Nightlog 2011-04-29

SA: Amanda
SO: Patrick
Others: Petri, Ken, Eric, Anthony, Jonathan, Charl

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Summary
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- Humidity spiked ~1.5 hours after sunset and we were closed the rest
of the night. Observed a standard star and did some engineering work.

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Nightlog 2011-04-28

SA: Amanda
SO: Patrick
Others: Petri, Ken, Eric, Anthony, Jonathan, Charl, Darragh

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Summary
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- Beautiful night with typically 1-1.5" seeing. Observed all night,
with only a few payload and instrument issues.

- Took RSS science data for TOO program T Pyx and Kniazev
2010-1-RSA_OTH-013, multiple standard stars, and carried out
commissioning test.

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Nightlog 2011-04-27

SA: Amanda
SO: Patrick
Others: Petri, Ken, Eric, Anthony, James, Charl

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Summary
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- Clear with good seeing at night start, had to close due to high
humidity around 22:30 and remained closed the rest of the night.

- SALTICAM gripper was fixed and there was some troubleshooting on
mirror alignment. Took one SCAM image of T Pyx. Issues with fold
mirror (as well as humidity) prevented RSS images of T Pyx.

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Nightlog 2011-04-26

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Amanda, Eric, Petri, Ken

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Summary
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=> Very bad weather outside. No observations tonight.

=> SALT team is going to try to fix SALTICAM tomorrow,
since we still have the same problem.

=> During night the status of SALTICAM started to be even worse.
We have tried to make exposure with that, and it dies.
I has status "DEAD" on SOMMI "Subsystem status".
Any try to make exposure make message:
FILTER STATUS: ERROR: filter magazine not moving!

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Nightlog 2011-04-25

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Eric, Petri, Charl

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Summary
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=> UV spectrum of AG Carina !!!
Do we see some line at 3120 ???

These observations of AG Carina and standard stars surely help
contribute to commisionig task LS-UV.

=> SALTICAM gripper has major problem.
Only B-filter available for use.

We need someone from Cape Town to resolve this problem.

=> We were not able to make fine alignment and worked only with
coarse tonight. We called Hitesh and he checked it in remote mode.
He suggested that we have very big jump in temperature, because BMS
did not work and airconditioning was off.

=> As we can see the proposal code appears in the FITS header finally.
But.... all object names are 'NONE'

Standard star from OPTI has proposal code " " and 'NONE' as name.

Please, put object names into FITS headers!!!

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Nightlog 2011-04-24

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Eric, Charl, Peter, Paul, Serafim

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Summary
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=> SALTICAM gripper has major problem. Does not communicate.
Only B-filter available for use.

We need someone from Cape Town to resolve this problem.

=> We were not able to make fine alignment and worked only with
coarse tonight. Charl, Peter and Paul were not able to help
finally. Hitesh promised by phone to check it tomorrow in remote
mode.

=> Clicky-click movements of the telescope did not work with SCAM.
We were need to make all movements by hands using "Tracking Adjust"
at SOMMI.

=> The focus shif between SALTICAM and RSS is -0.3mm following our
estimation with coarse stack.

=> Eric have amount of notes after his work with PCON, which he sent
to Ken and Anthony.

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Nightlog 2011-04-23

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Eric, Charl, Peter, Serafim

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Summary
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=> We have got 22 SALTICAM images of TPyx tonight.
I do not understand how we were able to get these images
taking into account all problems around.

=> The telescope software looks VERY UNSTABLE current days.
It looks like general communication problem.

Many things for SCAM interface did not work tonight,
but maybe because general communication problem.

We have problems with payload from the evening and were need
to initialize it. There were problems but finally it was done
with help of SALT team.
During observations of TPyx, we have tried to move RSS guide
probe, that results payload major fault. SALT team was unable
to recover this problem.

Finally, Siphelo was able to start payload MMI, but SALTICAM
filters stopped to work and gripper timout...

