Night Log 2012-03-30

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: buckley family

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Summary
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dark, cold, wet, stormy night. no science and only a few calibrations taken.

Night Log 2012-03-29

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: dave b, deatrick, jean-marc

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Summary
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managed to sneak in enough CAL_SPST at the beginning to clear out the queue in the calibrations tab. then the humidity set in and the rains came after midnight. no science blocks attempted.

The Sutherland Community Development Centre

Last night we attended the unofficial opening of the Sutherland Community Development Centre in town.  There will be a formal version of this event with dignitaries & all the rest at a later stage, but this was a very special evening to be in Sutherland :)

The centre includes 26 computers (connected to the internet) which may be used by anyone in town.  It's also a venue for school children to gather to do their homework & there will be a play area for smaller kids.

The machines are thin clients running EduBuntu Open Source Software.

& the place has a pretty zippy internet connection!

One of the coolest features of the place is its custom-made burglar bars!  Designed by a local artist & built by SALT's own Johan Hendricks :)

An expectant local crowd assembled...

First there were a few speeches, including a welcome from Karel & the Dominee.

& then some inspiring words from local hero Anthony.

William Menzies & Jan de Wee were introduced as the volunteers that will be responsible for the daily running of the centre.

But soon it was time to put people behind the computers & get going!

Brave new ground for many of them :)

Class in session: setting up Gmail accounts for everyone!

There was plenty of help at hand for all who needed it.

Then the newbies got signed up for Facebook accounts...

While the seasoned Facebookers did whatever they need to do.

+ exploring the wide world of the web.

All about sharing & learning, together!

Exciting times for all, but the future here is already looking brighter for the little ones...

Gorgeous Labrador cross Shar Pei puppies included ;)

Night Log 2012-03-28

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: dave b, deatrick, keith

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Summary
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what looked to be very iffy weather during the day and into the evening ended up clearing and resulting in a good night. closed for about an hour by humidity which yoyo-ed a bit, but then dried up significantly after midnight. seeing very good at times (< 1") and 1.5" or better most of the night. lost about another hour to a some minor technical niggles and a salticam filter snafu.

got data for the following programs:

2011-3-UW-008 (fabry-perot)
2011-3-RSA_OTH-025 (frame transfer spectra)
2011-3-RSA_RU_UC_UKSC_OTH-001 (needs better finder charts)
2011-3-GU-002 (long-slit)
2011-3-POL-001 (long-slit)
2011-3-RSA_OTH-016 (salticam frame transfer)
2011-3-RSA_UKSC_HET_OTH-001 (salticam slot mode)
2011-3-RSA_RU_IUCAA-001 (fabry-perot)

Photos for a change!

What with all the serious science going on at SALT, there haven't been too many photos on the blog lately...  Apologies to those disgruntled followers out there ;)

Here's a shot showing the RSS readout after a successful Multi Object Spectroscopy (MOS) observation.  MOS is the latest mode on RSS to be successfully commissioned, another exciting milestone in SALT's progress :)  Each row across the screen is a spectrum from an individual slit in a custom-cut mask that gets inserted at the focal plane.  3 of these spectra were from extremely bright objects (the white stripes), the one just below the centre belongs to a fainter source while most of the rest were dominated by emission features from the night sky (the bright vertical lines towards the right of the frame).

Today Jono & I climbed down under the tracker bridge to take a look at the liquid light guides that feed light from the arc and flat-field lamps in the payload to the calibration screen that's mounted just below the SAC.  There we are in the bottom few segments of the primary :)

Here's the bay in the payload that houses the calibration lamps: copper-argon, mercury-argon and argon for the blue & xenon, neon and thorium-argon for the red.  The red and blue channels also each have a quartz-tungsten-halogen flat-field lamp, as well as a set of colour filters.  A graduated neutral density filter can slide into the beam if grey attenuation is needed. 

Plano-convex lenses are used to focus light from the lamps onto the entrance faces of the red and blue liquid light guides.  These "light pipes" then snake down to the cal screen below and inject the light into the SAC.  The pic below shows the argon lamp shining down through the 2 lenses, onto the tip of the blue light guide (centre, bottom).

