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Daily Reports

Oct 25th, Tuesday

During the maintenance slot, the OS of nika2-b machine was updated and rebooted (PM, JT, WR) as planned; DJ switched to the 2nd trap of the NIKA2 cryostat, HP pressure/MC temp. checked, temperature timelines and noise traces OK after that.

16:00-21:00; Angel, Emilia, Matt: Telescope parked due to the wind. System check OK (t07 account).

21:00-03:15; Matt: Weather is definitely not good enough for NIKA-2, but luckily the wind has calmed down so we can observe. After some initial problems with weather at about 22:20 we got on sky for project 018-22. Tau is horrendous and not that stable, but we seem to be OK for this bright CO line. Carried out 1 rep. of domapC1, PWV reading still between 7-11mm, moved onto C2. During C2 cal's now report 11-14mm above threshold - had reduced by next scan. 1/4 way through C3 scan but then had to abort due to wind. Just after one hour we restarted by atmosphere stability was terrible, but waited 15 mins and we were good! After a few pointings, cals started observations for 043-22, performed 8 times 12 min observations.

Oct 26th, Wednesday

03:15-09:00; Angel: Observations of L1544 (EMIR backup project 043-22) continued. We stopped for a while two times before ~04:30 due to atmosphere instability. A PWV between 6 and 9 mm in the l.o.s. (MRTCAL) after that. A total of 9 reps. were observed. Changing to project 051-22. Telescope parked at 06:05 after trying the first pointing scan due to repeated motor current alarms (wind speed around the limits). Observations resumed at 06:40; still being on project 051-22: NGC 1977, 1 rep. of map4-vertical, and 1 rep. of map1-horizontal. Stopped again at 07:45: pwv rising above 11 mm, unstable atmosphere. Again, wind speed is close to the limit. Opacity rising above 1.2 at 08:10; sustained wind gusts of 17-18 m/s. No immediate substantial improvement is expected. Telescope parked at 08:20.

09:00-15:00; Gianluca: Bad and unstable weather prevented us from observing. We unsuccessfully tried a couple of times calibration, pointing, and focus.

15:00-21:00; Emilia:Bad and unstable weather prevented us from observing. We unsuccessfully tried once for calibration, pointing, and focus.

21:00-03:00; Matt: Managed to get on sky around 21:30 with EMIR. Started calibrations for 018-22, and started C3 map with their 12CO line - Unfortunately tau staying stubbornly around 0.8. Switch to their 13CO and C180 line which is fine so ran a C1, and then C2. Unfortunately, had to abort half way through C2 run due to wind exceeding limits. Probably lost 30-50 minutes due to wind, but then restarted project 018-22 starting with C3 map obtaining nice detections of 13CO and C18O. In last hour switched to 043-22, pointed and focused on Mars, and then started 12' repeats.

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Oct 27th, Thursday

Oct 28th, Friday

Oct 29th, Saturday

Oct 30th, Sunday

Oct 31st, Monday

Nov 1st, Tuesday