OSU/RC Queue Observing UTC 2011 November 23 (civil date 2011 Nov 22/23) =========================================== Observers: K.Z. Stanek, R. Stoll (OSU) Observing Assistant: David Gonzalez Huerta Support Astronomer : Dave Thompson (from home) Instrumentation : John Morris Instrument: MODS Summary: Details: A light on in the dome could not be turned off until 00:40, so our plans to do twilight spectral flats might have been hosed. We'll try anyway. 00:45: Trying twilight spectral flats for MOS illumination correction. acqMODS TwiSpecflatg.acq execMODS TwiSpecflatgMOS_OSU_HII_L.obs 00:48 the imcs lock timed out; I forgot to wake up MODS. execMODS ~MODSeng/modsScripts/Support/modsWake.pro 00:50 execMODS TwiSpecflatgMOS_OSU_HII_L.obs 00:55 too few counts. execMODS TwiSpecflatpMOS_OSU_PC.obs while I work out which filters of imaging flats to try 00:59 too few counts. execMODS TwiflatPos22.img (z and g flats exp 1) 01:06 too few counts. David is pointing. 01:20 acqMODS feige110.acq star is in the slit, so abort acquisition script and 01:25 execMODS feige110ThisRun.obs we're taking dual grating mode and blue-only mode (for OSU_sdssqsos) 01:47 acqMODS SDSSJ235347_rise.acq ** ERROR: PRESET IIF error - PresetTelescope result status: Error, Invalid buffer: RPCERROR ?? David asked me to resend the preset, and it worked fine the second time. Seeing looks reasonably good. WFS estimate is 0.9" 01:56 taking confirmatory through-slit image 01:58 execMODS SDSSJ235347.obs 02:36 acqMODS mods.qso0127.acq WFS claims seeing ~1.0. Not a cloud in the sky. 02:44 confirmatory through-slit image 02:47 execMODS mods.qso0127.obs 03:40 Still integrating. WFS seeing estimate has gone up to ~1.2". 04:40 Still integrating. WFS seeing estimate around 1". Still completely clear. 04:57 acqMODS vanburen.acq (It will be very low, elevation 24. We'd do it later, but it's fighting with the OSU_HII MOS, which is quite parallactic-angle sensitive.) Airmass 2.4, decreasing. WFS seeing estimate about 2" at this elevation. 05:07 offset acquisition star not in field according to finding chart. We are manually taking a 3Kx3K image, just to check Requested 0.8" seeing is also probably not going to be feasible at airmass 2, even on a night with great seeing, which tonight is not. We do not see the requested offset star even in the 3K image. Aborting, and doing the AZ MOS field instead. Suggest using a brighter star for the offset alignment, and one that is not so close to a galaxy. 05:11 acqMODS mods.27.J01431.acq ** ERROR: Command 'INSTCONFIG red imaging' timed out after 120 seconds ** Abort, Retry or Ignore? > a It looks like it hung on changing the CCD Readout; perhaps my manual changing to 3K on the GUI for the last object confused it. 05:17 aborted, clicked 'refresh' on MODS gui, and resending the preset. 05:23 confirmation through-slit image 05:26 execMODS mods.27.J01431.obs WFS seeing estimate ~1", acquisition image seeing measured 0.8" 05:53 The spectrum of his central target is very close to the chip boundary; something to think about while designing masks. 06:50 Still not a cloud in the sky. Going for a spectrophotometric standard next, then the second OSU_HII MOS mask. acqMODS g191b2b.acq 07:04 exp 1 too short for modsAlign to find the slit correctly, manually sent >modsCmd offsetxy 1.814 8.660 rel and took field image. Verified the star is in the right spot (x ~ 502) 07:07 execMODS g191b2bThisRunshort.obs which will take one spec in dual grating mode and one in blue-only mode 07:18 acqMODS ngc925R.acq This is the one with a far-off-axis alignment star. We'll align with three, check, and possibly shift realign with two if necessary. 07:21 preset warning, bright guide star. It's fine. 07:26 acq script finally done. These take a long time, even before the interactive alignment. 07:27 confirmatory through-mask image We have targets well-centered in the slits both at the very top of the field and at the very bottom of the field. The target in the slit farthest to the right might be slightly off-center, and I don't see anything in the slit two from the right, but everything else looks very well centered. ~07:29 execMODS ngc925R.obs >> PARTNER OSURC ** ERROR: Command 'PARTNER OSURC' timed out after 60 seconds ** Abort, Retry or Ignore? > r (Just a communications bug? We hit retry, and no problem.) 07:38 Still a beautifully clear sky. 08:01 First spectrum is out. Everything looks lovely except one; everything appears to be doubled for the slit trace at y=1850. The sky lines look similar; only the outline of the slit is traced. Kris and I think that this is probably a mask-cutting problem, a 'hanging chad'. This is probably why we did not see a target in the second slit from the right? Seeing is degrading; average now according to WFS is ~1.4" 09:39 Sky is still beautifully clear. 