The cal screen (carbon fibre contraption on the right) rotates in below the hole in M3 (left) and shines light up through the SAC to the instruments whenever calibration frames need to be taken.  One of the liquid light guides (the one optimised for blue light) is visble to the lower right.

Having disconnected the blue light guide, we could see its exit face - glowing here with light from the copper-argon arc lamp up inside the payload.

More than a year & a half since the SAC went back up, it's really cool to get to see M2 again!  Also visible in this shot is the little baffle affectionately known as Blackbeard's Patch, & even the stubborn little piece of yellow duct tape that we couldn't quite reach after M5 was put back in after its wash!

Back down in the kitchen, my new compact camera (that had performed so well during its maiden tracker voyage) was subjected to untold horrors when Keith got hold of it...

Fortunately, there are considerably cuter furry creatures around on site to take photos of!  This is Mongo, a baby grey mongoose that seemed to have been abandoned on Verlatekloof Pass.  Dreading that he/she would get run over if left out there, it was relocated to a safer spot up on the plateau.

On a clear autumn afternoon, it's really not that bad a place to call home!

Night Log 2012-03-27

SA: David
SO: Siphelo
Others: Tim & others for awhile (Lisa, Brent et al.)

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Summary
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Clouds & rain all night.
Cal lamp tests done.

Night Log 2012-03-26

SA: David
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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Summary
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Terrible looking weather in late p.m. but clearing up at sunset. But then clouds came and went all night - very frustrating!

Despite that, did manage to do some science programs:
1. 2011-3-UNC_RSA-002; Moffet
2. 2011-3-UK_OTH-001; Badger
3. 2011-3-RSA_OTH-015; Gilbank (MOS)
4. 2011-3-GU-002; Kollatchny

Then it all went rather pear shaped with the weather, so did some parfocality tests, tried to look at ToO target (2011-3-RSA_UKSC_HET_OTH-001; Maccarone), but only junk through clouds,

Night Log 2012-03-25

SA: David
SO: Siphelo
Others: Brent - for croissants

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Summary
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Weather cleared up by 00:30.

Successful MOS observation for 2011-3-RSA_OTH-015 (Gilbank) of RCS1102.

Attempted 2011-3-RSA_OTH-016 (O'Donoghue), but rho could not be rotated to PIs preferred orientation.

Got a nice set of images of M104 (Sombrero galaxy) for PR (no science programs at the time)

Successful slotmode obs of MAXI J1836-19 ToO for 2011-3-RSA_UKSC_HET_OTH-001 (Maccarone).

Night Log 2012-03-23

SA: David
SO: Siphelo
Others: Chris for a short spell.

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Summary
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Cleared a little at sunset after a cloudy day.

Completed 2011-3-UKSC-003 (Sarre) program.

Then clouds.

Night Log 2012-03-22

SA: David
SO: Siphelo
Others: Paul, Chris & the Pumphouse Gang (Jonathon et al.) for awhile

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Summary
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Frustrating night with clouds theatening to clear, but not.

No useful science data. Some eng testing

Night Log 2012-03-21

SA: David
SO: Siphelo
Others: Paul, Brent for a spell

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Summary
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Night started well with exquisite seeing (0.7"), but not really photometric. It also got steadily worse during the night forcing us to close at 1:30.

Science programs for:
2011-3-RSA_RU_UC_UKSC_OTH-001; Leeuw
2011-3-UW-001; Mosby
2011-3-POL-007; Tomov

Night Log 2012-03-20

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: Paul K., David B., Charl, Deon, David G., Brent

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Summary
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Clouds for an hour in between, otherwise another clear
night with good seeing. Some tech difficulites, some
MOS tests, and science data for:

2011-3-UW-001
2011-3-RSA_RU_UC_UKSC_OTH-001
2011-3-UW_OTH-001
2011-3-RSA_OTH-023

Night Log 2012-03-19

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: Charl, Deon, Martin, David G., Amanda and Jonathan at night

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Summary
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Another perfectly clear night, seeing reasonable at 1.5"
most of the night. An hour lost to tech.issues, and science
taken for:

2011-3-UW-001
2011-3-RSA-019
2011-3-UW_OTH-001
2011-3-RSA-020
2011-3-RSA_OTH-015 (MOS)
2011-3-RSA_OTH-023
2011-3-UW-002 (std)

Night Log 2012-03-18

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: Deon, Charl, Tim-Oliver

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Summary
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Extaordinarily good night - dark, photometric, stable wind,
and seeing between 0.7 and 1.0" all night. And no tech
problems whatsoever. More successful MOS blocks, and
others, data for:

2011-3-UW_OTH-001 (MOS)
2011-3-RSA_OTH-023
2011-3-RSA-019
2011-3-RSA_OTH-015 (MOSx2)
2011-3-RSA_POL_OTH-001
2011-3-UW-002

Night Log 2012-03-17

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: Deon, Charl, Chris

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Summary
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- Clear night first with mediocre seeing, but excellent seeing
towards the end, long periods with 0.5" DIMM seeing.
Some hours lost to technical issues, but got several MOS and LS
blocks done for:

2011-3-RSA_RU_UC_UKSC_OTH-001
2011-3-UW_OTH-001
2011-3-RSA_OTH-015

Night Log 2012-03-16

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: Deon, Charl

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Summary
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- One hour of observations, then hit by clouds and humidity.
Data for:

2011-3-RSA_RU_UC_UKSC_OTH-001
2011-3-UW-003 (standards)

Night Log 2012-03-15

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: Deon, Charl, David G., Sudhansu

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Summary
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- First half lost to rain and clouds, then cleared up,
and spent final hours with MOS and other science.
data for:

2011-3-RSA-019 (MOS)
2011-3-RSA_OTH-015 (MOS)
2011-3-UW-002
and missing standards for
2011-3-UC-003/2011-3-POL-008/2011-3-GU-002

Night Log 2012-03-14

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: Deon, David G.

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Summary
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- Lost night to clouds and rain.

Night Log 2012-03-13

SA: Amanda
SO: Patrick
Others: Petri, Charl, Hitesh, Annette (guest of Derck Smits)

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Summary
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. Clear, gray night.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2011-3-RSA-025
2011-3-UW-001
2011-3-POL-001
20101-RSA_UKSC_GU-001
2011-3-POL-007
2011-3-POL-008 x2
2011-3-GU-002
2011-3-UC-003
2010-1-RSA_OTH-001

standard stars: 2011-3-RSA-022, 2011-3-GU-002, 2011-3-POL-007, 2011-3-POL-001, 2010-RSA_UKSC_GU-001, 2011-3-UC-003, 2010-1-RSA_OTH-001

Night Log 2012-03-12

SA: Amanda
SO: Patrick
Others: Hitesh, Charl, Jonathan, Denville

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Summary
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. Clear, bright-gray night.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2011-3-RSA-025 (MOS attempt, shortened science exposure)
2010-1-POL-004
2011-3-POL-005
2011-3-POL-001
2011-3-RSA-022
2011-3-RSA-023
2011-3-GU-002
2011-3-POL-007
2011-3-GU-001

standard stars: 2011-3-POL-001, 2011-3-RSA-025, 2011-3-UW-002, 2011-3-RSA-023, 2011-3-POL-005, 2010-1-POL-004

Night Log 2012-03-10

SA: Amanda
SO: Patrick
Others: Eric, Amanda, Chris

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Summary
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. Bright night (90% moon), closed before midnight due to high humidity (plus high wind and then clouds).

. Data taken for the following progams:
2010-1-RSA_OTH-013
2011-3-POL-005
2011-3RSA-019 (MOS testing)

std. stars: 2011-3-RSA-025, 2011-3-POL-001, 2011-3-RSA_UKSC-002, 2011-3-POL-006

Night Log 2012-03-09

SA: Amanda
SO: Patrick
Others: Amanda

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Summary
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. Bright night (96% moon). Closed ~1.5 hours before morning twilight due to high humidity.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2011-3-RSA-025 - actual MOS spectra, yahoo!
2011-3-POL-006
2011-3-POL-001
2010-RSA_OTH-013 (x2)
2011-3-POL-005 (x2)
2011-3-RSA_UKSC-002
2011-3-POL-007
ENG_SCAM (non-sidereal tracking tests)

