SALT Astronomy

Night Log 2012-02-10

2012-02-11T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Siphelo
Others: Charl at the beginning, Eben to help with the dome shutter. Amanda and Elizabeth for a visit.

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Summary
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Night lost due to a problem with the dome shutter.

Night Log 2012-02-09

2012-02-10T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Siphelo
Others: Jari. Deon and Charl at the beginning. Francois came up to help with CCAS issues.

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Summary
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Clear night with SW wind and moderate seeing. Closed due to humidity at 03:14 SAST

Engineering data for RSS_POINT

Science data for:
2011-3-POL-001
2011-3-RSA_OTH-016

Night Log 2012-02-08

2012-02-09T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Siphelo
Others: Jari filming away. Deon and Francois at the beginning

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Summary
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Nice, clear night to begin with with mediocre, variable seeing. Ridge cloud forced us to close at 00:56

Commissioning data for ENG_RSS, ENG_POINT

Some science data for 2011-3-RSA-006

Night Log 2012-02-07

2012-02-08T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: erc, deon, jari

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Summary
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most of the night lost to clouds with rain showers lurking about at the beginning and end. cleared a bit in the wee hours and managed to sneak in some fabry-perot imaging for 2011-3-RSA_RU_IUCAA-001. want to try some closed loop offset tests after that, but thick clouds rolled in and threatened rain.

Night Log 2012-02-06

2012-02-07T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others:

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Summary
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entire night lost to clouds and scattered showers and t-storms lurking about. wanted to try again to calibrate the 5900-6100 region for F-P, but the LR etalon was way off its expected calibration (~25 A) and MR was as well, but to a lesser extent.

Night Log 2012-02-05

2012-02-06T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: deon

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Summary
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smooth, clear, dry, photometric night with decent seeing. got data for the following programs:

2011-3-DC_RSA-001
2011-3-UW-008
2011-3-POL-002
2011-3-RSA-003
2011-3-RSA_RU_IUCAA-001
2011-3-UNC-008

only issue of note was the LR etalon not acting very stable in the blue. worked ok later at H-alpha, though. no problems with the telescope or other systems.

congrats to the super bowl champion new york giants!

Night Log 2012-02-04

2012-02-05T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: amanda, charl, eben

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Summary
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got some RSS twilight flats with rho=0 and then a quick spectrum of a SN for 2011-3-DC_RSA-001. night otherwise lost to autocollimator issues and high humidity. kudos to the crew who showed up and spent their saturday night sorting out the autocollimator and then the shutter that wouldn't close.

Night Log 2012-02-03

2012-02-04T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: charl, keith, amanda, paul r, lisa

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Summary
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entire night lost to humidity and fog. day crew worked late to sort out fibre and media converter issues. worked on F-P analysis scripts and took some test data. LR calibration tested down to 4600 and works fine. tried to get calibration for 5900 region.

Night Log 2012-02-02

2012-02-03T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others:

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Summary
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entire night lost to rain and fog. did a bit of closed-dome fabry-perot testing.

Night Log 2012-02-01

2012-02-02T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: lisa, steve p

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Summary
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work on RSS throughput testing during first half of night. this prevented any telescope or instrument operations. night would have been completely lost to humidity and cloud, anyway.

Night Log 2012-01-31

2012-02-01T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Zolisa
Others: Tim, Patrick

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Summary
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=> Whole night with rain, clouds and high humidity. No observations.

Night Log 2012-01-30

2012-01-31T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Zolisa
Others: Charl to help with CCAS computer problem

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Summary
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=> Unstable night with clouds all the night and rising humidity.
Finally we were closed by humidity.

=> Data were taken for the following programs:
2011-3-RSA-020
2011-3-RSA-003
2011-3-POL-001
2011-3-POL-005 (2)

Night Log 2012-01-29

2012-01-30T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Zolisa
Others:

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Summary
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=> Clear night with stable seeing and very low humidity

=> Data were taken for the following programs:
2011-3-RSA-003
2011-3-RSA_OTH-003
2011-3-POL-006 (2)
2011-3-RSA_OTH-026
2011-3-UW-001
2011-3-RSA_IUCAA_OTH-001
2011-3-UNC-002

Night Log 2012-01-28

2012-01-29T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Zolisa
Others:

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Summary
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=> One more clear night with good conditions, but variable seeing.

=> Data were taken for the following programs:
2011-3-RSA_OTH-012
2011-3-UW_OTH-002
2011-3-UNC-007
2011-3-UW-002
2011-3-RSA_IUCAA_OTH-001
2011-3-RSA-003
2011-3-RSA-029

Night Log 2012-01-27

2012-01-28T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Zolisa
Others:

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Summary
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=> Clear night with nice conditions at the beginning.
Humidity rised later and we were closed.