=> So, I think that currently we need software people here
to have telescope efficiency above -0.

=> Brilliant weather outside. Seeing is about 1".

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Nightlog 2011-04-22

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Eric, Charl, Chris, Keith

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Summary
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=> No observations tonight. Major tracker failure was fixed, but
TCS has problem to communicate with SOMMI and telescope still
does not work.

=> Brilliant weather with 1.2-1.3" seeing.

=> We accidently press button "Scan Drift" and PDET software dies.
We tried to restart it, but have major fault:
SDSU HARDWARE FAILURE.

After that the temperature of the shutter solenoid starts to grow.
It was about 45, when the next restart of PDET goes correctly.
The temperature of the shutter solenoid starts to go down after that.

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Nightlog 2011-04-21

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Eric, Charl, Chris, Keith

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Summary
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=> No observations tonight because major tracker failure.
=> Brilliant weather.

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Nightlog 2011-04-20

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Eric, Charl, Lisa

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Summary
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=> No observations tonight because major tracker failure.
Anyway weather was bad with strong wing, heavy clouds and high humidity

=> There were problems with SALTICAM, that we were not able to change filters.
The problem was fixed by Charl

=> PCON program gives very unstable result. We have got problems with
setup of all subsystems like changing grating, filters, masks,
grating rotation etc. We restarted program and it helps, but we still
have many problems.
In case of real observations our efficiency will be VERY LOW for this reason.

Very often we have "unknown light source problem", when, after changing
configuration, we do not see reference spectrum,
but just bright source in the right-up corner. Next exposure with the same
configuration produces "normal" result. See, for example, pairs of images:
P27 (bad) and P28 (good); P29 (bad) and P30 (good);
P32 (bad) and P33 (good).

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Nightlog 2011-04-19

SA: Tim
SO: Zolisa
Others: Ken N, Lisa C, Janus, Anthony K, Alexei, H00per
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Summary
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another entire night lost to major tracker failure. lack of BMS kept us from
doing several useful lab activities.
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Where coffee machines go to die...

The trouble started mid last week when the most critical sub-system in the telescope (the hopelessly over-worked coffee machine) packed up on us...  Basic rescue procedures failed & so it was sent back to Cape Town for repairs.  A couple of days later we lost the clear half of the night to payload problems & the next day the tracker joined in the protest action - we've been stranded ever since! 

The tracker crisis was traced to sporadic communication errors between the tracker PC & the PMAC macro station, although many suspect a pact with the coffee machine.  Unfortunately the spare PMAC card is a later model than the original & since it's not supported by the software, we're waiting on specialist help from the guys that built the tracker.  Hamish partly compensated for these frustrations by providing alternative IT support to those not directly involved in the tracker battle!

Pete in particular seems to be enjoying the freedom associated with RSS being back on the telescope - time now to work on his boarding skills :)

SALT's humble little coffee percolator has been pressed into Heavy service these past few days.  It's held up bravely, but today it too collapsed under the strain so we're now on to our 3rd coffee machine in 6 days...

Frightening times ahead as we wait for the old coffee machine (which lives in the SALT building in Cape Town these days) to get back up here.  For now, progress on the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere hinges on this fragile instrument!

On a much happier note, Eric Hooper's finally arrived on our dark continent!  Eric's out here from Wisconsin to support the RSS commissioning efforts &, with SALT Astronomer Alexei, will keep the show on the road this week while Ken takes a well-deserved break in Cape Town .  

Getting Eric prepared for the job called for a live brain-transplant from Ken - rather a harsh welcome after such a long flight, followed by the drive up here.  Hang in there Hooper!

