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November 2015, 10 (Tuesday)

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November 2015, 9

NGC891 (Tau_225~0.2, 80min):

ngc891-80minutesON-20151108-09.png

CXTau (Tau_225~0.25, 100min):

CXTauGood_1mm_stack20151109-zoom.png

MM18423 (slightly smoothed) (Tau_225~0.25, 25 min) :

November 2015, 8

NGC891_1mm-2mm_stack_10cov.png

November 2015, 7

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November 2015, 6

Concerning the Azimuth oscillations seen last night, we see that before starting the 2nd beam map the telescope sometimes started oscillating very rapidly in Azimuth with 3arcmin peak-to-peak amplitude and 1sec period. Albrecht and I suggest to do a track scan before starting the 2nd and 3rd beam maps. Please report also directly to us in case the problem repeats. (AS/CK)

November 2015, 6

Still very high opacities : 0.8-0.9 through whole day. Not quite sure anything super useful was done. Had some issues with the telescope crashing (motors alarms) at the beginning of some otf maps (actually second otf command of beammap.pako). We tried to change the parameters of otf and ran them, and when we issued the same command that was precedently crashing the telescope it worked fine again - unclear what happened from observer's point of view. Had a file not written (scan 174). TAPAS missed scan 9 of 20151105.

Tested the configuration with only 1mm arrays: did a geometry (scans 151 155 162 163 are good scans) and waiting for results.

Then back to 11 boards configuration. Beammap on Uranus in total power: one seemed good (scans 164 165 166). One otf map of Uranus in polar mode (scan 76): could not reduce it in real time (see Tapas for error message).

Continuation of beamwidth monitoring on 3C84, statistics will reported on thread Beamwidth discussion later today.

November 2015, 5

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November, 2015, 4

November, 2015, 3 (Tuesday)

November 2015, 2

November 2015, 1

October/November 2015, 31-1

October 2015, 30-31

October 2015, 29-30

poitCoorPoitSess.png NIKA2pointCorr20151029_31.png nika2-pointing-session-2930oct2015.png

Left: pointing corrections during the pointing session. Center: pointing corrections Okt 29 and 30 till scan #71 (from TAPAS). Right: Pointing corrections vs. Azimuth and Elevation.

antenna-20151029s95azTrSu3.png antenna-20151029s95azTrSu4.png antenna-20151029s96eltrSu2.png

The available tracking errors are shown in blue (for azimuth) and cyan (for elevation), the correct ones in white

October 2015, 28-29

We start the observation with the two 1mm arrays.

M82_array1.png M82_array3.png

Figure. M82 maps, array 1 on left and array 3 on right

October 2015, 27-28

We started the observations at about 10:30 pm with the configuration array 1 and 3. We did some beam map and then we have switched to the initial configuration using the 2mm and one array 1mm. During the night the weather becomes good and we observed bright and faint sources. This morning we want to observe some faint galaxy and extended source. kid_1mm_array_1_3.png

Figure. Time ordered data during beam map on Uranus with the configuration using the array 1 and 3

October 2015, 26-27 (Tuesday)

We built a new configuration to have the AMC cards working with only array 1 and 3. We tried it twice but we did not manage to recover the resonances at all. We switch back to the old configuration that works with no problems at all. The observing night was pretty good with opacity down to 0.3 and below 0.5 We still have problems with nk_focus_liss that gives wrong results (software bug found and corrected, data are correct).

October 2015, 25

Mainly bad weather

October 2015, 24

We observed untill 14h30. After this the weather degraded significantly with some showers and a bit of snow.

October 2015, 23

Good observation day.

October 2015, 22

After cooling down the cryostat during the night (due to a problem in the late afternoon of yesterday), we started observing at 9h UTC, not too bad weather (tau 0.3). We started the today session comparing the different focus strategies. We noted that the focustrack is more reproducible than focusliss along the 3 axis. Moreover the error bars in focusliss are worse - not normal as integ. time per subscan in focustrack is less then integ. time per source in focusliss RZ. Thus, for the rest of the session we used the outputs of focustrack. At 10:50 UTC we started the geometry session computing a beammap.