=> Data taken for the following programs:
2011-3-UNC-007
2011-3-RSA_IUCAA_OTH-001
2011-3-RSA-003

Night Log 2012-01-26

2012-01-27T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Zolisa
Others:

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Summary
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=> Another dark night with good conditions

=> Data taken for the following programs:
2011-3-GU-003
2011-3-POL-006
2011-3-RSA_OTH-026
2011-3-RSA-029

Night Log 2012-01-25

2012-01-26T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Zolisa
Others:

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Summary
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=> Clear, dark, photometric night

=> Data taken for the following programs:
2011-3-DC-005
2011-3-UW_OTH-002
2011-3-RSA_OTH-026
2011-3-UNC_RSA-002

Night Log 2012-01-24

2012-01-25T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Alexei, Amanda, Keith, Hamish, Eben, Zolisa, Martin, Ben & Albert (from town)

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Summary
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. Closed an hour after twilight end because of high humidity. Some engineering data taken (pellicle alignment and slotmode timing tests).

Night Log 2012-01-23

2012-01-24T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Amanda, Hannah

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Summary
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. Dark time with thin clouds; closed at midnight due to high humidity.

. Data attempted for the following programs:
2011-3-RU-006
2011-3-UW_OTH-002
2011-3-RSA_OTH-026
2011-2-UW_RSA-002

Night Log 2012-01-22

2012-01-23T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Amanda, Keith

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Summary
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. Clear, dark, non-photometric night.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2011-3-RSA-003 (std. star)
2011-3-POL-007 (std. star and flats)
2011-3-UW-002
2011-3-RSA_OTH-026
2011-3-UW-001

Night Log 2012-01-21

2012-01-22T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Jonathan, Eben, Amanda, Keith

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Summary
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. The atypically bad weather continues. Did not open due to clouds and high humidity.

2012 Semester 1 Call for Proposals

2012-01-21T15:06:00.000+02:00

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to inform you that we are now accepting SALT Phase 1
proposals for the period 1 May - 31 Oct 2012 (2012 Semester 1). The
Phase 1 proposal deadline will be Friday 17 Feb at 18:00 SAST
(corresponding to 16:00 UTC). Please note that this proposal call is
for both SALTICAM and RSS, but with some modes (primarily MOS) still
on a "best efforts" basis (i.e. no guarantees regarding performance
or completion) or are not available at all (e.g. all polarimetric modes).

We have produced a comprehensive information document for all proposers
where we have attempted to update the current performance status of the
telescope and instruments. In addition the PIPT Simulation tools have
also been revised to reflect the current actual performance of the
instruments, as determined from commissioning and 2011 Semester 2
observations. Additional information and links to relevant webpages or
documents are also included to assist proposers in writing their Phase 1
applications.

The review process is due to be completed by 30 March, at which point
proposers will be informed of the results of their applications. Those
successful applicants will then have ~4 weeks to complete their detailed
Phase 2 proposals in time for the beginning of the Semester (deadline 27
April).

Please submit your proposal via the SALT Principal Investigator Proposal
Tool (PIPT). Instructions, software, and other information about
proposing for SALT can be found on the SALT website.

Call for Proposals, including link to information document:
http://www.salt.ac.za/observing/2012-semester-1-call-for-proposals/

Instructions for submitting your proposal:
http://www.salt.ac.za/observing/proposing-for-salt-observations/phase-i-proposal-instructions/

Download the PIPT software:
https://www.salt.ac.za/wm/

All questions regarding this proposal call should be address to
salthelp(at)salt.ac.za

Sincerely,

David Buckley
SALT Astronomy Operations Manager on behalf of the SALT Astronomy
Operations Team

Night Log 2012-01-20

2012-01-21T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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Summary
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. Cloudy and high humidity. Did not open.

Night Log 2012-01-19

2012-01-20T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Steve C., Keith

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Summary
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. Mostly cloudy night with high humidity, never opened.

. Data taken for LED dome lighting tests, some engineering.

Observing the BBC

2012-01-20T01:04:00.001+02:00

The BBC filmed live at SALT for their Stargazing program from Jan 16-18. The crew has just departed after two weeks of preparation, filming set positions in town and on the plateau, and finally producing the live segments from Sutherland. Many members of SAAO and SALT helped out with many of the different phases of the production, from appearing on the show to helping set up the observations to sharing some traditional South African traditions with the BBC crew.

But as the crew filmed us, Chris Coetzee and David Gilbank recorded the film crew at work. Some of the highlights are below:

Alice preparing Petri for his segment

The spectrograph room taken over by the BBC team

Chris and Vivia directing the next shot

Watching the BBC team in action

The control room turned into a tv set

Shortly before going live with the Galaxy Boys

Greg getting ready for his next shot

No stay in Sutherland would be complete without a braai!

Liz and Petri discussing some of the finer features of the Southern night sky

Lightning up the skies

2012-01-20T01:03:00.000+02:00

After over two weeks of beautiful weather and clear skies, a major thunderstorm rolled into Sutherland just before the start of the BBC live program. Our own Anthony Koelsag and David Gilbank took some amazing shots of this massive storm during sunset. Here are two of them

Night Log 2012-01-18

2012-01-19T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Petri (as half-duty SA), Steve, Chris, Anthony, Janus, Keith, Amanda, Eben, BBC+++

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Summary
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. Cloudy and partly rainy night. Opened briefly, then closed. Opened again later for roughly an hour and then closed again.