Night Log 2012-03-08

SA: Amanda
SO: Patrick
Others: Janus, Amanda, Deon, Chris Engelbrecht, Jonathan, Deneys (remotely)

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Summary
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. Clear, bright night (99% moon) with clouds on horizons.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2011-3-RSA-025 (MOS commissioning)
2011-3-RSA-019 (MOS commissioning)
2011-3-POL-005
2010-1-RSA_OTH_IUCAA-001
2011-3-RSA_OTH-016 (x2)
SCAM guiding

Night Log 2012-03-07

SA: Amanda
SO: Patrick
Others: Janus, Charl, Amanda, Chris

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Summary
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. Bright night (100% moon) with variable seeing and some techincal problems.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2011-3-RSA-019 (MOS testing x 2)
2011-3-RSA-025 (MOS testing)
2011-3-POL-007
2011-3-RSA_OTH-016 x 2
ENG_SCAM (non-sidereal tracking)

Night Log 2012-03-06

SA: Nic
SO: Siphelo
Others: Charl, Deon, Janus, Amanda

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Summary
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Clear night.

Completed some auto-focus engineering tests. Auto-focus is working :)

Data for
2011-3-RSA_UKSC-002
2011-3-RSA_OTH-002
2011-3-POL-008

Night Log 2012-03-05

SA: Nic
SO: Siphelo
Others: Charl, Deon, Janus

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Summary
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Clear night initially, closed early due to humidity.

Completed pellicle / fold mirror mapping engineering tests.

Data taken for programmes:
2011-03-POL-001
2011-03-POL-005

Night Log 2012-03-04

SA: Nic
SO: Siphelo
Others: Charl & Deon

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Clear night, variable seeing. Closed early at 23.15 due to humidity.

Data for
-2011-3-RU-015

Night Log 2012-03-03

SA: Nic
SO: Siphelo
Others: Deon, Charl, Eben

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Summary
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Mostly clear and dry night.

Data taken for
2011-3-POL-008

Technical issues with:
-mirror alignment
-scam saturation
-guide probe movement
-interferometer

Night Log 2012-03-02

SA: Nic
SO: Siphelo
Others: Charl

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Summary
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Clear, grey / dark night. Good seeing.

Data for
2011-3-UW-002 - one block accepted, one rejected.
2011-3-RU-015
2011-3-RSA_OTH-003
2011-3-RSA_UKSC-002
2011-3-RSA_OTH-002
2011-3-RSA_OTH-023 - incomplete block, rejected - hit morning!

Night Log 2012-03-01

SA: Nic
SO: Siphelo
Others: Steve C, Charl, Yari, Marna (journalist)+co.

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Clear, dry night with good seeing.

Completed MOS comissioning tests for Petri.

Data for programmes: 2011-3-RSA-006, incomplete block for 2011-3-POL-007, rejected it.

Night Log 2012-02-29

SA: Nic
SO: Siphelo
Others: Steve C, Charl, Jari

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Poor weather tonight resulted in us closing for several hours. Closed between 22.30 and 03.00.

MOS testing.
Science data taken for 2011-3-POL-006, 2011-3-POL-007

Review of 2012-1 Proposals

Over 147 proposals were submitted for the recently closed call for the first semester of 2012 .  The first one in was by SALT Astronomer Alexei Kniazev and the last one in was by SALT Board President Ted Williams from Rutgers University.   A total of 1588 hours were requested from 950 available hours.  Over 102 different Principle Investigators submitted proposals from 33 different institutes, including 7 different South African institutes. 

There were 134 proposals requesting RSS observations and 22 requesting SALTICAM 

observations.  Over 167 different RSS configurations were requested:  2 Imaging, 8 Fabry-Perot, 

23 Multi-Object Spectroscopy, and 134 long slit configurations.    In these proposals, a wide range of

different objects are targeted including  568 different galaxies, 524 stars, 27 comets,  54 planetary 

nebula, 18 emission line nebula, 16 clusters of galaxies, and 7 objects of unknown nature. 

The proposals are currently under technical review by the SALT staff.   They will then move to the 
telescope allocation committees at each partner for scientific review.   The allocations of times 
should be announced around the 1st of April with the next semester starting on 1st May.