October 2015, 21

Night shift with bad weather. Coud not focus on Uranus (could not reduce foculiss and the new focus track takes only 3 points -focus track has always taken 3 points, more points is useless and would take more time, if necessary increase the distance between the points SL-- and/or increase the number of subscans (in modulo(3) of course !) RZ-). Did checks of all observing map modes on Jupiter + Gnanymede that should allow us to see if the maps are correctly oriented). In the morning we had 4 hours of relative good weather. We have tested observations in a Mars' moon, Phobos, and NCS is working thanks to Albrecht.

October 2015, 20 (Tuesday)

Samuel L. left, Juan M. and Laurence P. arrived.

Very bad weather conditions. Nothing done.

October 2015, 19

Nicolas and Juan S leaved, Andrea B arrived.

Still clouds, winds and rain, so no observation today.
- NIKA2 detectors stage reached back the base temperature around 11 this morning.
- Detailed plan of the instrument characterization updated on the private wiki, with the inclusion of the current status.

October 2015, 18

Wind and rain all day.
- Nico worked on automatic pipeline reduction at end of scan and automatic logbook generation after each processing. It's all working except skydip processing.
- Martino (with Alessandro on Skype) fixed the problem of the dilution fridge injection line increasing pressure we had for several days, which would have caused to stop the fridge working in about a week from now. This operation implies that we can't use the cryostat for ~ 2 days, given the weather forecast we take the chance to do it now. He recovered the 3He from the system to the tank, the time to isolate the internal trap that was blocking little by little the injection probably due to a small leak in one of the pipes, in order to install a bypass with an external charcoal trap dipped in a nitrogen bucket. Then he re-injected the 3He in the circulation unit. After few hours the 3He-4He mixture was circulating again, and the cryostat was cooling down again after a rise from 100mK up to 12K of the mixing chamber.
- Samuel worked on reviewing, cleaning, updating, testing (with set dosubmit no) all the PaKo scripts useful for the run (and probably for any future run).
- Hervé worked on the calibration parameters from Mars, Uranus, Neptune, and on the effect of atmosphere (ATM model 2009) on the NIKA2 band pass.

October 2015, 17

9h-18h:
- Resume focus try. Sky too bad for X Y.
- Beam map on Mars, we miss one with the new pointing model parameter (Nasmyth offset implemented yesterday), but given the sky we don't believe we can get a good one; at least we can stack stats on the pixels stability.
- Same kind of idea with the test of sensitivity mapping the 50 mJy HLS091828 source.
- Retry beam map on Mars, not only for stat, but also because we saw a jump on the time traces of the 1st beam map, making it unusable to derive parameters.
- Take the opportunity of the conjunction of Mars with Jupiter, to try mapping Jupiter with its satellite, not only for the picture but also to test nkotf PaKo script, various scan directions, and map reconstruction with an object which has an orientation (i.e. not circular symmetric).
- Sky dips.
- Lost 1 hour due to Wind (and clouds).
- Lost 1.5 more hour due to 2 unfortunate errors: (1) Each time we restart PaKo we have desynchronized scans, or the NIKA Acqui control software crashes, need to restart control software and re-sweep the resonances; (2) NCS crashed several times in a row, Israel and Juan Luis realized it's because we choose Ganymede for our source to map Jupiter's satellites, we eventually figured out that NCS CAN'T TRACK PLANET'S SATELLITES.
- Since Jupiter got too low for the oriented source structure mapping tests, we found some replacement candidates; found Cyg A and DR21_OH, which are close to each other and close to secondary calibrator MWC349. After difficult calibration on MWC349 due to bad weather, we decided it didn't worth doing integration maps on it, and focused on the orientation maps, which only require to see the source to test the scripts and the map reconstruction (weather too bad for other tests we could do with such sources). DR21_OH appeared on both 1mm and 2mm bands, Cyg A only very bright at 2mm but invisible at 1mm; so test maps on DR21_OH; unfortunately rain and wind didn't allowed us to test the RaDec scans. Got to stop the telescope.