. Data attempted for 2011-3-RSA-003, but not completed due to loss of signal.

. Final night of filming for the BBC Stargazing Live. Thanks to the locals for their support and to the BBC crew for their enthusiastic and positive presence. Congrats to everyone for making Sutherland look great and making astronomy accessible and exciting!

Night Log 2012-01-17

2012-01-18T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: fullest house yet

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Summary
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- Whole night lost to rain and clouds, apart from some
high-octane live tv. No science data taken.

Night Log 2012-01-16

2012-01-17T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: David B., Keith, Chris, Janus, Anthony, Jonathan, Grant, Charlotte, Thebe, BBC x N

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Summary
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- Spectacular thunder storm in the beginning, then
live TV, then cleared up for couple of hours before
clouding up again.

- Science data for:
2011-3-POL-007
2011-3-RSA-003

Live on the BBC

2012-01-16T23:30:00.001+02:00

SALT is taking part in the Stargazing program on the BBC and segments on Viewing the Southern Sky, Galaxies, and Exoplanets will be filmed, live, here at SAAO. They have changed the control room into a tv studio and transformed a number of the SALT staff into stars (pun intended). The segments will air, on BBC2 at 20:00 on 16-18 Jan and also freely available in the UK on the BBC website.

(Photo courtesy of David Gilbank)

Night Log 2012-01-15

2012-01-16T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: David B., David G., Keith, Chris, Charlotte, BBC x N

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Summary
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- Another photometric night with variable seeing, saw both
1" and 5". BBC film crew all over the place here: if you're in
the UK, watch the Stargazing Live, Monday, Tuesday, Wed,
at 8 or 8.30pm BST.

- Power failures, otherwise all right, and science data for:
2011-3-DC-005
2011-3-UW_OTH-002
2011-3-RSA-006
2011-3-RSA-003

Night Log 2012-01-14

2012-01-15T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: David G., BBC x 12

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Summary
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- Beautiful pbotometric night, but seeing all over the place.
And humidity ended it all at 1am..

Science data for:
2011-3-RSA_OTH-003
2011-3-RSA_OTH-006
2010-1-RSA_OTH-002

Night Log 2012-01-13

2012-01-14T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: David G.

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Summary
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- Fairly good night weatherwise, but had a string of technical
difficulties resulting in in-efficient and lost time.

Science data for:
2011-3-RSA-017
2011-3-RSA-022
2011-3-UW_OTH-003

Night Log 2012-01-12

2012-01-13T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: David G.

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Summary
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- Cloudy beginning, but cleared up before mid-night. Science data for:
2011-3-UW_OTH-003
2011-3-RSA-029

Night Log 2012-01-11

2012-01-12T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others:

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Summary
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- Stable warm clear night, with ok to good seeing. Science for:

2011-3-POL-001
2011-3-POL-006
and spec.phot.std stars for three others as too.

Night Log 2012-01-10

2012-01-11T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Zolisa
Others: Petri, David Gilbank. Alice Jones briefly to set up her camera in the dome.

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Summary
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Night started cloudy, cleared around 10pm and then ridge cloud forced us to close at around 1am.

Science data for:
2011-3-RSA-020
2011-3-POL-005
2011-3-POL-006

Flats for:
2011-3-UW-002

Night Log 2012-01-09

2012-01-10T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others: Charl, Dave C and Peter at the beginning of the night. Alice and Dave from the BBC and Robert from the IRSF for a quick tour after we closed.

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Summary
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Clear, bad seeing night. Closed up early due to humidity.

RSS still unavailable tonight.

Science data for:
2011-3-RSA-022

SALT at the AAS

2012-01-09T18:59:00.001+02:00

SALT has a booth at the AAS! If you are in Austin, please stop by booth #135 and say hi!

Night Log 2012-01-08

2012-01-09T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others:

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Summary
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Clear, photometric night with variable seeing.

RSS not available tonight, SALTICAM data only.

Science data for:
2011-2-UW_RU-002
2011-2-RSA-001
2011-3-RSA_OTH-016

Night Log 2012-01-07

2012-01-08T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others: Charl at the beginning of the night

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Summary
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What started as a gorgeous photometrick night with decent seeing, deteriorated to atrocious seeing from before midnight.

Open loop tracking engineering data for
ENG_POINT

Science data for:

2011-3-RSA-017
2011-3-POL-005
2011-3-POL-006

Night Log 2012-01-06

2012-01-07T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others: Charl at the beginning to do final inspections and check for trouble.

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Summary
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Beautiful night with very thin cirrus.