Nightlog 2011-04-18

SA: Tim
SO: Zolisa
Others: Ken N, Lisa C, Janus, Anthony K, Paul, Charl
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Summary
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entire night lost to major tracker failure. shame given the weather....
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Nightlog 2011-04-17

SA: Tim
SO: Zolisa
Others: Ken N, Lisa C, Amanda G, Petri, Group from Ethiopia, Hamish, Eben
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Summary
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major tracker fault prevented us from getting on sky, though humidity would
have prevented us for much of the night anyway.
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Nightlog 2011-04-15

SA: Tim
SO: Zolisa
Others: Ken N, Lisa C, Anthony K, Charl, Chris C, MEARIM tour
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Summary
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lost first four hours of the night to problem with payload computer and guidance
camera. by the time that was fixed the humidity had creeped up and we were in
ridge cloud after midnight.
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Spectroscopy of T Pyx

Highlighting the quick time response of SALT observations, the first spectroscopy obtained for the re-commissioning of RSS is for a target of opportunity source! On 14 April 2011, T Pyx was observed by undergoing its first outburst in over 45 years by Michael Linnolt. Tim and the gang at Sutherland were able to get some spectroscopy with the newly refurbished RSS, and we've run the data through the pipeline and produced data with basic reductions and initial wavelength calibration. Below are two of the spectra for the source with one spectra in the Na D region and the other centered on H-alpha. The H-alpha spectra shows the full RSS spectrum while the other spectrum has been zoomed in to show the Na D region.



Data are currently available for anyone interested from the SALT consortium.

Spectroscopy At Last!!

Another bad start to the night weather-wise, but the clouds & humidity relented before 11pm, in time for us to have a go at a recurrent nova that happens to be in outburst at the moment: T Pyx.

The track was less than an hour long so we didn't hold too much hope of actually getting spectra, but the acquisition process proved surprisingly painless!

Long-slit spectra were obtained (with a 0.6 arcsec slit & the 2300 lines/mm grating) for two wavelength settings - one to span the Sodium D lines & another to get H-alpha.

Copper-Argon & Neon arc spectra were also obtained for these two configurations - even though none of us had used the calibration system before!

This all worked fantastically well & huge credit must go to everybody concerned (way too many people to list) for getting everything together!  Really Really Wonderful :) :) :)

Shortly after the T Pyx track ended, the humidity shot back up & we had to close for the rest of the night. Tim's working on wavelength calibrating the spectra, but in the meantime here's a quick look at the data showing the complex profiles of the D lines & the broad H-alpha emission...

Note that the deep, square features near 2000 & 4000 pixels are due to the gaps between the 3 CCDs that make up the RSS detector.

Nightlog 2011-04-15

SA: Tim
SO: Zolisa
Others: Ken N, Lisa C
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Summary
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managed to get enough of a break in the humidity to get on the sky to observe
T Pyx. managed to get long-slit spectra in two configurations.
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Nightlog 2011-04-14

SA: Tim
SO: Zolisa
Others: Ken N, Janus, Lisa C
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Summary
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high humidity during the first half of the night gave way to a reasonably good
2nd half. devoted the time to getting the RSS guider calibrated and mapped.
good thing since there would have been a couple show-stopper problems
had we tried using it otherwise.
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Bad-weather testing

After some post-lift fixing & de-bugging, Tech Ops reckons they've got the RSS filter magazine & slit mask problems sorted out - so we're good to go!  They left us with the following warning last night...

Sadly though, the weather's been Anything but co-operative.  A dramatic (i.e. astronomically unpretty) sunset was followed by more rain & a feeble lightning display - so Ken was restricted to closed-dome tests such as focus runs & stray light observations.

Today the guys got the etalons connected up & tested (that all looks fine), various blocked/dirty filters & valves were sorted out to eliminate overheating problems & they also worked on some RSS baffling between the filters & the detector.  However, the undisputed highlight of the day was a display by *3* adult black eagles over the plateau, just a pity they were too far away to photograph properly...

Alas - once more, a beautiful clear morning brewed up into a cloudy afternoon & evening with rain + heavy cloud about, so we're likely to be playing the waiting game again tonight :(

Nightlog 2011-04-13

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick, Zolisa
Others: Ken N, Janus, Lisa C

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Summary
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damp, cloudy, rainy, lightning at sunset, fog in the morning. caught up with
coding, data analysis, and other tasks. no new data taken.