20h: Wind lowered, tried to resume the RaDec scans tests, we got just the time to point MWC349 before the wind rised again and forced us to stop the session for today.

October 2015, 16

Charles arrived.

9-21h:
- We resumed our tries to optimize the focus in X Y and Z. We discovered a bug in the PaKo script we used for the lateral focus: we were in fact doing only Z focus... we did tries by and changing X and Y focus and doing cross scans; appearance of side lobes consistent with optics simulation. We still got a residual side lobe, but observing strategy with reduction tool available not sophisticated enough to conclude. HU answered quickly to fix the error in the PaKo script, but the weather and elevation of Mars got too low to continue investigating X Y focus, so we went back to the best but apparently not optimal (small asymmetric side lobe at 1mm) position found by hand: (0,0).
- We took the chance of a sky still decent, to make the mini pointing session that would allow us to derive a 1st Nasmyth correction to put the optical axis close to the reference pixel we have chosen (pix 830 on 2mm array). We had the time to do it, contacted Juan P, who could derive the correct parameter and implement it in the NCS pointing model. We checked it on few more pointing at various elevation and witness much smaller pointing offsets with much less variability in elevation. So now we have a good starting point for the real pointing session to make once we have the optimal beam map and focus, and thus kidpar, and, a good sky to do it.
- Few skydips, beam maps, focus. - Too finish the session: a OTF map on IRC-10420, with 100-400 mJy expected at 1mm; a source not too strong not too faint to have a first quick idea of the sensitivity.

October 2015, 15

9-21h. Iterate pointing, focus, beam maps on Mars. Try 3 different methods for the focus (lissajous, track, crosses) to check consistency of data reduction. Indication of a small coma on beam's side lobes, try X & Y focus. Unfortunately sky noise increased, clouds arrived and Mars got too low before we could conclude on the XY focus. No planet available past 16h local time, except Saturn which is too big. Try some bright point sources, Saturn (see if with a beam map we can catch Titan + Saturn), and secondary calibrator. The clouds disappeared then stayed below the telescope at the end of the day. 2 lines of KIDs nearly disappeared but were recovered. Though maps looks promising, we still don't have the optimal focus + beam map combination. Sometimes 2 scans are merged in one NIKA file; we don't know why...

October 2015, 14

9-14h. Iterate numerous pointing, focus, beam maps on Mars. Atmosphere not great (some clouds, tau...), so it's a bit difficult to get good beam maps and foci that allow deriving proper parameters and observational settings.

October 2015, 13 (Tuesday)

Samuel, Hervé, Juan S arrived.
SL, JP, NP decided the strategy/procedure to adopt for the pointing session that will be done once pointing / focus / beam maps iterations have converged to stable parameters (see run preparation page updated on private NIKA2 wiki).

22-3h. Pointing and focus. Try 1st iteration on focus X and Y. Pretty good FWHM of 13 & 18" @ 1 & 2 mm, given the relatively poor weather condition. TAPAS was not working with NIKA2, IH and FD, found a patch. Even if the sky is not too great, we decide it worth doing a beam map at least so see again the response of all pixels and test the processing routines. Result give 17 and 19" ... hum, sky. As long as we don't have good enough iterations on focus and beam maps, we are a bit stuck on iterating again.

October 2015, 12

Alessandro and Andrea left.
Few scans, pointing, focus, 1st beam map to check all detectors reponses.

October 2015, 11

Rain, nothing to do the whole day. Working on planB ....

October 2015, 10

Nicolas produced the first map approaching something reasonable (still non calibrated, still not focused !). To do that he has used the geometries made on the 7th of October during the hour or so that was decently usable. The beams of NIKA2 are well separated, we have arrays ! The beam maps looks like the ones we produces in lab, and they are consistent with the arrays design (of course).