Engineering data for:
ENG_ADC

Science data for:
2011-3-POL-006
2011-3-RSA-022
2011-3-POL-001
2011-3-POL-003

Night Log 2012-01-05

2012-01-06T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others:

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Summary
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Beautiful, clear night.
Telescope offline tonight due to cooling system repairs.

Night Log 2012-01-04

2012-01-05T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others: Charl, Johan, Amanda, Trilling, Vik, Keith, Chris, Lisa.

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Summary
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Night lost due to glycol burst.

Night Log 2012-01-03

2012-01-04T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Zolisa
Others: keith, encarni, charl

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Summary
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entire night lost to a glycol leak. thick cirrus for much of the time so didn't miss out on too much. able to show ERC some of the fabry-perot ropes before having to shut PDET down.

Night Log 2012-01-02

2012-01-03T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Zolisa
Others: keith

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Summary
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another full and productive night, this time in spite of high winds and passing cirrus. variable seeing once again with ~1" seeing early and again late with a bout of 3" around midnight. got data for the following programs:

2011-3-UKSC_RSA-003
2011-3-POL-007
2011-3-RSA_UKSC-006
2011-3-POL-005
2011-3-POL-001
2011-3-UW-001

Night Log 2012-01-01

2012-01-02T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Zolisa
Others:

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Summary
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steady, dry(!) night with some wind and clouds for a time. humidity actually lower when we closed than when we opened which may be a first for this time of year. variable, but mostly decent seeing with periods of very good seeing. tweaked the pointing model some more and consistently had objects come up within 5-7" of the RSS slit which makes setting up observations a WHOLE lot easier. got data for the following programs:

2011-3-RSA-020
2011-3-RSA_OTH-006
2011-3-POL-007
2011-3-POL-003
2011-3-RSA_OTH-026
2011-3-UW-001
2011-3-RSA_OTH-023

go packers!

Night Log 2011-12-31

2012-01-01T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Zolisa
Others: vic, keith, charl

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Summary
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a dry, slightly cirrusy, steady night with highly variable seeing. the big achievement was fixing the pointing model finally. there's still room for a bit of improvment, but we're now consistently within 20" in our open loop pointing and much of the error appears to be a constant elevation offset. will tweak that out and implement for tomorrow night.

some technical problems cost part of the first half, but got some data for 2011-3-DC-005 and 2011-3-RSA_IUCAA_OTH-011 in the 2nd half. also got some pointing data to check my work.

Night Log 2011-12-30

2011-12-31T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Zolisa
Others:

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Summary
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another full, photometric night of observing. very poor seeing at the beginning, a spell of very good seeing in the middle, and then average to mediocre seeing at the end. attempted observations for 2011-3-RSA_OTH-003 and 2011-2-RSA_OTH-026 and successfully got data for:

2011-3-POL-005
2011-3-RSA_IUCAA_OTH_UKSC-001
2011-3-UW-001
2011-3-UW-008

Night Log 2011-12-29

2011-12-30T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Zolisa
Others: charl, keith

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Summary
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beautiful summer night. warm, dry, and photometric with excellent seeing for the first few hours and at times later. poor seeing in middle of night as wind shifted around. got data for the following programs:

2011-3-RU-003
2011-3-RU-006
2011-3-RSA_IUCAA_OTH_UKSC-001
2011-3-DC-005

Night Log 2011-12-28

2011-12-29T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Zolisa
Others: charl

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Summary
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observed first 3/4 of night with clear skies and mediocre to decent seeing. acquired pointing data during evening twilight and then carried out fabry-perot observations most of the night. observed four galaxies for 2011-3-RU-003 though the fourth was beset by somewhat poor IQ. we didn't have time to fix that in the race against the humidity that eventually closed us up for the last 1/4 of the night. also attempted observations for 2011-3-RSA_OTH-026.

Night Log 2011-12-26

2011-12-27T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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Summary
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=> Clear night with nice seeing during the first half of the night.
It jumps up after midnight, when wind turns to SE direction.
After that we were closed by humidity fast enough.

=> Science data for:
2011-3-DC-005
2011-3-RSA_IUCAA_OTH-001

Night Log 2011-12-25

2011-12-26T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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Summary
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=> Clear night with high humidity. Were need to close about midnight,
but continue later.

=> Science data for:
2011-3-RSA_OTH-001
2011-3-UW-001

Night Log 2011-12-24

2011-12-25T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Amanda, Johan

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Summary
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=> Clear night with bad seeing.
Were closed by humidity.

=> Science data for:

2011-3-UW-010
2011-3-RSA_IUCAA_OTH-001

Night Log 2011-12-23

2011-12-24T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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Summary
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=> Started with clear sky, but were closed about midnight with high humidity
and heavy clouds.