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Nightlog 2011-04-12

SA: Paul
SO: Patrick
Others: Janus, Tim, Lisa

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Summary
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- Interesting night! Cloudy at the beginning of the night. It cleared for an
hour during which we had sub arcsec seeing. We obtained some more good seeing
images with SALTICAM and the RSS, a few of which were sub-arcsec! High humidity
and a low internal dew point delta forced us to close.

- Did a focus run of the slit with SALTICAM at the beginning of the evening. We
could not get the slit in best focus at a SALTICAM focus of 5, but we were
close. Higher values worsened the slit mask focus.

- Ken made some stray light observations at the beginning of the evening.

- With the SALTICAM focus at 11000 we did not have a large telescope focus
offset between SALTICAM and the RSS.

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Amazing seeing when we least expected it!

The seasons are changing up here...  Not only are the leaves turning, the telescope's developing a whole new attitude as well!

Unfortunately, huge thunderclouds threatened at sunset & the night looked sure to be a write-off.

Amazingly though, the clouds dumped their rain & the sky completely cleared up around midnight so SALT was opened up & the primary mirror aligned. 

The humidity remained above 80% but (against all odds!), the DIMM consistently measured sub-arcsecond seeing - the best reading we saw was 0.66"! :)  A full frame RSS image was quickly taken to check the position of the RSS guide probe.

The probe was found to be well represented by the blue graphic, seen here on the SALTICAM frame.  But the sky was so good, Janus kindy declined doing further guiding tests in favour of getting some pretty pictures!

The average FWHM of ~150 stars all over the RSS field was 0.98" for an open cluster (NGC 4052) that we looked at.

Duty SALT Astronomer Paul had his hands full scrambling to get images on both instruments through multiple filters before the dew-point & humidity limits shut us down for the rest of the night.

Great stuff though - uniform, sub-arcsec FWHM over the full field of view :)

The SALTICAM images were run through the IQ pipeline & yielded the following impressive results!   These plots are for the I-band data.

Thanks to Janus for the 4 control room photos - I'd left my camera down in my room as I came up to the telescope when there seemed no chance at all of going on-sky!

RSS 2nd Light Image

On the night of April 9 we took the first images with the freshly refurbished and reinstalled RSS spectrograph. The images are of the globular cluster Omega Centauri and were taken in two passbands at 629 nm and 434 nm. The images were combined to remove the gaps between the CCDs and then processed into a single colour image shown below. Enjoy!

Nightlog 2011-04-11

SA: Paul
SO: Patrick
Others: Janus, Anthony

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Summary
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- Totally clouded out tonight.

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Nightlog 2011-04-10

SA: Paul
SO: Patrick
Others: Ken, Charl

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Summary
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- We weren't opened for long tonight, a huge front came in from the NW, closed
just before 22:00.

- We had bad dome seeing due to the low wind speed and open igloos.

- Attempted to check how the alignment of images on SALTICAM differs to the RSS,
but the RSS filter mechanism got stuck. This meant no RSS observations for the
evening.

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Nightlog 2011-04-09

SA: Paul
SO: Patrick
Others: Janus, Ken, Charl

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Summary
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*** 0.97-1.1 arcsec seeing images obtained with SALTICAM!

*** First RSS imaging after the re-installation!

- SALTICAM was ready to roll after its brief time in the workshop for repairs.
The stuck guide probe was tested and seems to work fine.

- The seeing improved and stayed below 1'' for a large portion of the night.
There was some problems with obtaining a good focus, which was due to a change
in the auto collimator offsets. New offsets were determined which produced
much better results.

- Had some tracker trouble but it was a successful night nonetheless.

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RSS goes UP!!!