Mars_map_scan112.JPG

Figure. Mars map at 2mm (900/1000 pixels) and 1mm (210/240 pixels). Not focused (as you see), not calibrated, from the OTF scan (400x220") 112 on the 7th October (the only decent spot we had so far).

14-17h plan. Focus on focus in order to see if we can launch a decent geometry.

October 2015, 09

In the morning the two Nicolas arrived to stay. We also had the visit from Alicia and Patricia from CAB-INTA Madrid.

The reference resonance on VNA (1959MHz, feed 11) shifted to the right by another 20 kHz.

13h. The sky is now cloudy. We turned anyway the mirrors and go on Mars to see. When opening to THIS sky I see the resonance shifting by 500kHz!! Compared to 250kHz last time in a sky that was already not so good. So we're currently looking at a T of the order of 150K, say.

14-17h. We observe in very extreme sky conditions. Difficult to understand anything.

October 2015, 08

In the morning trip to the Laguna and then Pico Veleta. We start observing earlier at around 13h30. Fixed a cable problem on the NIKEL 222 (B). In the afternoon cannot observe due to the weather, we try to work on the NIKEL_DC.

Our reference VNA resonance shifted by another 40kHz and gained almost 1dB in depth compared to yesterday. It means that the detectors are still cooling down slowly. That's good too. We're now at around 160mK on the cold plate and 175mK on the thermometer close to the 2mm array. When we open the window on the cryostat we see it clearly also on the mixing chamber temperature. Around 3mK on the thermometer close to the array, 0.7mK on the plate.

The afternoon we cannot observe due to the weather. We worked on the NIKEL_DC. It is working now. The noise seems at a first look pretty comparable to the other lines connected on the NIKEL_USB. But we have t work more on that during the following days.

Cryostat side: it is very well now. The injection pressure (key parameter) still going down, now lower than 1200mbar, all the temperatures too are slowly going down. We are still turning with the turbo at 40% of its speed. We could increase and gain in base temperature but we estimate that the most important thing now is to ensure stability.

October 2015, 07

1am: we have seen Uranus !! The priority is still Alain fixing the software. However we managed to go on Uranus and launch an OTF. The signal on one pixel seeing the source (difficult to find among so many pixels by eye) is around 1 kHz, for a noise plateau of the order of 1. 5Hz. The S/N is already approaching 1000, that's not bad before making any focus or any other thing. Uranus is around 16 Jy at 2mm. So the sensitivity figure is in the right range. But for now it's only the range. The focus (arbitrary) chosen by Israel is -2mm. In these conditions (elevation 54deg, tau still around 0.3) our reference resonance (feedline 11) is 250kHz down the "window on cryo" conditions. And 100 kHz above the elevation 33 deg. These numbers should already tell us a lot.

On the noise side there's no trace so far of the pulse-tube line. That's good already.

UranusFirstNIKA2.JPG 2mmnoisebadsky.jpg 2mmnoisebettersky.jpg

Figure. From left to right: Uranus transit on one pixel, 2mm array noise (random pixels) on bad sky, 2mm noise on a good pixel on better but not extraordinary sky.

4am. Going to bed, leaving the telescope to EMIR pool.

8am. Wake up, Alain leaving.

9am. The pressure on the compressors still the same it seems. The cryostat calmed down after an agitated night. Still cooling slowly. Inj pressure 1.5bars, T_base=175mK now. Our reference VNA resonance is a bit deeper and shifted to the right a bit (30kHz), means also the detectors are still slowly relaxing to base temperature. The tuning seemed to work overnight.

Observation slot 14-17h. We tried many different ways, but unfortunately the tuning is not working. So we have prepared the 2mm and two lines of one 1mm array (1mmH, IN/OUT 8 and 9) by hand. We then acquired three distinct geometries on Mars. The signal on the 2mm is of the order of 3kHz, on the 1mm up to 10KHz, but the big unknown is the tau. The taumeter says 0.25-0.3 but everything is jumping by 5-6 times more than Mars. Good news, it seems really that the pixels on the 1mm are very uniform. The noise in dark on the 1mm can in effect be as low as 2Hz/sqrt(Hz). We expect that on an excellent sky we could approach this. VERY IMPORTANT: even on the 1mm time-traces we do not see at all the pulse-tube effect.