=> Science data for:
2011-3-UW-010
2011-3-RSA-029

Night Log 2011-12-22

2011-12-23T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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Summary
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=> Started cloudy, cleared later, but humidity forced us to close at 23:00

=> Spectrophotometric standard observations for data taken in previous night

=> Some science data for 2011-RSA_OTH-001

Comet Lovejoy

2011-12-22T10:58:00.002+02:00

Comet Lovejoy passed within 140,000 km of the sun's surface on December 16 and has not only survived, but is putting on an amazing show in the southern sky. If weather permits, be sure to set your alarm for 0300 so you can get a view of it rising in the SE. The SAAO sky camera will be viewing it every clear night and we'll be posting time lapse videos of it daily. Here's the first view from the morning of December 22:

Night Log 2011-12-21

2011-12-22T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Amanda and Jonathan to help with tracker

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Summary
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=> Clear night with variable seeing

=> Science data for:
2011-3-IUCAA-005
2011-3-RU-001
2011-3-RSA_OTH-023
2011-3-UW-001

Night Log 2011-12-20

2011-12-21T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others: Alexei all night long. Charl and Johan to help with tracker.

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Summary
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Clear, stable night.

Engineering data for:
ENG_ADC
ENG_FP

Science data for:
2011-2-RSA_OTH_UKSC-001
2011-3-IUCAA-006
2011-3-UW-010
2011-3-RSA_OTH-026

Night Log 2011-12-19

2011-12-20T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others: BVIT team Barry and Jason via skype and teamviewer, Charl to fix the tracker and BVIT.

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Summary
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Started cloudy, cleared later to horrible seeing 3-5" and humidity forcing us to close at ~2am.

Engineering data for
ENG_FT

Science data for:

2011-3-RSA_OTH-006
2011-3-POL-005
2011-3-RSA-008

Night Log 2011-12-18

2011-12-19T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others:

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Summary
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Irritatingly partly cloudy night, kept us opening and closing. Clouds finally departed in time for supernova observation at the end of the night. Phew!

Science for:
2011-3-RSA_OTH-009
2011-3-POL-005
2011-3-DC_RSA-001

Night Log 2011-12-17

2011-12-18T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others:

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Summary
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Clear, photometric, warm night.

Engineering data for:
ENG_GEOM
ENG_ADC

Science data for:
2011-3-IUCAA-001
2011-3-UW-001
2011-3-POL-006

Night Log 2011-12-16

2011-12-17T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others: Charl, Peter at various times.

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Summary
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Clear night, with variable seeing 1-1.5ish. Plagued with technical problems though.

Engineering data for ENG_GEOM

Science data for:

2011-2 -RSA_OTH_UKSC-001 (BVIT)
2011-3-POL-007

Night Log 2011-12-15

2011-12-16T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others:

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

Warm weather, clear skies, stable night. Suddenly back in summer! :)

Science data for:
2011-3-RSA_OTH-009
2011-3-POL-007
2011-3-RSA-014
2011-3-UKSC_RSA-002
2011-3-POL-001

Night Log 2011-12-14

2011-12-15T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Encarni
SO: Patrick
Others: Nic remotely from CT office helping with FP.

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

* No observations tonight - cloudy with high winds at the beginning of the night, high humidity afterwards.

* Some engineering data ENG_FP throughput on MR only (with polarizer)

Night Log 2011-12-12

2011-12-13T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Janus, Eben, Chris

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

. First night after engineering time. Some hardware issues at start, then clouds became too thick to observe around midnight. Only commissioning data were taken.

. Data taken for
ENG_RSS (DOD & Ken alignment tests)
2011-2-RSA_OTH_UKSC-001 (BVIT alignment test)

Night Log 2011-12-08

2011-12-09T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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

Engineering week. Telescope unavailable.

Night Log 2011-12-07

2011-12-08T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Keith

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

Engineering work Telescope unavailable tonight. (Humidity would have killed us early in the night anyway!)

Night Log 2011-12-06

2011-12-07T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: Amanda

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

- Another clear, bright, stable decent seeing night. Spent
it doing various on-sky commissioning tests from guidance
to MOS and throughput. Only one science block done, for:
2011-3-UKSC_RSA-002

Night Log 2011-12-05

2011-12-06T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others:

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

- Stable clear dry night with excellent seeing. Bright Moon,
most of the night spent on guidance and tracking related
on-sky commissioning tests. After that science data for:
2011-3-RU-015

Night Log 2011-12-04

2011-12-05T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: Stephen

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

- Humidity was low for a change. But still lost the night,
to clouds this time.

Night Log 2011-12-03

2011-12-04T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others:

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

- Two thirds a photometric night with terrible seeing, closed due
to humidity for last hours. Science data for bright and/or fuzzy
objects:
2011-3-RSA_OTH-010
2011-3-UC-003
2011-3-RSA_IUCAA_OTH-001

Technically, it's a good kind of boring!

2011-12-03T22:09:00.006+02:00

With things running fairly routinely up at SALT most nights, there really isn't much to blog about these days... That's exactly the kind of of "boring" we've been waiting for so all I can offer is this rather serene shot of the telescope taking evening twilight flat fields a few days ago.

However, that's not to say that all's quiet as far as the Tech Ops team goes. Here's Charl sporting his certificate that declares him to be one of the Sutherland Golf Club's Top 5 players for 2011 - Go Charl!!