Huge & Very successful day at SALT - RSS went back up today, absolutely perfectly done! :)  Knowing that everyone's keen to see all the action, I'm just posting the photos for now & will add captions & narrative as time permits...  Thanks to Anthony for some extra pictures taken with his beefy flash!

Late yesterday, RSS was powered down & taken off its life-support, in preparation for today's lift...  All dressed up & ready to go!

Some serious business had to be taken care of before the games could begin - here's Ken presenting Peter with a much-deserved award for his heroic efforts in getting RSS back together again.

Having shed so much blood for this instrument, a Purple Heart would've been in order - but this was the best that could be arranged on fairly short notice...

Our gentlemen of the spectrograph - Ken sporting his RSS PI hat, kindly donated last night by "the hired help" at Perlman's.

After a minor hold-up, during which the 4th chain block was hunted down, the riggers could get on with their part of the show.

Once securely attached to the lifting assembly, the whole lot was cranked over to 37 degrees.

Plenty of advice was freely available throughout the process, here we see some input from stage left.

Lift-off was painless this time - not a single crowbar was required!

Thanks to Zulu for adding a touch of class to the proceedings, delivering left-overs from the Thursday morning hostel tea...

Soon we got a good look at the underside of the beast.

The slightly anxious instrument PI was in a good position to watch it disappear up through the hatch.

The spectrograph herders took over on the first floor, guiding it up safely.

The etalon cables rode up on top of the rest.

Thanks Ant for this slightly more arty angle on things!

All hands on deck & all eyes on the creature rising from below...

Nerve-wracking stuff as Jono slowly hoisted it up on the dome crane.

Looking sinister...

The welcoming committee was on hand to greet the new arrival when it reached the catwalk.

Very impressive flash work there Ant, from all the way down on the first floor!

Charl keeping an eye while Hitesh rotated the structure into position underneath the spectrograph.

Then the fine adjustments were made by moving the tracker into place.

Ready to be deposited on the tracker!

The gang of 5 was in position to make sure that nothing got crunched as RSS was lowered into place.

The peanut gallery looked on anxiously from the catwalk below.

It was all rather too much excitement for our poor over-worked SALT Astronomer of the week...

Here's the view from across the dome.

Not the most ergonomic environment ever, but the team's perfectly at home up there.

With the spectrograph securely attached, the whole contraption could be released from the dome crane. 

& some deep sighs of relief could be exhaled - excellent job guys! :)

All smiles on their way down for a late lunch!

No much later, Peter was back in action on top of his spectrograph - getting everything connected up...

Down on the catwalk, Charl, Ockert & Jonathan worked on feeding all the wires through the cable wrap.

The new-look top end of the telescope :)

Down on the pier, the Cryotiger was connected up inside Igloo 8 - without the accidental release of noxious PT-30 gas this time!

Meanwhile, the spectrometer room suddenly looks a whole lot more spacious - not for too much longer though as the HRS is due to be delivered towards the end of the year.

The CCAS tower's now the perfect vantage point from which to photograph the RSS!  Here's Charl & Peter working their magic to get everything going up there.

Down in the control room, Ken was looking remarkably relaxed considering what a stressful day it'd been.  The smiles grew steadily as more & more mechanisms were tested & confirmed to still be functional.

A celebratory braai in the Rec Centre followed & included champers & a speech from Chris (accompanied by his better half, indicated by the arrow on the wall!).

This turned into one of the larger crowds for such an event, once the die-hard tech ops crew finally managed to drag themselves away from RSS & the rest got out of the 2 hour BEC meeting ...

Much later, the natives grew restless & the thought of depositing some of Ockert's sodium stash in the dam became incredibly appealing :}

A number of innocent margarine tubs were sacrificed for the cause, but the resulting explosions more than justified their flaming departures!

We predict saturated sodium lines in the 1.9-m's spectra tonight ;)

It was windy, cold & late, but these people know how to play almost as hard as they work!

Wow - a day to remember :)