October 2015, 06 (Tuesday)

Condensation launched during the night at 5h. At 2h30 reduced the flux to get close to 6K (stop preref).

NIKA2-laser aligned this morning, beam perfeclt on the center of M6, M5, M4, M3 and the polistirolo vertex. Good parameters are: Tilt is -1.7, Level = 10, l_ecart=0.5, l_time=2.5

At 12h the condensation is almost done, we plan to check the feedlines before lunch.

13h: ALL 20 FEEDLINES CONNECTED !!! Hopes are now justified. Expecting resonances in 4-5 hours.

19h: Alain working hard on the DAQ. Resonances are there. We see light. In the cabin we see people crossing or our hand in front of the window, so photons reach the detectors. Could be considered NIKA2 first light at Pico Veleta. The resonances on the 1mm array move for example by more than 500kHz from 0K (window on cryostat) to 300K (cabin). As expected/ We have verified that the noise is pretty OK on the 2mm. We are deciding a first light configuration based on software and available electronics boxes. The cryostat is cooling down quite slowly. Still at 185mK. Long time constants, we are after all at less than 5 days from the start of cooldown. A big result is that we are only one week after the arrival of our truck at the telescope and already measuring something. One potential issue is the jumps (delta f around 1kHz) we have seen during a very long/fast telescope slew in elevation. And smaller but periodics jumps (delta f around 100Hz) during a long slew in azimuth. Don't panic yet, to be investigated.

One resonance (1959 MHz) on one 1mm array (feedline 11) moves (to the left) by 900kHz from window on cryostat (say 0K) to open to the cabin (say 300K). On an average-bad sky (tau around 0.3) and at elevation 33deg the same resonance is 350KHz left of the "0K" (window on cryostat) situation.

October 2015, 05

The pulse tube compressors were still too warm this morning. When we looked at the problem with Juan P, Santiago, Dave, we realized the flow in the water cooling system was too low (<5 l/min); it turned out the problem was due to a dirty filter in the water circuit. Removing it solved the problem: the water flow increased to >15 l/min, and the compressors temperature decreased down to the specification zone.
We have resumed the alignment work. The distance between the M6 mirror and the cryostat was 4cm too long; we moved the cryostat in order to reach the required value of 1060 mm (with 20 mm more or less the pupils gets too much distorted). We also tilted the cryostat so that its laser follow a path very close and parallel to the M3 bearing laser.
Alain found a manual trick to have the polariser wheel rotating correctly. Time was also spent on the instrument software, and on the electronics with Olivier on Skype.

T0+96h. T_mixing_chamber=30K; T_still=16K; T_4K_plate=16K (foreseen start condensation at 3am during the night).

October 2015, 04

The cryostat continues to cool down gently. Extrapolating the curves, we should reach the base temperature by Tuesday afternoon. The pulse tubes compressors are suffering a bit, to reduce their internal temperature we ran both ventilators of the Marin cooling system at full speed. This helped, but we are still a bit high with respect to the temperatures specifications of the compressors. We saw that the Marin system uses a 2m3/h pump; it has also a 5m3/h pump, but not in use; let see with our colleagues from Granada if it would be possible to use this pump for the next time in order to increase the flux, and hence the cooling power of the Marin system.
Alain worked on the NIKA2 instrument software, which was not working fine with the current instrumental setup. We have also put in place the polariser wheel, adjusted its position and tested its control from the control room.

T0+72h. T_mixing_chamber=110K; T_still=46K; T_4K_plate=34K (leaving for the night with the heater on the 4K ON).