& last weekend Eben arranged a fishing weekend for the gang at Infanta, at the mouth of the Breede River (thanks to Keith for providing some photos!).

Although some good ones got away (Of Course), it seems these guys aren't just pretty faces afterall!

Meanwhile, those that stayed behind on the hill for standby duties worked on other projects during their spare time. Here's Hitesh & Hannah's daughter, Tigger, inspecting progress on Dad's latest electric bike endeavour.

Over on the southern end of the plateau the Polish crew of Piotr, Stan & Milena are working tirelessly on the installation & integration of the new robotic telescopes for the Solaris project.

For obvious reasons, these 2 are affectionately known as the PacMan telescopes :) We look forward to seeing them chomping away at the southern sky in the near future!

& here we have proof of the direct benefits of installing numerous robotic telescopes on the hilltop. SuperWASP South in particular is positively impacting the quality of life of the local community :)

Arcoss the plateau, at the 1.9-m, we were doing battle with the re-alignment of the fibre for GIRAFFE (the SAAO's fibre-fed échelle spectrograph). Some of the old hardware was spruced up as best we could & a few new bits were installed to improve the user- & technician-friendliness of this instrument.

Following days of epic frustration, profound tedium & a debilitating case of "GIRAFFE neck", we eventually got the exposure-meter readings up from half a million to 3.5 million counts per second, at which point we declared victory & assumed an air of learned smuggery.

To undo some of the damage sustained by spending days huddled in the dark (making minute adjustments to various fiddly stage assemblies via walkie-talkie feedback), we went off to visit the cracked rock down the eastern side of the hill.

One can't help imagining aliens having popped out shortly after this thing "landed"...

It's quite a good size for a space ship really.

& makes for a wonderful photographic subject!

During the course of our walk we were treated to plenty of kestrel aerobatics - the one below was particularly vocal about us daring to walk along her cliff!

The pair of black eagles also graced us with a couple of flybys :)

On the subject of raptors... Francois & family have been taking care of an injured pale chanting goshawk that they've named Orion.

The shade cloth enclosure surrounding the SLODAR telescope (which is used to characterise the vertical profile of atmospheric turbulence) proved an ideal hospital room as the patient could be contained outdoors, but remain safe from predators (& cars!).

He was well fed during his stay with the Strumpfers & might even have developed a taste for ultra-rare Karoo boerewors!

Unfortunately the irreparable damage to his left shoulder will prevent him from flying again, but the guys at Eagle Encounters - the raptor rehab centre at the Spier wine estage in Stellenbosch - are hopeful that he may be placed in a breeding programme. Given that he's estimated to be at least 7 years old, it'd be a good idea to try to pass on such good genes!

Night Log 2011-12-02

2011-12-03T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: Jonathan

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

- Almost full night lost to humidity and clouds. Did various
non-sky commissioning tests

Night Log 2011-12-01

2011-12-02T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others:

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

- Half of night lost to cloud and humidity, seeing was great in the beginning.
In addition to calibrations and commissioning, got one science observation for:
2011-3-DC_RSA-001

Night Log 2011-11-30

2011-12-01T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Petri
SO: Zolisa
Others: Charl

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

- Most of the night lost to humidity. Some commissioning tests done,
battled with early tech.issues, and then got science for:
2011-3-RSA_OTH-003

Night Log 2011-11-29

2011-11-30T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Siphelo
Others: petri, sudhanshu, zolisa

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

clear dry night with light passing cirrus and variable seeing ranging from 1" to 2.5". observed CAL_SPST in both evening and morning twilight and got data for several science programs. these included:

2011-3-UNC_RSA_RU-001
2011-3-RU-015
2011-3-RU-007
2011-2-DC-005
2011-3-POL-007
2011-3-RSA_IUCAA_OTH-001
2011-3-RSA_OTH-023

Night Log 2011-11-28

2011-11-29T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others:

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

dry cirrusy night with variable seeing. acquired science data will working on ox wagon automation software. collected data for the following programs:

2011-3-UNC_RSA_RU-001
2011-3-RSA_IUCAA_OTH-001
2011-3-DC-005
2011-3-RSA_OTH-023

as well as some CAL_SPST data for 2011-3-RSA_OTH-010 and 2011-3-DC_RSA-001.

Night Log 2011-11-27

2011-11-28T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others:

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

windy, poor seeing, and humid. managed to squeeze in some science observations for 2011-3-RSA_OTH-008 and 2011-3-RSA_OTH-010 in spite of all that. in fact, a grand total of 1838 images.

Night Log 2011-11-26

2011-11-27T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: hitesh

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

clouds all night and high humidity closed us up by midnight. when we were able to observe the seeing was awful, >2.5" and >4" at times. managed to get some spec phot data as well as pointing data in spite of all that.

