Nightlog 2010-12-30

SA: Petri
SO: Patrick
Others: Bruno

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Full night lost to humidity and clouds.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-29

SA: Petri
SO: Patrick
Others: Tim

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- A few offset tests in the beginning, most of the night
lost to humidity.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-28

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: Nimrod, Petri

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

got almost 2 hours work of open loop tracking data pointing south. would b=
e good to do the same at some point for E, W, and N tracks. ridge cloud go=
t to us around 1 AM.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-27

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: Hitesh

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

OPTI wasn't working so took some data to try and measure open-loop tracking=
performance. had to close a couple hours early due to high humidity.=20=
=20

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-20

SA: Hannah
SO: Siphelo
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Some pointing test data taken at start of night (5 x 10 degree steps in
azimuth).
Enveloped by ridge cloud before midnight.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-18

SA: Hannah
SO: Siphelo
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

No observations tonightdue to thick cloud, lightning and high humidity.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-17

SA: Hannah
SO: Siphelo
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

No observations tonight.
Opened briefly, but had to close due to high humidity during initial
alignment.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-16

SA: Hannah
SO: Siphelo
Others: Paul, Garith, Rudi

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Rained most of the night - did not open.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-15

SA: Paul
SO: Zolisa
Others: Rudi

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Heavy rain the whole day and most of the night. Did not open.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-14

SA: Paul
SO: Zolisa
Others: Eben, Chris, Rudi, Siphelo

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Very strong winds at the start of the evening. We had some rain later on. Did
not open due to the bad weather. Spend some time on the RSS tests.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-13

SA: Paul
SO: Patrick
Others: Simon, Rudi

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Made some auto collimator observations. We closed due to high humidity. Had
some time outside to enjoy the Geminids.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-12

SA: Paul
SO: Zolisa
Others: Rudi, Keith

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Did some theta phi tests and got more pointing model data. Seeing was not
good enough for IQ. We didn't have any A-G motor issues tonight thanks to Eben
and Keith.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-11

SA: Paul
SO: Patrick
Others: Simon

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- The night started with some technical issues. We had a TPC actuator comms
error which was resolved by rebooting the TPC machine. The A-G motor overheated
early in the evening. We did not open due to the strong wind and high
humidity. Ridge cloud just before midnight.

- Did some of the RSS tests.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-10

SA: David
SO: Patrick
Others: Paul, Eben, Simon, Chris

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Bad seeing and thickening clouds precluded any really useful on-sky work.

Did make progress on defining relative positions of camera.

RSS flexure tests done.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-08

SA: David
SO: Patrick
Others: Eben (twice), Peter

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

BCAM FLI focuser mechanism tried out.

Focus offsets for V-CAM & B-CAM determined

Tracker anti-g & y drive motors overheating and control saturation of
interferometer plagued us.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-08

SA: David
SO: Patrick
Others: Simon, Martin initially, then Peter and Charl.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Successfully got both B-CAM (Big Apogee camera) and VI-CAM (small Apogee
camera) running together. Control of B-CAM now done on newly constructed
(thanks Hamish & Simon) BCAM PC, which can (in principle, once we know
how) run the FLI focuser, independent of tel. focus.

Current focus offset between the two cameras is ~1.5mm.

Had tracker failure (abnormal end) when hexapods flat-lined & radio
plugs pulled, plus the good old brakes release error, previously
attributed to interference and cured. Also seemed to be a problem with
overheating of anti-gravity motor, which was in excess of 30 deg.
Tracker recovered by Peter & Charl, who also bled the glycol to bring
the temp down.

Lots of fiddling to get a decent focus on VI-CAM, but not really a great
success for some reason TBD.

Some RSS grating flexure tests done during tracker fix.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-07

SA: Amanda
SO: Zolisa
Others: David, Steve P., Amanda G., Hamish

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

First light (second time around) with BVIT! We took some images,
identified orientation and offset from BCAM, and are still working out
instrument kinks.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-06

SA: Amanda
SO: Zolisa
Others: Charl, Keith, Hamish, Chris, and

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Had a rocky start to the night, with a power failure and difficulty
connecting to the BVIT computer. Using BACM, we took IQ data of a
burst mirror for Darragh and then high-seeing pointing data for Tim.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-05

SA: Amanda
SO: Zolisa
Others: Keith, Charl, Hamish, Chris

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Clear at start of night, last half lost due to high humidity. Data
taken for IQ and pointing tests.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-04

SA: Amanda
SO: Zolisa
Others: Keith

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Beautiful night, with high humidity forcing closure just before
morning twilight. Took data to calibrate Luis' BCAM/SALTICAM software,
data for Darragh's "haze" test, some IQ data, and pointing data for
Tim.

-----------------------------------------

BCAM image

20101204: Image from BCAM (an Apogee Alta U16 camera in the SALTICAM
payload location). This is a 15-sec exposure of the LMC with no
filter. The field of view is approximately 5 arcmin by 5 arcmin and
the seeing is approximately 1 arcsec.

Nightlog 2010-12-03

SA: Amanda
SO: Zolisa
Others: Charl, Keith, Chris

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Most of the night was lost due to high humidity. Took a few frames to
test BCAM/SALTICAM software.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-02

SA: Amanda
SO: Zolisa
Others: Deneys, Louis, Hamish, Keith, Charl

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

High humidity claimed most of the night. We got just a few BCAM
images.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-12-01

SA: Amanda
SO: Zolisa
Others: Deneys, Louis, Keith, Charl

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

First light on BCAM! We battled with clouds, a tracker failure, and
were able to only take a few frames before closing due to high
humidity.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-30

SA: Steve
SO: Siphelo
Others: Charl, Eben, Jonathon, Ardisha, Martin, Amanda, Zolisa

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Some image quality observations and testing of the facilities. Thanks
to the engineers for their hard work and effort for getting everything
working tonight!