October 2015, 03

Today we have installed and labeled all the remaining cables between the cryostat and the electronics shelve through the pipe on the roof. It took almost the full day: probably the most cumbersome task of the week ! At the end of the day we have installed the electronics, plugged the cables, and start running the electronics.
151003_1_few_tones_cables_out_of_roof_pipe_on_electronics_shelve.JPG 151003_2_40_tones_cables_labelled_out_of_roof_pipe_on_electronics_shelve.JPG 151003_3_40_tones_cables_labelled_out_of_roof_pipe_on_cryostat_side.JPG 151003_4_40_tones_cables_labelled_plugged_on_cryostat.JPG 151003_5_2mm_array_electronics_with_its_tones_cables.JPG 151003_6_1mm_array_electronics_with_its_tones_cables.JPG

T0+48h. T_mixing_chamber=202K; T_still=104K. T_4K_plate=60K (in the last cooldown in lab it was 190K, 99K and 45K respectively). For some hours we ran with a single compressor; moreover, we have the two MPPSYNC that are not well synchronised over long periods (hours).

October 2015, 02

This morning Johannes and Martino left to drive the truck back to Grenoble. The cryostat has cooled down gently during the night but we saw a problem of oscillation pressures in the pulse tubes (the 2 are not in phase). Part of us spent time figuring out the problem, the other part started to work on the alignment of the M5 and M6 mirrors. Near noon the problem of the pulse tube was found: not enough current in one of them, which made it loose some steps. Next the electronics; Alain has been working several days on fixing the acquisition so that it works fine with all the boards:

- 6 old NIKEL (221,222,223,224,226,227)

- 1 rack with a NIKEL_DC plus a NIKEL_AMC

To provide the RF/IF conversion for the rack that will in a couple of weeks contain 8 NIKEL_DC we have fabricated in Grenoble an RF/IF box with 8 channels.

In the afternoon Samuel and Dave continued to work on the alignment, until M3-side-laser, M4, M5, M6 and the cryostat were all well aligned. Tomorrow or Monday, with the cryostat laser we will adjust the orientation of the cryostat to get a good back-alignment. In parallel Alain, Alessandro, Andrea and Santiago lifted up the electronics in the cabin, started to thread the tones cables into the pipe on the roof of the cabin (between the electronics shelve and the cryostat), and worked on the pulse tubes.
151002_1_alignment_with_M3_laser.JPG 151002_2_aligning_M5_and_M6.JPG 151002_3_aligning_M6_on_cryostat_laser.JPG 151002_4_start_passing_tones_cables_into_roof_pipe.JPG

T0+24h. T_mixing_chamber=280K; T_still=200K. As usual. All the other temperatures are also in line with past cooldowns. We think that we have a problem with the pressure gauge P108 (cryostat vacuum). It stuck at 4E-3 and does not depend on the turbo speed. The turbo HP80 seems OK, we hear it accelerating. So we conclude that's not a huge deal, we will live with that.

October 2015, 01

We have checked all the thermometry, installed and plugged the last cryogenics parts. Then we have closed the NIKA2 cryostat putting super insulation on each screen, one after the other. This was quite time consuming and took most of the day. Once the cryostat was closed, and leak tested we have started to pump on it. In the meantime we have cut at the convenient length the pipe for the 40 lines of tones to be plugged to the cryostat and to the electronics. We have prepared the shelve for the electronics, and plugged the water cooling system to the compressors. And finally, tonight we have started cooling down the cryostat !
150930_18_NIKA2_opened_with_shield.JPG 151001_1_cutting_super_insulation.JPG 151001_2_warping_super_insulation_around_NIKA2_screens.JPG 151001_3_warping_super_insulation_around_NIKA2_cold_mirrors_box.JPG 151001_4_installing_screen_around_cold_mirrors_box.JPG 151001_5_all_pipes_and_cables_plugged on_cryostat.JPG 151001_6_contortion_to_fix_super_insulated_cold_mirrors_screen.JPG 151001_7_closing_NIKA2_nose.JPG 151001_8_NIKA2_closed_with_laser_plate_and_spectrometer.JPG 151001_9_pipe_for_the_40_lines_of_tones_cut_at_convenient_length.JPG 151001_10_preparing_electronics_shelve.JPG 151001_11_NIKA2_with_M5-M6_opened.JPG 151001_12_pulse_tubes_interface_NIKA2_starts_cooling_down.JPG

September 2015, 30

1st big operation of the day: we have lifted the NIKA2 cryostat up in the cabin and installed it at its nominal position. 2nd big operation: we have installed the He pipes: from the instrument, down along the azimuth column to the cable spiral and then to the compressors. We have also plugged all the pipes, lifted the cryostat nose, lifted the polariser wheel, installed bars, rails, pulse tubes cold heads, opened and check the screens of the cryostat down to the detector holder frame.
150930_1_ready_to_lift_NIKA2_cryostat.JPG 150930_2_NIKA2_cryostat_through_trapdoor.JPG 150930_3_future_location_of_NIKA2.JPG 150930_4_tilting_NIKA2_from_vertical_to_horizontal.JPG 150930_5_sliding_NIKA2_in_corridor_passing_EMIR.JPG 150930_6_NIKA2_turned_toward_its_final_location.JPG 150930_7_NIKA2_cryostat_at_destination.JPG 150930_8_install_He_pipes_along_azimuth_column_and_cable_spiral.JPG 150930_9_He_pipes_from_cable_spiral_to_compressors_corner.JPG 150930_10_5_pipes_2_compressors_1_dilution_fridge_bench.JPG 150930_11_lifting_NIKA2_nose.JPG 150930_12_lifting_polariser_wheel.JPG 150930_13_hole_for_pulse_tube_head_on_NIKA2.JPG 150930_14_installing_pulse_tube_head_on_NIKA2.JPG 150930_15_cryogenics_pipes_plugged_on_NIKA2.JPG 150930_16_opening_NIKA2_cryostat.JPG 150930_17_100mK_optics_and_detectors_frame.JPG

September 2015, 29 (Tuesday)

Everybody has arrived at the telescope this morning: Alessandro, Andrea and Martino with the truck, Alain, Johannes and Samuel with the IRAM transport, with some Granada staff (Santiago, Juan, Dave, Gregorio, etc) who will help installing NIKA2.
There's about 2 tons of material to install. We have installed about half of it: compressors and dilution pump in the cable spiral room, automat (cryogenics control) and pulse tub cold heads on the wall in the receiver cabin, optical fibre switch, some electronics and computers in the control room, He pipes at intermediate stage, plug and test communication with these hardware.
150929_1_NIKA2_boxes_in_garage.JPG 150929_2_NIKA2_noze_in_garage.JPG 150929_3_ready_to_lift_compressor_dilution-pump_and_box.JPG 150929_4_unloading_NIKA2_cryostat_from_truck.JPG 150929_5_lifting_up_He_pipes.JPG 150929_6_preparing_cabin_wall_for_cryogenic_head_and_automat.JPG 150929_7_compressors_and_dilution_bench_in_cable-spiral-room.JPG 150929_8_pulse-tube-cold-head_cryogenics-automat_on_cabin_wall.JPG 150929_9_testing_electronics_in_control_room.JPG

September 2015, 24

The 2 1st trucks transporting NIKA2 hardware have arrived at the telescope, and have been unloaded.
The 3rd truck containing the cryostat and driven by Alessandro, Martino and Andrea will arrive on Tuesday 29 in the morning. Alain, Samuel and Johannes will also arrive on Tuesday morning.


ATTENTION I REVERSED THE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF THE ENTRIES OF THE DAILY REPORT, SO THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO WAIT PAINFULLY THAT ALL THE IMAGES ARE LOADED BEFORE BEING ABLE TO READ COMFORTABLY THE LATEST NEWS - SL -

DailyReportsNika2Run1 (last edited 2015-11-18 15:04:06 by NikaBolometer)