Night Log 2011-11-25

2011-11-26T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: hitesh

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

all science just about all night. clear, photometric, but with highly variable seeing. acquired data for the following programs:

2011-3-RSA-017
2011-3-UW_OTH-002
2011-3-IUCAA-005
2011-3-UNC_RSA_RU-001

also got some ENG_RSS to look at near-IR flats while doing an alignment and ENG_POINT during evening twilight to verify the changes hitesh made to the tracker config. the pointing is much better now. if anything objects were sometimes too centered on salticam and were sometimes hidden in the gap.

Night Log 2011-11-24

2011-11-25T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: darragh

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

worked on getting some new pointing data as well as some dark sky flats to check the effect of removing the M3 baffle. the initial impression of the pointing data is good in the sense that the star came up in the field every time, though always at the top or top-right quadrant. some static az/el offsets will help considerably. there is also a significant cylical component as a function of azimuth as has been observed previously.

humidity closed us up at 1 AM and the rest of the night was lost.

Night Log 2011-11-23

2011-11-24T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Tim
SO: Patrick
Others: darragh

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

entire night lost to rain, cloud, and humidity. did closed dome tests to help characterize the behavior of the fringing in RSS redward of 7500 A. it appears to be repeatible after changes in RSS (e.g. park all and then reconfigure). it also appears to be repeatible after changes in rho, though it is strongly rho-dependent. will look at the data more closely tomorrow.

Night Log 2011-11-22

2011-11-23T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Zolisa
Others: David, Darragh, Petri, Tim and the day crew

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

=> Very nice weather during the night.

=> Many tracker test from the evening.

=> Science observations for the rest of the night.
Science data where taken for
2011-3-RSA_OTH-008
2011-3-RSA_OTH-001
2011-3-DC-005
2011-3-POL-006

Night Log 2011-11-21

2011-11-22T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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

=> All night lost to high humidity

=> Some tracker tests from the evening before closed by humidity

Celebrating the start of full Science Operations!

2011-11-21T23:37:00.012+02:00

Apologies for the delay, but a holiday that excluded internet access prevented me posting the pics from this exciting event which took place up at SALT on Monday 7 November 2011.

As for Ockert's wedding, the crew cleaned up amazingly well for the big day & the only regret is that with everyone running around attending to last-minute preparations, we failed to get the whole team together for a photo. Here are a few of them that I managed to get to stand still for a few seconds...

Here are some of the more conscientious objectors that Chris didn't send home to smarten up ;)

Before the buses arrived from Cape Town, there was time for our distinguished guests from Rutgers University (Prof Ted Williams, Chairman of the SALT Board & Prof Kathryn Uhrich, the Dean of Math & Physical Sciences) to polish up their routine :)

First to show up were the school kids from Sutherland who were to entertain us with their enthusiastic singing of the national anthem & a number of other songs.

Next were the 2 buses from Cape Town bearing the rest of the SALT Board & members of staff from SAAO & SALT.

All the other dignitaries, with appropriate levels of security, made it safely too...

The ushers were strategically stationed to meet the crowd.

& here's one of the superheroes making his way through the guard of honour :)

Entry into the dome was via the side door to the observing floor.

Much chattering & shuffling around as everyone took up their seats.

Master of Ceremonies for the day was the President & CEO of the National Research Foundation (NRF), Dr Albert van Jaarsveld.

Rousing speeches were given by SAAO's Acting Director, Prof Patricia Whitelock...

Prof Ted Williams representing the SALT Board....

Dr Val Munsami, Deputy Director-general for Research, Development & Innovation within the Department of Science & Technology (DST)...

& Ms Grizelda Cjiekella, Acting Premier of the Northern Cape.

With the speeches concluded, it was time to unveil the event's comemorative plaque.

Big smiles all around!

This momento will have pride of place downstairs in the visitors' gallery.

Finally, it was time for SALT to speak for itself... All the audio-visual equipment was removed to allow safe rotation of the telescope structure & the dome was rotated in the opposite direction to maximise the theatrics!

But not before a word of warning from Tech Ops Manager Chris Coetzee (seen here doing his best impersonation of a politician) regarding the potentially startling sound effects that were to follow...

Even for those that've seen all this before, the novelty never seems to wear off!

Afterwards Patricia invited everyone to offer the telescope a well-deserved round of applause :)

Later still, Darragh set about interrogating John Booth, Chief Engineer at McDonald Observatory (the home of SALT's older twin, the Hobby Eberly Telescope or HET) as to what they were thinking when they started all this trouble in the first place!

All guests were then ferried down the hill to the Recreation Centre where "snacks & drinks" (the official technical term coined by the Green Amanda) were to be enjoyed.

Somewhat disappointingly, no one actually made use of the climbing wall during this time...

After lunch the buses were loaded up again & made the return trek to Cape Town - a great time to be a local!

A memorable day & congratulations to all for their huge efforts to ensure that everything ran so smoothly :)

RSS Fabry Perot Commissioning Status

2011-11-21T15:17:00.001+02:00

Report from Ted Williams on the commissioning status of the RSS Fabry-Perot.

1. The single-etalon modes that are ready for shared-risk science observations are:

TF
650-690 nm

LR
480-510 nm
650-690 nm
820-870 nm

These modes need further work on flat fielding, throughput determination, and stability characterization in order to be considered fully commissioned and ready for routine science observations. Additional wavelength regions need to be calibrated as resources become available; priorities should include 580-610 nm in both TF and LR, and 480-510 nm, and 820-870 nm in TF.

2. Dual-etalons modes (MR and HR) have a serious reflection problem between the two etalons that introduces a series of ghost images and significantly degrades throughput. Rectification of this problem is underway, but may take several months to complete. In the interim, the original MR and HR modes are not available. There are two alternatives that can be used:

a) Inserting a circular polarizer between the etalons has been demonstrated to eliminate the ghost. There is more than a factor of 2 throughput loss with the polarizer. The wavelength range will be restricted to short-wards of approximately 720 nm. No polarimetry measurements are possible. We have polarizing material on hand and both MR and HR dual-etalon observations can be carried out subject to the limitations noted above.

b) Single-etalon MR observations can be done. This non-standard mode is available and has been used successfully for several science programs so far. In addition to the desired order, the blocking filter will transmit 1 or 2 additional orders. This will increase the parasitic light, allowing 2 or 3 times as much light from the night sky and from the object's continuum, thus decreasing the expected signal/noise ratio, and possible confusing the spectra because of unwanted spectral lines in the other orders. Emission line programs are probably ok in this mode, but absorption line programs are probably not. Observers should use the tables of etalon free spectral range and the blocking filter curves to estimate the effects on their particular program. Because of the small free spectral range of the HR etalon, single-etalon mode HR is probably not usable.

The calibrated wavelength regions for the etalons are:

MR
480-510 nm
650-690 nm

HR
485-500 nm
650-677 nm

Additional wavelength regions can be calibrated as needs develop and resources permit. Until the dual-etalon reflection problem is solved, all MR and HR observations must be considered shared-risk science.

3. Several of the Semester 3 FP proposals seem to be specifying higher spectral resolution than the stated science goals require. Especially in light of the limitations on the higher resolution modes, PI's should consider carefully the spectral resolution required. For example, the MR etalon should routinely yield velocity measurements accurate to +/- 10 km/sec.

Night Log 2011-11-20

2011-11-21T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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

=> Entire night lost to high humidiy, heavy clouds and strong wind.

Night Log 2011-11-19

2011-11-20T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Patrick
Others:

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

=> Very unstable weather conditions during the night.
Finally, were closed by heavy clouds.

=> Some Lick standards were observed.

=> Finally, observations for 2011-3-UC-003 were done.

Night Log 2011-11-18

2011-11-19T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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

=> Tracker problem were fixed finally.
Thanks a lot to all people

=> New optimal Phi and Theta values were found to minimize coma
and tracker was adjusted.

=> Were closed by high humidity.

Night Log 2011-11-17

2011-11-18T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Denis, Janus, Ken

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

=> Tracker problems. No observations tonight.

=> Some calibrations and different tests

Night Log 2011-11-16

2011-11-17T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Anthony, Denis, Janus, Ken. Steve P.

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

=> Nice weather from the evening, but after wind changes to SE,
humidity jumped up.

=>Tracker problems.

=> Some MOS tests.

Night Log 2011-11-15

2011-11-16T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Paul
SO: Siphelo
Others: Ken, Steve, Janus, Deneys, Antony, Alexei

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

- night started off with good seeing, but changed with the wind direction.
- attempted MOS and circular polarization commisioning but were foiled by technical issues.
2011-2-RSA-007 (astrometric field)
got science data for the following programs:
2011-3-DC_RSA-001
2011-3-RSA_UKSC-001
2011-3-RSA_UKSC-007 (ToO)
2011-3-RSA-029

Night Log 2011-11-14

2011-11-15T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Paul
SO: Siphelo
Others: Ken, Anthony, Janus, Deneys

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

- a busy night, got useful engineering and science done. weather was good with seeing below 1.3'' for most of the night.
commissioning data for:
2011-2-RSA-007 (MOS)
2011-2-UW_UKSC-001 (polarimetry)
science:
2011-3-DC_RSA-001
2011-3-POL-002
2011-3-POL-005
more science targets were attempted but we had some technical issues.

Night Log 2011-11-12

2011-11-13T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Paul
SO: Patrick
Others: Ken, Anthony, Keith, Johan

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

- had very good seeing for most of the night. unfortunately is it was interrupted by technical issues at the end.
- got MOS commisioning data in good seeing:
2011-2-RSA-007
2011-2-RSA-014
- more polarimetric data:
2011-2-UW-010
- attempted science for a few programs and obtained data for:
2011-3-RSA_UKSC-001
2011-3-RSA_UKSC-002
2011-3-RSA_UKSC_OTH-002

Night Log 2011-11-11

2011-11-12T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Paul
SO: Patrick
Others: Ken, Anthony, