956+3625 completed. Next: J1147+3501.
Feb 19th, Wednesday
04:00-10:00: Michael:continue with 186-24 on source J1147+3501. Wind is still high but within the limits. Spindle error at 04:04. Wind is decreasing 04:45 and increasing again 05:05. Pointing on 0923+392 stable. tau225 still fluctuating around ~0.4. spindle error at 05:14. Stopping observations because of high wind at 05:52. tracking errors are still low however, 0.1% over 3". Restarting observations at 07:06 with project 133-24. tau225 stabilizing around ~0.4, some low clouds, wind below 15 m/s. Start with pointing/focus on K3-50A as no planet is available. The calibration scans can not be read in the 133-24 account, but work in poolw-24. continued with the calibration from the poolw-24. Afterwards no problems with the calibrations. But unstable pointing because of clouds. spindle error at 09:16. Again we don't see the plot as in the beginning of the project, but now FTS calibration also fails in pool. Continuum calibration works in pool. After the restart of odp the FTS onoff observations work with the project account poolw-24 but not with the project account 133-24. Restarting odp and doing some tests to see if the plots will appear. AS was contacted to check the issue. Apparently, the moment we change to the 133-24 account there are no mrtcal data. We found that the issue is only with the project 133-24, the other projects contain data...
10:00-16:00: Paul: Switch project from 133-24 (the odp is not working for this project) to 130-24 (09:17), and the odp of this project works. However, there is problem with the tuning.At 09:28, the cal problem is fixed, and now moving to pointing. However, as the cal did not appeared, and therefore another cal has been sent and in this case the calibration plot has appeared. At 09:35 another pointing has sent. The pointing at source 1923+210 was bad, but the observation was still carried out without pointing and focus to make sure FTS works for this project. At 09:47, the observing script for 130-24 works and now will return to perform pointing ( source NGC7027) 09:57 start focus on the source NGC7027 10:01, do another pointing with a nearby source (1923+210), the weather becoming to unstable with big clouds, but still okay for observation. At 11:19, the weather cont becoming more unstable, but the tau is fluctuating at 0.4. We cont observing with project 130-24. We are stopping observations at 11: because of the poor tau (R**2 ~0.25), despite the average tau is 0.16. The operator move the telescope to parking position in case of snow coming.
16:00-22:00: Marie-Anne: 17:25 the sky is clearing up so we will try to see if can get a stable calibration. 18:00 we cannot send the telescope on source. The computer, telescope group is trying still to fix the issue (21:59), all time of the shift has been lost.
22:00-04:00: Carsten: 22:00 Still not able to command the telescope from PaKo. Weather conditions improved, clear sky, tau<0.35. 02:00 tau stabilizes at around 0.4, but telescope is not yet working again. Giving up for tonight.
Feb 20th, Thursday
04:00-10:00: Michael:
10:00-16:00: Paul: 11:30 it moves again !! There had been a problem with the timing, which was off by one year since yesterday. ~13:00 LT starting with NIKA2 and training the new observers. DAQ gives 26/4/35 bad pixels for arrays 1/2/3, respectively. Trying some pointings/focus/calib_1scan while the sky weather worsens. After some tests (pointing, focus, calib_1scan, skydip) and training of the observers we will move to the project 128-24 considering that the stability is below p2p~2Jy/beam. We applied pointing at Neptune, and then a nearby source , which is faint, but we still able to apply a pointing, and start science observation for project 128-24 under the pool account. However note the thick cloud on the sky may affect the quality of the final product (tau ~0.3 but with large scatter). Cont with 128-24, but the data is bad and is rejected. Now no real science observation since 14:15 LT to test out some strange high flux toward the sub-scan of the science target but the pointing is fine. it is already reported in the TAPAS that these scans should be rejected. Also clouds are covering all over the site, and no further science observations.
16:00-22:00: Marie-Anne: The weather was improving so we wanted to start observing again but the weather is again deteriorating. We are now trying just a pointing on Uranus to see if we get once again the weirdly high fluxes. Now we did new pointings on Uranus, and the weirdly high fluxes disappeared, but still 20Jy/beam. Still lots of clouds so no NIKA2 observations. Want to switch to EMIR but no source to observe are currently available. 19:45 trying again with the pointing, getting better with 10Jy/beam p2p then 4 so we try a focus. Stability is getting good so we try observations on 128-24.
22:00-04:00: Carsten: Continuing on L1551 (128-24) with NIKA2Pol. Clear sky. tau225~0.24. Uranus every hour (pointing, calib_1scan). No focus needed. 00:05: Moving to 3C286 to do a beam map in pol. Scan 137. Switching to TP. Number of bad pixels: 25/4/41. Beam map on 3C273: Scan 1. Spindle error at 87/99 subscans. Maybe the scan can be rescued ? Repeat: Scan 2. Homology error.... Scan 10 OK. 02:00: Moving to M8182.
Feb 21st, Friday
04:00-10:00: Michael: Continue with M8182 in TP. tau225GHz is stable around 0.19. Scan 17 got stuck when loading, it was cancelled and repeated. pointing focus and calib1scan on 3C273 finished ~04:30. Back to M8182 in TP. At 5:10 the wind is getting stronger, first high wind warning >18m/s. wind dropped again to ~9m/s by 06:00. At 07:40 changing to polarization 25/4/34 bad pixel for band 1/2/3. pointing/focus on 3C286. Change project to 134-24. Calib1scan on 3C286, pointing on 1730-130, the observe 103459. At 8:20 the wind is getting stronger again, first high wind warning >18m/s. Project 134-24 is finished with calib1scan on 3C286. then skydip and switch to project 112-24. Wind just below the limits, tau225 still ~0.19 .Switch to Paul for observations.
10:00-16:00: Paul: Starting project 112-24 , tau remains ~0.19 and the wind still just below limit. The pointing calibration was performed on 1741-038 for calib1scan no focus needed. Tau continue to be ~0.19 and the wind still not far from the limit, cont observing with project 112-24 ,wind remains at around ~12 km/s. Pointing/focus on 2251+158 calib1scan. AS start to have cloud coming, the tau is moving up to ~0.23. Wind is going down to ~10 km/s and tau ~0.19. Another high wind warning (~15.8 km/s)just happened (11:23). tau is getting worse to ~0.26 and also the wind is keep fluctuating below the limit. Observations has stopped because of large tracking errors on the last two scans. Also the wind is fluctuating at ~17 km/s
At 14:43 LT, we are trying with a NIKA2 pointing to see about the tracking error. 1 spindle error at 14:03, then we move to project 166-24. We change the topology to high, and going to do pointing/focus at Uranus. There is a homology error at 14:15. There was a confusion in the topology, which ~10 mins was wasted, and also the track was mistaking done on the project account, now change back to the nikaw pool account and the time loss will be compensated.
16:00-22:00: Marie-Anne: Taking over with project 166-24, pointing on nearby source 2254+617 but imb.fits files seem not to come and results don't show : we got the one of the scan 109 but from 110 and further we don't get anything from pointing or scan. Scan 113, after restarting the acquisition now it works. The pointing is not good, we abort on project 166. Wanted to look on other Nika2 projects (trying a pointing on Uranus) bu weather really degrading. Tau increasing and stability getting worse, so we will switch to EMIR observations. Doing tuning and calibration. for some reason the source was set to W3OH so switching back to uranus for pointing and focus. We will observe 143-24 again on the NGC1977 source (nearly done but anyways there is no other available source to observe with EMIR). Observing NGC1977. The tau is good but we won't switch to nika because of high tracking errors. Done with 143-24, now we change to project 186-24, source J1147+3501, Mars available for pointing.
22:00-04:00: Carsten: As opacities are good, wind moderate, but very bad weather is announced to arrive in about 4h, switching to 147-24 E230 project. tau225 degrading from 0.2 to 0.3. Average wind 8-10m/s with peaks of 12m/s. About 10% of fast traces with tracking error larger than 1", surprisingly high. Sergios is recording the tracking behavior. Source dropping to 21deg. 02:30 Stopping. Tracking had been relatively poor all along, though mean errors stayed at 0.5-0.8". Clouds arriving.
Feb 22nd, Saturday
04:00-10:00: Michael: No observations, snowing, antenna parked.
10:00-16:00: Paul: Antenna still parked but they weather is improving slowly.
16:00-22:00: Marie-Anne: Weather still not good for observing. NIKA2Pol DAQ started at 21:35 with 42/7/50 bad KIDS, respectively.
22:00-04:00: Carsten: De-icing off. No ice in the telescope. Still very strong power fluctuations +-60Jy and +-100Jy. Heavy fog. Pointing / Focus on Uranus. Beam still distorted 17x20. 23:50 Mars 18"x21" +-50Jy. Dish still distorted and Still very foggy. Switching to NIKA2 TP. Number of bad pixels 26/4/37. 01:00 Sky is clearing-up. 1:40 +-4Jy fluctuations, Beam 18x19. 00:53 M8182 Plenty of errors on the way: spindle 5x, homology >>3x, stuck scan 1x. 02:27: homology errors in half a dozen of attempts to start the map. Again at 03:28. Only one of the M8182 scans went through.
Feb 23rd, Sunday
04:00-10:00: Michael: Continue with M8182. Weather is stable with no clouds and tau225 around 0.19. At 05:06 spindle error, then homology x4, 5min break. slight increase in tau225 to 0.22. At 06:00 change to project 114-24. Conditions continue to be stable and tau225 is back to 0.2. At 07:20 changing to polarization 26/3/31 bad pixel for band 1/2/3. pointing/focus on 3C286. Change project to 157-24. Calib1scan on 3C286. Conditions stable +/- 1 Jy/beam, tau225 improved to 0.15.
10:00-16:00: Paul: Continue on project 157-24 for another 30 mins then switch to 112-24 as the target of 157-24 will have elevation below 20 degrees. tau continue to be good at ~0.15. Moved to project 112-24. continue on project 112-24, and the tau remains at ~0.15. There was a false alarm of sun avoidance (while observing on source far away from the sun) and the vertex not opened for 2 mins because of a fake alarm of sun avoidance (11:16 until 11:18). Then the vertex reopened, and observation continue. The tau is now increasing to ~0.2 at 11:52. Switch from 112-24 as the source is too low elevation to skydip and going to observe the secondary calibrators (NGC7027, CRL2688 and MWC349). Observation of secondary calibrators done and performed a focus at 3C84. Now switching to 166-24, tau remains at roughly ~0.23. Tau is now down to ~0.19.
16:00-22:00: Marie-Anne: Starting now on project 128-24 with L1551, conveniently Uranus is quite close to do all the calibrations. Tau is around 0.2. 20:20 tau is decreasing towards 0.15, but instabilities increasing. p2p 20Jy/beam on the last scan. 21:00 Weird focus things so we had to repeat focus 5 times but it finally got normal, last scan gives p2p around 5.
22:00-04:00: Carsten: 128-24 finishing. Uranus beammap. tau~0.19. Skydip. 136-24 3c286, 3c84, L1482 (1rep.). 01:00 As there are no NIKA2 projects for the next hours, switching to EMIR 205-24 M82 Some snow in the primary. Maybe because of some very light fog. 02:00 1x splindle error. No wind. 5 OTF maps. Pointing. tau~0.18 constant. 03:22 spindle error.
Feb 24th, Monday
04:00-10:00: Michael: Continue with EMIR on project 205-24. Weather conditions stable with tau225 0.14 and no clouds. Spindle error at 04:15. The project has no focus script, the script from project 155-24 has been used instead. Tau is slightly increasing to 0.18 and some thin high altitude clouds. ~06:00 the wind measurements are back/ the device is unfrozen! At 07:40 changing to polarization 28/4/38 bad pixel for band 1/2/3. pointing/focus on 3C286. Change project to 157-24. Calib1scan on 3C286. Conditions stable +/- 2 Jy/beam, tau225 increased to 0.22.
10:00-16:00: Paul: Continue with NIKA2 on project 157-24. Weather condition stable with tau255 0.21. Moved to project 112-24 at 11 am LT, with the tau225 start getting worse to ~0.26 with fluctuations. Pointing was performed and the beam <18", so no focus needed. Observations have been stopped at 12:00 LT for work on the subreflector.
16:00-22:00: Marie-Anne: No observations as work still ongoing. 19:00 starting observations with NIKA2Pol. 74/69/73 bad kids. Spindle errors. Continuation of 166-24. One whole repetition of the script was performed, and we started the second one (first script) but the spindle errors and now the source is too low, so we change project.
22:00-03:30: Carsten: 136-24 tau~0.26. homology error. 23:50 Start of 2nd cycle. 00:20 spindle error. 01:10 Change to poolw-24 3C286. Beammap. Skydip. 02:00 Switching to EMIR: 205-24 M82 E090/E230
Feb 25th, Tuesday
03:30-10:30: Project 169-24 (EMIR; XPOL): Observations were performed remotely by Fabrice Herpin with no issues.
End of the week and the last NIKA2 pool week for this semester.