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-29

SA: Steve
SO: Siphelo
Others: Hitesh

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Closed for work on the apogee camera.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-28

SA: Steve
SO: Siphelo
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

No observations due to weather

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-27

SA: Steve
SO: Siphelo
Others: Charl, Peter, Martin

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Closed due to work on the tracker.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-26

SA: Steve
SO: Siphelo
Others: Charl, Peter

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

We tried out some burst mirror tests for the IQ.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-25

SA: Steve
SO: Siphelo
Others: David B., Martin, Charl, Peter, Patrick, Michelle, David E.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

The primary mirror system had to be re-initialize at the beginning of
the night, and the seeing was around 2" throughout the night. We played
around with some imaging tests with Tracker Rho, but did not see any changes.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-24

SA: Steve C.
SO: Siphelo
Others: David and guests

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> No observations tonight due to work on the payload.

-----------------------------------------

What's been happening up at SALT?!

"No news is good news" sums up the past few months...  The IQ blog may have dried up, but an awful lot's been happening, both at SALT & in Cape Town where people have been working on SALTICAM & some RSS bits.  Clearly it's time for an update :)

I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't taken any recent photos of the SALTICAM work, despite the fact that some very cool things have been happening - apologies to the devoted optics groupies out there!  In addition to all the other upgrades to the instrument, the integration of the autoguider required that the relevant lenses be transferred to a new rear barrel which will accommodate the additional hardware.

In testing the optics again afterwards (with the interferometer used for the SAC work,) some problems became apparent & Darragh found himself nursing a sequel to the SAC IQ drama.  Fortunately, with his black belt in Zemax & the help of Craig, Tim & Francois, SCAM's IQ problems proved no match for the instrument PI & the system was soon whipped into good alignment & the autoguider could be installed.

As for the action in Sutherland - a great deal of work's gone into every sub-system, including re-wiring the entire tracker, eliminating sources of heat within the telescope enclosure, improving the primary mirror alignment process, getting the payload re-organised &, of course, (all the king's horses & all the king's men) putting RSS back together again.  The payload was always a bit of a nightmare - here's an old pic of what it used to look like.

A nifty new electronics rack now takes care of all the major systems within the payload & will simplify life enormously for everyone concerned.

The finishing touches were being applied early last week.

Another addition to the payload is B-Cam, a backup acquisition camera.  The optics had been in hand for a while already, but the rest of the instrument could only be designed & manufactured post-IQ.  The new hardware was aligned last week & the Apogee CCD used for the IQ on-sky testing will be the detector.

In the RSS department: the instrument's really looking like a spectrograph again & Peter's thumb seems to be making an impressive recovery too :)  Before returning home from the SALT Board meeting, Ted spent some time checking out the Fabry-Perot side of things (the high resolution etalon's been repaired & is happy again). Then the Wisconsin team (Ken, Mike & Bill) established camp in the spectrometer room for a couple of weeks & worked through an extensive to-do list with Peter, Anthony & the rest of the gang.

Successful hardware interventions included extracting the air bubble in the collimator's lens fluid, sorting out mechanical clearance issues with the wave-plates, adjusting the alignment of the detector, fixing the sag in the camera articulation mechanism & baffling up as much of the camera system as possible.

A lot of progress was made on the software side as well, such as the development of auto-focus routines, the introduction of various checks to monitor & report on the status of different mechanisms & also to control the gratings, filters, wave-plates etc.  The overall level of user-friendliness has increased enormously since those dark early days of SALT spectroscopy!

Meanwhile, upstairs, the assembly holding the Apogee camera in place had to be removed from the payload so that the guys can access the Rho stage to go about fixing its wobble.

The flying saucer type contraption floated down elegantly...

& came in for a gentle landing down in the loading bay.

Then on Friday morning, the payload was rigged up & cleared for take-off.  Thanks to Janus for providing us with photos!

Vic courageously shouldered the responsibility of striking the technically-demanding Teapot pose during this delicate lifting procedure ;)

Jeremy Clarkson might ask: "How hard can it be?!"

Good job chaps, although now there's nowhere to sit inside the non-rotating structure anymore...

The "still to do" list consists of, amongst other things, testing the atmospheric dispersion compensator (ADC), completing the testing of SALTICAM, installing & aligning it within the payload (this will be done with the payload back down on the ground) & then once that's all back on the telescope, the spectrograph ought to be good to go up as well.  Lots happening & much exciting stuff to follow over the next few months :)

Nightlog 2010-11-23

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others: Steve, Siphelo

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> No IQ observations tonight because strong wind and bad seeing.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-22

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others: Chris, Ardhisha, Jonathan and Don Pinnock for Getaway magazine.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> No observations tonight because weather.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-21

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others: Chris, Sharl

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> No observations tonight because weather

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-19

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others: Martin, Sharl, Jonathan

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> The payload (rotating structure) was successfully lifted today,
but there were problems with Dummy PFIS later.
For this reason installation of the VIS (Apogee camera)
was delayed.

We have got another problem with Apogee initialization where
Sharl and Jonathan were need to exchange some cables.
Finally this problem also was solved.

The weather was not very good with strong wind, clouds around
and high humidity.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-18

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> Apogee camera is still off tonight.
No observations for this reason.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-17

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others: Janus

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> Apogee camera is still off tonight.
No observations for this reason.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-16

SA: Paul
SO: Zolisa
Others: Alexei, Ewald, Janus, Steve, Lisa, Mike, Bill, Ken, James

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Apogee camera is off tonight, but its no loss since the weather is bad.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-15

SA: Paul
SO: Zolisa
Others: -

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- We had bad seeing for most of the night. Wind direction changed just before 3
and the seeing improved, but not enough to start observations. Due to the bad
seeing conditions no data was taken tonight.