09:44 acqMODS SN2011cp_UT10.acq Guide star bright, 'guide cam exp below lower limit', ok as usual. Delay in starting (09:56 below) because modsAlign failed twice; didn't like centroiding on the perfectly reasonable-looking target. Did so by hand. "invalid flux profile", then garbage and forced quit. Looks like iraf bug rather than code bug. To reproduce, if desired, mods1r.20111123.0043.fits and mods1r.20111123.0044.fits. 09:56 confirmatory through-slit image. 09:59 execMODS SN2011cp.obs 10:21 acqMODS SDSSJ082001.acq 10:29: finally acquisition images are reading out... Allow a minimum of 10 min for slew + acquisition 10:30 confirmatory slit image 10:32 execMODS SDSSJ082001.obs 11:10 acqMODS OSU_sdssqsos_sdss1007.acq 11:12 (in progress) guiding started 11:19 taking confirmatory through-slit image (peculiar streaks on acquisition image, as if some discontinuity in wavefront convergence. .9" seeing.) 11:22 execMODS sdss1007.obs Guide star is a little fainter than preferred, but wavefront is converged fine. WFS reads 1.14" 12:08 acqMODS ASSASSIN0-UT12wide.acq 12:11 guide star quite out of focus; quickly converging 12:15 confirmatory image for final position 12:16 execMODS ASSASSIN0wide.obs Seeing is 0.5"? Resolution should be good, slit losses minimal (but bkg high) 12:25 acqMODS SN2011fe-UT12.acq 12:27 initial WFS seeing estimate is 1.1", converging. Sky still completely clear, beginning to see zodiacal light. Almost centered in initial slit image, but we can do better. 12:31 confirmatory through-slit image Seeing about .9" 12:46 acqMODS gj398p2.acq ** ERROR: PRESET IIF error - PresetTelescope result status: Error, AGw command status: Invalid guide probe X position '-100.456', must be -92..92, error: setProbePosition: couldn't move probe to position (SFP) (x,y,z): 100.516, -24.9579, 0 mm., guidestar list successfully changed but probe couldn't be moved to position. ** Abort, Retry or Ignore? > q ** gj398p2.acq aborted with errors at line 10 command 'PRESET ACTIVE' Guide star wrong in script for PA provided. Rewrote on the fly with new GS. 12:50 acqMODS gj398p2.hack.acq Star half in initial slit and saturated. Aligning. Can't get any better with this exptime, doing a 1 second exposure. 12:57 confirmatory image 12:58 execMODS gj398p2.obs 13:02 Sky is rapidly brightening. 13:07 execMODS TwiflatMornNov.img Trying to get z-band imaging twiflats this morning. 140s g and z 30k in g, 32k in z Given the timing uncertainties, it's kind of a miracle these came out as well as they did. Lucky us. 13:16 modsCmd exp 50 execMODS -e BetterTwiflatMornNov.img (just does offset 60" in x and y and dgo, pushing everything else into Instrument block) 13:19 modsCmd exp 30 execMODS -e BetterTwiflatMornNov.img 13:20 modsCmd exp 20 execMODS -e BetterTwiflatMornNov.img modsCmd exp 15 execMODS -e BetterTwiflatMornNov.img Why isn't offset doing its thing? Is it because of our zenith proximity and the pointing model, or is it my code? 13:25 exp 10 execMODS -e BetterTwiflatMornNov2.img replaced 'abs' with 'rel'. Dammit. 13:26 execMODS -e BetterTwiflatMornNov2.img (no exposure change.) 13:28 exp 7 execMODS -e BetterTwiflatMornNov2.img 13:29 modsCmd exp 3 execMODS -e BetterTwiflatMornNov2.img 13:31 execMODS -e BetterTwiflatMornNov2.img (We're just keeping the imflat position for the twispecflats) 13:32 execMODS TwiSpecflatpMOS_OSU_PC.obs saturated 13:37 modsCmd exp 7 execMODS -e TwiSpecflatpMOS_OSU_PC.obs 13:38 modsCmd exp 2 execMODS -e TwiSpecflatpMOS_OSU_PC.obs Getting bright too fast, these exptimes are too short for imcs end prism, going to grating 13:40 modsCmd exp 15 execMODS TwiSpecflatgMOS_OSU_HII_L.obs 13:45 execMODS -e TwiSpecflatgMOS_OSU_HII_L.obs modsCmd exp 5 execMODS -e TwiSpecflatgMOS_OSU_HII_L.obs (less than three is useless if there's a star on any slit?) (Mult PA would corr for any twi sky gradient) But can't do any more, or any other MOS mask; too bright. 13:49 closing. When we are closed and at zenith, going to run Nov23.multcal, as the most all-purpose calibrations we can get in a (we hope) reasonable time. Includes: bias1K.cal (newly created for using acq images, maybe unnecessary) bias8K.cal bias3k.cal prbias.cal grpixflats.cal grflats.cal prflats.cal imflats.cal grlamps.cal prlamps.cal /home/MODSeng/modsScripts/Support/modsSleep.pro 13:57 beginning Nov23.multcal Expect this to take about 2.5 hours, but everything except 1k bias has been run before at night in a dark dome, one of the nights we were closed. They'll surely need the lights on in the enclosure before that, which is fine because we already have all of these calibrations. I'm going to take them anyway, because why not? Michael Midkiff has kindly offered to leave us a note of what time work begins (and lights go on), and we'll include it in the updated log tomorrow night.