-----------------------------------------

more pointing data, please!

i finally went through the pointing data that petri took for me. as you can see from the plots below, there is definitely a significant cyclical error. this further confirms what i saw in the salticam data i analyzed as well as what amanda and i saw with the startracker data this past winter. this data is a bit cleaner, though. the top plot shows the altitude and azimuth residuals modeled with sines and cosines. the bottom plot shows the residuals from the tpoint analysis. here are the best-fit tpoint parameters (units are arcseconds):

1 IA +0.000 +438.59 21.765
2 IE -0.000 +81.29 13.257
3 AN -0.000 -136.51 14.616
4 AW -0.000 +392.59 14.501

Sky RMS = 82.03
Popn SD = 86.35

the terms IA and IE are basically encoder offsets while AN and AW are misalignments of the azimuth axis in the north-south and east-west directions, respectively. these numbers agree qualitatively with what i found with the salticam data in the sense that there's a significant axial misalignment of the order of 5-6 arcminutes. the measured amplitudes of AN and AW don't quite agree within the errors. also, the tpoint residual plots show some systematic errors in the residuals that are not being modeled (probably to do with the phase offset i found in my sin/cos fits).

the upshot is that i need more data. so if the seeing is not good enough to do IQ tasks, please take more pointing data for me. the more, the better. the procedure is pretty easy. pick catalog stars with good coordinates that have tracks as centered as possible. then tweak the telescope's pointing to place the star as close as possible to the position of the center of rotation. i believe petri determined this and it should be in the logs somewhere (near X=223, Y=273). once the star is there, take image and save the data. also remark in the log which images were used for pointing. seeing and focus can be bad. i only care that the star gets centered onto the center of rotation.

thanks,
tim

Nightlog 2010-11-14

SA: Paul
SO: Zolisa
Others: -

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- We had bad seeing for most of the night. Wind direction changed just before 3
and the seeing improved, but not enough to start observations. Due to the bad
seeing conditions no data was taken tonight.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-13

SA: Paul
SO: Zolisa
Others: Ewald, Marissa

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Tonight was plagued by bad and variable seeing.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-12

SA: Paul
SO: Zolisa
Others: Ewald, Charl, Hitesh

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Seeing at the beginning of the evening was good according to timDIMM (<1'').
We had various issues with the MACS and the tracker. We made some observations
but they were all outside of the times we had ~1'' seeing. There were high level
clouds flying over during the whole night, which made matters more difficult.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-11

SA: Paul
SO: Zolisa
Others: Ewald, Hitesh

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Strong wind, high humidity and clouds. Did not open.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-10

SA: Paul
SO: Zolisa
Others: Hitesh, Charl

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- We had spells of 1'' seeing tonight. Made some mirror burst observations when
the seeing was ~1.5 - 1.8'' and did a focus step observation during the good
seeing. We had some alignment problems at the start of the evening and the
evening ended with some issues with the tracker, during which we found
that the interferometer didn't have comms. We hope to have the same good seeing
tomorrow evening, but a little more constant.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-09

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: Paul, Zoliza, Ewald

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Did not open due to humidity

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-08

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: Ken, Ramotholo and Willie with a Korean delegation

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Cloudy and humid, did not open.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-07

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: Tim, Ted

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Full night, continued pointing tests, for non-central tracker
positions this time. See notes.

- A spell of decent seeing, and attempted some IQ work as well:
best stars were 1.2-1.3" with the very noticeable comas
pointing down. See notes for more.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-06

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: Patrick, Tim, Ted, Jonathan

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Finished the pointing model observations started last night.

- Beautiful night, but poor seeing.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-05

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: Tim, Ted

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Seeing started very good (~1" on TimDimm), but we never saw
better than ~1.6" stars. Saved one sequence.

- Did a bunch of pointing model observations.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-04

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: Patrick, Janus, David, Chris, and members of SALT board

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Humid, did not open.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-03

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: Janus, Eben for a while

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Heavy clouds and humid, did not open.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-02

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others: Petri, Siphelo, Ardhisha, Martin, Eben

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> SALT eng. team worked on tracker from the evening and finally
fixed it. But after that we have got problems with MACS during
the alignment and were need for more help.
All these problems also were solved and we have tried
to make some IQ tests.

Unfortunately, it was not very productive night ...

A lot of thanks to Ardhisha, Martin, Eben, Jonathan and Sharl for their help!

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-11-01

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others:Ardhisha

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> Some IQ observations tonight.
Seeing was around 1.8" and sometimes up to 1.2-1.3" in the
beginning of the night.
For this reason we make images for different rho to test
how IQ depends on it.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-10-31

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> Some IQ observations during 2/3 of the night.
Seeing was around 1.8" and sometimes up to 1.5" during
the first half of the night.
For this reason we make images for different rho to test
how IQ depends on it.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-10-30

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> Some IQ observations during first half of the night.
Seeing was around 1.8". After that humidity raised fast.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-10-29

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> Some IQ observations during first half of the night with clouds around.
Seeing was around 1.8", but variable.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-10-28

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> Some IQ observations during first half of the night.
Seeing was around 2.0"

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-10-27

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others: Bad Weather

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=> High humidity and clouds - did not open up.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-10-26

SA: Encarni
SO: Zolisa
Others: Alexei, Charl, Hamish

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

. Stable conditions and low humidity, but disappointingly the seeing
stayed > 2.5" all night. Some through-focus sequences, all with Rho=0

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-10-25

SA: Encarni
SO: Zolisa
Others: Charl, Chris, Eben, Phil, Linda and NRF job evaluation

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

. Raced the humidity for a set of in-focus images at the beginning of
the night, but we lost the race. High humidity all night.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-10-24

SA: Encarni
SO: Zolisa
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

. High humidity all night - never opened.

-----------------------------------------

where is all of the IQ data?

it turns out we were really fortunate to have gotten a few hours of good seeing early in our on-sky IQ testing. the seeing as measured by the upgraded Sutherland DIMM (now dubbed 'timDIMM') has been rather sub-par since the end of july:

the median seeing for this period (20-7 through 1-10) was 1.64" (corrected to zenith). previous studies of the SAAO site found median seeing values around 1" or slightly better. in fact, earlier in the year the SLODAR telescope measured a median total seeing of 1.08" during the period from mid-february until mid-april when it was shipped back to la palma. there is some question of the calibration of the timDIMM results compared to the same system using the old camera as well as compared to results from the other SAAO telescopes such as the 1.9-meter. much of that can be ascribed to its location and to its being very close to the ground, however. the timDIMM seeing has also agreed with the FWHM in SALT images fairly well so far. hopefully things will improve soon.....

Nightlog 2010-10-23

SA: Encarni
SO: Zolisa
Others: Eben, Charl

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

. Cloudy and high-humidity. No data tonight.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-10-22

SA: Encarni
SO: Zolisa
Others: Jonathan

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

. Attempted some IQ tests but technical problems and high-humidity
prevented us from getting a decent set.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-10-21

SA: Encarni
SO: Zolisa
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

. High humidity and high winds - did not open up.

-----------------------------------------

Telescope off-line for engineering work

SALT is currently off-line to carry out some engineering work to the rho stage among other things. Night-time work will resume on 21 October.

Nightlog 2010-10-04

SA: Paul
SO: Siphelo
Others: Martin

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Super cloudy at the start of the evening, not sure if such a
meteorological term exists... Had a bit rain during the night. Cleared
towards the end of the night but not enough to open.
No data :(

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-10-03

SA: Paul
SO: Siphelo
Others: Hitesh

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Clouds during most the evening, high humidity and ridge cloud at the end. We
didn't get much done tonight except for testing some software.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-10-02

SA: Paul
SO: Siphelo
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Coudy during most of the evening. Cleared with some cloud around after 2, but
the humidity shot up dramatically. That means no data for tonight.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-30

SA: Paul
SO: Siphelo
Others: Darragh, Francois, Hitesh, Janus, Ockert

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- First half of the night Darragh, Hitesh and Francois took some images of the
primary mirror with the pin-hole camera on SPIFFY. That was interesting. Since
there are not a lot of star fields around after that we had to wait for the
LMC.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-29

SA: Paul
SO: Siphelo
Others: Darragh, Francois, Hitesh, Janus

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Clear night but the seeing was ~2'' most of the time. We did some more
stepping through focus observations since we could not do anything else. At the
beginning of the night Francois, Hitesh and Darragh did some tests with SPIFFY.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-26

SA: Paul
SO: Patrick, Siphelo
Others: Darragh, Francois, Hitesh, Ardhisha

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- The seeing at the beginning of the night was not very good. Darragh and his
team of helpers went up to the CCAS to check the mirror alignment with spiffy.
He suggested we take some images through focus after they were done with their
tests. Got a sequence of images after looking around for a suitable target. Had
a tracker error during the last observation and closed up after that.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-26

SA: Paul
SO: Patrick, Siphelo
Others: Garith

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Did not open, strong wind, high humidity and cloud.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-25

SA: Petri
SO: Patrick
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Cloudy night, didn't open.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-24

SA: Petri
SO: Patrick
Others: Sudhanshu visit

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Cloudy night, didn't open.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-23

SA: Petri
SO: Patrick
Others: Chris

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Night claimed by rising humidity. No data.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-22

SA: Petri
SO: Patrick
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Nice stable night, but seeing not great. Did Rho-tests in
the early part. Did not see any clear evidence of
Rho-dependent image quality with ~1.4-1.6 arcsec stars.

The V-filter definitely produces rounder stars than the white
light when I was last up.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-21

SA: Amanda
SO: Zolisa
Others: Petri, Charl, Amanda G. (candidate with a good name!), Deanne

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

. Did not open due to bad weather: rain and completely cloudy.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-20

SA: Amanda
SO: Zolisa
Others: Chris

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

. We opened at the beginning of the night, aligned mirrors, and
started a track. We took one set of images at moderate to bad seeing
(2-3"). By 21:20 we were forced to close due to high humidity and low
T-dp.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-19

SA: Amanda
SO: Zolisa
Others: Charl, John Menzies + family

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

. Clear skies at night start, but high humidity forced us to close
before we could take data.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-18

SA: Amanda
SO: Zolisa
Others: Simon

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

. Did not open. Conditions were not good for IQ testing: clouds
in the early part of the night were followed by bad transparency and
high seeing.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-17

SA: Amanda
SO: Zolisa
Others: -

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

. Closed all night due to clouds.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-16

SA: Amanda
SO: Zolisa & Siphelo
Others: Anthony

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

. No data tonight. Too cloudy to get anything worthwhile for IQ.

-----------------------------------------

SALT data storage

As part of some work to determine the data storage requirements of SALT, I went through all of the old observations and calculated the amount of data that has been observed. I've compiled the average daily rate of raw data per open night of observing along with the total amount of raw data per year of SALT operations.


For 2006, SALT was operating near maximum efficiency and produced nearly 400 GB that year. During 2006, both SALTICAM and RSS were operating on the telescope, and below, I have the break down of how much data each instrument were producing. Once again, the table has the daily rate of raw data per open night and the total amount of data, but it also has the maximum amount of data taken during one night of observing for that instrument. In 2009, we also had a guest instrument, BVIT, that was producing a large amount of data even during the short time it was available at SALT!

Nightlog 2010-09-15

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo & Zolisa
Others: -

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Closed all night: too windy at beginning of night to open and align,
then high humidity & low T-dp.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-14

SA: David
SO: Fred, Siphelo, Zolisa (TimDIMM)
Others: Amanda

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

High winds (>60 kph) and dust precluding opening, though it was clear.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-13

SA: David
SO: Fred, Siphelo, Zolisa (TimDIMM)
Others: Hitesh, Charl

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

After Clear, wind NW starting quite high (40 kph), low RH (14-20%),
moderate to poor seeing (TimDIMM ~2"), but got a little better at times.

More successful IQ tests over az. ranges & long tracks. IQ stable,
consistent and uniform over FoV.

Some nice long tracks of SMC with nice uniform IQ.

Some tweaking of phi/theta coll. offsets improved images in pupil. Seems
to be generally higher phi (~50") than the canonical (10").

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-12

SA: David
SO: Fred, Siphelo, Zolisa (TimDIMM)
Others: Nobody

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Clear, wind W (24 kph), low RH (14%), moderate seeing (TimDIMM 1.7",
typically 0.3" higher than reported by 1.9-m, which is probably expected
due to being at ground level). Conditions very stable all night.

Pretty successful night in terms of telescope performance,
notwithstanding issues at the end with interferometer/tracker datasocket
comms. error and BMS deciding to close the louvres.

Got through many targets spread in azimuth and results essentially the
same: no field dependencies seen. Did find that tweaking phi offset to a
higher value than nominal (i.e. up to 50" or 60") was required to
balance pupil illum. All tracks at variety of Decs and azimuths all
finished successfully, within few mins of predictions. Pointing seems to
be consistently in Apogee "tile #2" field, i.e. consistently in upper
middle part of CCD (i.e. mostly offset in altitude).

Tried some long tracks to see how IQ held: essentially kept consistent
values all through the tracks (at various azimuths). Image FWMHs varied
from 1.5-2" throughout night, which was consistent with DIMM.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-11

SA: David
SO: Fred, Zolisa, Siphelo (TimDIMM)
Others: visit by NZ delegation

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Clear, wind NW (20-30 kph), low RH (15-20%), moderate seeing (1.7")

All went very well.

Many repeat focus, phi, theta variations. Loads of data.
All looked very repeatable, uniform and no hint of field dependencies.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-10

SA: David
SO: Fred, Siphelo, Zolisa (TimDIMM)
Others: Ardisha, Jonathon, Charl (called out to fix CCAS)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Clear at sunset. wind SE and R.H. incr from 45%.

Initial hiccups with getting CCAS (datasocket issue?) going.

Seeing bad atnever better than 2" (TimDIMM)& similar best focus values
with Apogee.

Incr. humidity, dew point & ridge cloud killed us.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-09

SA: David
SO: Fred, Zolisa & Siphelo (TimDIMM)
Others: Deon, Hitesh, Charl, Patrick all for a little awhile

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Clear at sunset.

Initial hiccups: comms with VI stage & interferometer, OPT not loading
to schedule

Looked at OOF images & affect of changing phi & theta

Seeing never better than 2" (TimDIMM)& similar best focus values with
Apogee.

Incr. humidity, dew point & ridge cloud killed us.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-08

SA: David
SO: Fred, Zolisa, Siphelo
Others: Patrick

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Cloudy at the start, clearing partially by midnight, cloudy again by ~3:30
- Seeing 2.0 - 2.5", so not really useful for IQ
- Images looked the same over all 9 VI positions
- Hint that images at bottom of Apogee slightly comatic, but not so much
at the top?

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-05

SA: Paul
SO: -
Others: -

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Did not open, cloudy=20

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-04

SA: Paul
SO: Patrick
Others: Zolisa, Siphelo, Hitesh

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- We did some more out of focus tests to see if the get the same variation =
in
flux distribution over the VI stage.

- We found that that auto collimator has been very stable and we detected no
drift which could have been one of the explanations for the observed images=
.=20

- Hitesh came out to have a look at the images we were getting and agrees t=
hat
all is not right. We are speculating that its a mis-aligned VI stage. This
might have occurred when it was put back after the rho ring measurements. We
will only know for sure when the guys come up tomorrow night to check the VI
stage alignment.

- We closed early, we can't do any IQ with the current aberrations. =C2=A0=
=20

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-03

SA: Paul
SO: Patrick
Others: Zolisa, Siphelo

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Opened with thin cloud around, conditions was not photometric.=20

- Attempted to re-obtain the ghost images found previously from a low track,
but the missing two rows of mirrors made that a bit tricky.=20

- The seeing was too bad for IQ, we are still waiting to see if the elongat=
ed
images were due to atmospheric dispersion.=20

- The variation of the out of focus flux distribution across the VI stage is
still puzzling.=20

- The night was cut short due to cloud.=20

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-09-02

SA: Paul
SO: Patrick
Others: Zolisa, Siphelo, Deon, Francois, Charl, Chris

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- We waited for the engineering team to align the VI stage and
put the Apogee camera back. They did a good job of centering the camera.

- The seeing was variable, fluctuating between 1'' and 4'' but staying around
2'' for most of the night.

- Seeing was not good enough for IQ testing, but we checked how far off centre
the X0;Y0 VI stage is. Found it to be within ~30'' from the centre of the focal
plane.

----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-08-31

SA: Petri, Paul
SO: Patrick
Others: Zolisa, Siphelo, Rudi, Deon, Charl, Chris

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Lots of pointing tests during the night, see notes and comments below.

- Could not test IQ because of bad conditions.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-08-30

SA: Petri, Paul
SO: Patrick
Others:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Clouded out, did not open.

-----------------------------------------

Nightlog 2010-08-29

SA: Petri, Paul
SO: Patrick
Others: Janus

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- Continued with IQ work after Darragh's and Lisa's successful
week (and year, or years) - which ended last night with Champagne
after seeing 1.1" stars over the full science field. DOD to
report elsewhere. Thank you!

- Star images are not round yet though, with various aberrations
visible, so work to chase remaining smaller issues continues.
Aberrations appear consistently the same though, over the field
and over several nights. Tonight, we saw ~1.2" stars over the whole
field, and stable auto/collimator performance.

- Night cut short with clouds.

The SAC is back!

See Lisa's post on SALT IQ blog (I've even stolen the her post name) for all the details and lots of beautiful pictures. There is still plenty of work to do before Darragh and the IQ team start on-sky testing, but this is huge step forward in returning SALT back to full operations. Congratulations go out to Darragh, the IQ team, and the SALT operations team!

the plot thickens.....

since weather cut us a bit short on the previous try, i redid the test of leaving the telescope open, but parked in a fixed position while taking images of the sky to measure the actual pointing position. this time we pointed SALT to an azimuth of 180, locked the tracker at (0,0), and took data for about 8 hours. the air temperature was not changing quickly during this time, though the wind did kick up considerably after about midnight UT. the behavior in elevation is similar to the previous test. the azimuth behavior, however, is rather surprising and i'm not sure what to make of it.

what is clear is that there are significant drifts in pointing that occur without anything happening mechanically with the telescope. i suspect they're related to temperature changes and/or radiational cooling. i also suspect that they'll be difficult to model and predict accurately.

tim

Night report 20100725

Nightlog 2010-07-25

SA: Tim
SO: None
Others: Hitesh, Jonathan, Ted

---------------------
Summary
---------------------

ted worked on FP stuff most of the day and through the evening until about 2300. tim assisted in the afternoon and evening. details to follow in separate note. jonathan and hitesh performed a mirror align test and then tim opened up, pointed at az=180, and let the starcam take images every 3 minutes from 1930 until 0325. analysis and results to follow later. tim also ran the seeing monitors (mass-dimm + timDIMM) from 0000 until 0315 when high winds kicked up and started blowing scopes around too much.

Night report 20100723 & 20100724

Nightlog 2010-07-23

SA: Tim
SO: None
Others: Hitesh, Charl, Ockert, Chris, Martin, Ted

---------------------
Summary
---------------------

no SALT operations other than hitesh doing a quick mirror alignment to test something. tim and ted worked on FP stuff until 2330 and then tim worked on mass-dimm/timdimm stuff until 0330.

Nightlog 2010-07-24

SA: Tim
SO: None
Others: Hitesh, Charl, Ockert, Ted

---------------------
Summary
---------------------

ted worked on FP stuff most of the day and through the evening. tim assisted in the afternoon and evening. charl gave a tour to the group from university of central lancashire and exercised the structure as part of the exercise. with an assist from hitesh tim opened up and did some starcam observations with the structure and tracker both fixed in position. got just under two hours of data before being forced to close due to humidity at 2040 SAST.

---------------------
Results
---------------------

the behavior of the previous starcam results led me to believe that the non-repeatability probably has something to do with temperature effects. namely, the clear, dry conditions we were experiencing means the sky is very cold and different parts of the structure will couple to that differently depending on how they're shielded by the dome. to test this, we took some data tonight with the structure fixed at an azimuth of 150 degrees and the tracker locked down at (0,0). in this configuration with the dome open we ran a script to take a starcam image once a minute. we were only able to get just shy of 2 hours of data due to high humidity, but even this was enough to show significant drifts in both elevation and azimuth (see attached plots). the drifts amount to 1.1' in elevation and 2.7' in azimuth. we didn't open the louvers or condition the chamber well so this probably exaggerates the effects of temperature variations, but it does show how significant they can be and the results are consistent with what we observed in our previous tests.

Night Report 2010-07-22

SA: Amanda
SO: Fred, Zolisa, Siphelo
Others: Tim, Charl, Ockert, Deon, Chris, Morgan, Laure

Summary
----------------------------------------------------------------------

*Took more StarCam data to characterize polar misalignment.
This went mostly smoothly, with two structure position losses.

*Winds were too high to take SAMS data.

*Fred's last official night as an SO! Thanks for all of your hard
work and best of luck.

Conditions
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

evening midnight morning
Weather: clear clear clear
Wind Dir 10m (speed; km/h): 327(50.9) 303(57.8) 285(53.5)
Seeing(FWHM SALT images): -
Photometric: no no no
RH(%): 22.7 38.6 40.7
Temp (2m): 12.1 8.4 8.2
T-Dp (ext.): 20.7 13.3 12.6

Sunset-rise (SAST): 17:57-07:21
Moon rise-set (SAST; phase): 14:33-05:37 (92%)

More pointing data

We took more pointing data later on during the night of 20100720, but this time in a more careful manner. We performed large moves back to Az = 0 several times during the course of taking the previous data which we think probably created the large amount of scatter. This data was taken by making small 10 degree moves in Azimuth in the same direction between each observation. We took one set moving in a clockwise direction from Az=0 and another set moving counter-clockwise from Az=360. As we hoped, taking data in this way shows the systematic cyclical signature much more clearly. Recall that for our experiment the elevation is fixed by leaving the tracker locked at (0,0) and thus should remain constant.

Summary Night Report 20100721

Nightlog 2010-07-21

SA: Amanda
SO: Fred
Others: Tim, Siphelo, Zolisa, Deon, Morgan, Chris, IQ team, Nic, Ted,
Hitesh

---------------------
Summary
---------------------

* Took more StarCam data to investigate polar misalignment. A new
plot is posted on the blog that shows the results from last night.

* Ran six tracks as though we were undertaking normal
observing. Three tracks ended abnormally, all with fatal following
errors.

* Hitesh ran SAMS tests. Conditions were beautiful, so hopefully he
got alot of good data!

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Conditions evening midnight morning
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Weather: clear clear clear
Wind Dir 10m (speed; km/h): 0 (20.5) 338(30.7) 329(36.2)
Seeing(FWHM SALT images): -
Photometric: yes yes yes
RH(%): 19.0 23.1 27.5
T-Dp (ext.): 22.9 20.0 17.6

Sunset-rise (SAST): 17:56 - 07:22
Moon rise-set (SAST; phase): 13:42-04:44 (85%)

Summary Night Report 20100720

Nightlog 2010-07-20

SA: Amanda
SO: Fred
Others: Siphelo, Zolisa, Deon, Morgan, Ockert, Charl, Chris, Laure,
IQ team, Nic, Ted, Hitesh

---------------------
Summary
---------------------
* Took some data on mirror alignment degradation at beginning of night
(with goal of investigating how much alignment degrades as
environmental conditions change). Hitesh took SAMS data later.

* Got alot of data with the StarCam to characterize polar
misalignment. Tim's initial results show a strong sinusoidal
variation in the azimuth and elevation of the actual pointings with
respect to the telescope positions. (see plot in blog)

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Conditions evening midnight morning
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Weather: clear clear clear
Wind Dir 10m (speed; km/h): 102(14.9) 81(11.9) 26(20.9)
Seeing(MASS/DIMM): -
Photometric: yes yes yes
RH(%): 24.3 26.6 27.4
T-Dp (ext.): 19.5 18.0 17.6

Sun set-rise (SAST): 17:56 - 07:22
Moon rise-set (SAST; phase): 12:51-03:46 (68%)

20100720 Pointing residual plot

20100720. First plot of the differences between the azimuths and
elevations derived from astrometric fits to StarCam data and those
based on the telescope location (tracker at 0, structure told to go to
various azimuths). These data should help us characterize any
polar misalignment of the pier. The data were taken
in steps of 30 degrees, with 10 degree offsets between three different
sets, all in a counterclockwise direction. (plot courtesy of Tim!)

StarCam image of beta Cen (with astrometric solution; 20100719)

Summary Night Report 20100719

Nightlog 2010-07-19

SA: Amanda
SO: Fred
Others: Tim, Sophelo, Zolisa, Deon, Morgan, Ockert, Charl & Chris at
beginning, IQ team, Nic & Ted

---------------------
Summary
---------------------
* We had a mostly successful night, taking data with the StarCam for
the pointing model and doing SAMS testing. Note that we can't actually
take accurate pointing model data until the autocollimator is back on,
because the telescope points only within range of the autocollimator
(so the displayed telescope position is not the same as the OPT target
position). For now, we are setting the tracker to all zeros and moving
the telescope to take images at different azimuths. This should test
variations around the pier.

* We ran into trouble with multiple SOMMI errors, a serious tracker
failure, and a new structure error (where the radial plug pulled out
because we actually reached an extreme position). The latter was due
to the same issue that caused us to shut down early: the structure
lost encoder counts and thus did not know its location.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Conditions evening midnight morning
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Weather: clear clear clear
Wind Dir 10m (speed; km/h): 331(15.6) 342(15.5) 335(17.9)
Seeing(MASS/DIMM): 1.17 -
Photometric: yes yes yes
RH(%): 24.8 27.5 30.0
T-Dp (ext.): 19.1 17.8 16.7

Sun set-rise (SAST): 17:55 - 07:23
Moon rise-set (SAST; phase): 12:09-02:44 (68%)

Summary Night Report 20100715

Report for night 2010-07-15

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others: Deon, Morgan, Hitesh, the IQ team, Chris, Zolisa, Siphelo
========================================================

----------------------------
Notes and messages
----------------------------

* Did not open up tonight because of the weather. SAMS tests all night.

* EDS external weather conditions got stuck. BMS needed restarting to
get them back.

Summary Night Report 20100714

Report for night 2010-07-14

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others: Deon, Morgan, Hitesh, the IQ team
========================================================

----------------------------
Notes and messages
----------------------------

* Did not open up tonight because of the weather. SAMS tests all night.

* ELS does not show alarm/warning for rain, but the EDS does show the
correct status.

Summary Night Report 20100713

Report for night 2010-07-13

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick, Operonomer Hannah
Others: Deon, Hitesh, Morgan, Chris, Zolisa, Siphelo, Charl and the IQ team (Lisa, Francois, Darragh, James)
========================================================

----------------------------
Notes and messages
----------------------------

* The last temp control unit for the aircon, which we installed last
night in the control room, is now dead. And it's freezing in here!!!! :(

* ELS issues:

During the day we had dew point warning on SOMMI which was clearly wrong.

Text messages are being sent by the ELS to the standby phone
which are irrelevant (SAMS comms lost, DEW point warnings
etc). This needs to be fixed before the standby person drowns the phone...

Night temp variance was yellow both nights, but the temps were
nicely equalized and temp gradients are flat as a pancake.

* Aircon for conditioning the building during the day does not work
due to low levels of glycol. Opening louvers early instead.

* Video feed from star tracker is working!! Thanks Charl and Hitesh!
Erm.. you do know I don't have a kingdom to swap for the camera,
right? ;)

* Tracker brakes release error three times. Twice it recovered
by itself, the other time it did not and did not move, although reporting
green and SLEW.

Summary Night Report 20100712

Report for night 2010-07-12

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others: Deon, Charl, Hitesh
========================================================

----------------------------
Notes and messages
----------------------------

* SPAIN ARE WORLD CHAMPIONS!!! FOR THE NEXT FOUR YEARS!!!! Hip hip hurrah! :)

* Both Temperature control modules for aircon in the control room and
the computer room are broken. We "stole" the newly arrived one
intended for the computer room and installed in the control room.

* External dewpoint alarm triggered when T-ext=10?

* With nearly every point to target, we get an error on a fine igloo
alarm. Allegedly it's a dodgy sensor so we dutifully ignored it (it's
hardly going to affect our IQ anyway!).

* Again, approaching CCAS clockwise the structure sometimes doesn't
quite make the correct az (59.986 instead of 60.04) so no spots for
mirror alignment. An X instrument shift of -300 brings spots into
view.

* Structure CCW limit 1 reached but structure does NOT go onto fault
and reamains ready. It won't move though, so it should be a fault.

* Had a 'too many loops' followed by 'not enough rects' error so had
to restart CCAS.

* Had one fatal following error on tracker that aborted our track. OK on repoint. Charl, temp on the rho motor was OK.

Summary Night Report 20100708

Report for night 2010-07-08

SA: Alexei
SO: Fred
Others: Siphelo, Zolisa
========================================================

Summary:

1. We continue our checks of alignment and its degradation.
Segment 65 is out of the loop.

We worked only with Side1 tonight just to see how the method works.
Side1+Side2 alignment degradation have to be checked during next weeks.

I loged rms of Side1 altogether with temperature and humidity at 2m.

Unfortunately, because structure errors all the time, we were
need to put structure down and start it again. So, our results
of the degradation are take it into account somehow.

2. Teaching of new SOs was continued during the day and the night.

Summary Night Report 20100707

Report for night 2010-07-07

SA: Alexei
SO: Fred
Others: Siphelo, Zolisa, Sharl
========================================================

----------------------------
Notes and messages
----------------------------

Summary:

1. We continue our checks of alignment.

2. Teaching of new SOs was continued during the night.

3. Germany lost to Spain 0:1 in the semifinal ...

Summary Night Report 20100706

Report for night 2010-07-06

SA: Alexei
SO: Fred
Others: Hitesh, Deon, Siphelo, Zolisa
========================================================

----------------------------
Notes and messages
----------------------------

Summary:

1. SPS error was generally fixed by Hitesh and Deon during day time.
Segments 3 and 41 were disconnected.

2. Two new SOs arrived today and Fred started teaching.

3. The alignment is working in general, but we need good conditions
to make it properly.

Summary Night Report 20100705

Report for night 2010-07-05

SA: Alexei
SO: Fred
Others: Hitesh, Deon
========================================================

----------------------------
Notes and messages
----------------------------

Summary:

First try to align mirrors. First half was aligned,
but finally we have got SPS hardware problem which
have to be studied tomorrow by Hitesh and Deon.

Summary Night Report 20100615

Report for night 2010-06-15

SA: Amanda
SO: Freddie
Others: Charl, Ockert, + other day crew and IQ people
========================================================

TESTING. Telescope commissioning.

----------------------------
Summary
----------------------------

* Took 7 tracks to their ends, in various position and
directions (explicitly had tracks ending in lower left & right,
upper left and right). No major problems.

* Moved dome to a variety of positions, but could not
replicate the dome-following error.

Summary Night Report 20100614

Report for night 2010-06-14

SA: Amanda
SO: Freddie
Others: Charl
========================================================

TESTING. Telescope commissioning.

----------------------------
Summary
----------------------------

* Got telescope/tracker up and running by pointing N and
taking a short track (aborted).

* Took an extremely long S. track, ~10400 seconds. No problems,
ended 10 sec. before timeline said it should.
Took a shorter N. track -- ended early with 2 hexapods being
full (although that wasn't clear from the display, which was doing
weird things).

* Hitesh notes that initial mirror alignment can be completed
as soon as they get a good night to open. After that alignment,
we can do CCAS/MACS tests.

Summary Night Report 20100610

Report for night 2010-06-10

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others: Sharl, Janus
========================================================

----------------------------
Notes and messages
----------------------------

Summary:

1. Continue to test tracker and
tracker+structure+dome (but without shutter).

No any major problems were detected.

2. 11 pointings to the random objects were done with
calculation of time for each. See log for details.

3. ELS display fixed.

Welcome to the SALT Astronomy Blog!

By popular demand, we have launched this blog as a public interface to what's going on at SALT. It will initially be devoted to posts about the progress of SALT's recommissioning. Eventually it is expected to become a general SALT blog with occasional posts about specific items or events and regular automated posts generated by the SALT Astronomer logging system.

Summary Night Report 20100609

Report for night 2010-06-09

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others: Sharl, Janus, Anthony
========================================================

----------------------------
Notes and messages
----------------------------

Summary:

1. Tracker was tested as the first step
and tracker+structure+dome (but without shutter) after that.

No any major problems were detected.

2. Tracker moves in X,Y directions were tested first and
normal observation mode after that, where objects for pointing were
selected using OPTI, sent to TCS and telescope started after that.

No any major problems were detected.

Small problem with OPTI was detected (for Encarni):
The last version of OPTI takes into account
proper motions in the different way compare to TCS.
For this reason, objects selected with OPTI were not
accepted by TCS finally.
Please, check.

3. 10 pointings to the random objects were done with
calculation of time for each. See log for details.

4. ELS display does not show RA and DEC.
Needs to be fixed.

Summary Night Report 20100603

Report for night 2010-06-03

SA: Petri
SO: Freddie
Others:
========================================================

TESTING. The second "night" of the new SALT season.


----------------------------
Notes and messages
----------------------------

Bit of shutter work during the afternoon.

Summary:

No new issues identified, here is a cumulative issues list
to work on and to keep an eye on during next week -

- Louvres.
- Cable wrap at N structure movements.
- External humidity warning.
- a few temp measures, see log 20106002.

- Dome shutter should be ok, but keep monitoring.


Working ok so far:

- EDS, ELS, CCAS shutter, CCAS fan, AC, FF-fan, dome movement,
structure movement other than extreme N.

Tracker will be tested next week.

Summary Night Report 20100602

Report for night 2010-06-02

SA: Petri
SO: Freddie
Others: Eben helping.
========================================================

TESTING. The first "night" of the new SALT season.


----------------------------
Notes and messages
----------------------------

Summary:

Tested ok with first try:

- EDS
- CCAS shutter
- CCAS fan
- dome movement

Tested ok, but not first time:

- false-floor fan (isolator)
- air-conditioning (reboot of BMS)
- ELS (had to restart)

Issues or failures:

- Structure movement:
ok otherwise, but cable wrap problem every time at North.

- Dome shutter:
proximity limit switch appears not working well, could eventually
open/close, but system does not know it's open.

- Louvres:
will open only to 20% in 'automatic'. Deon to check next week.
when in 'manual' all is fine, can open to 100%.

- External humidity warning came on repeatedly for no reason.

- ELS appears fine otherwise, but the Alarm section is empty, still
under construction?? it says "control could not be loaded"

- several isolated wrong temperature measures, see end of log.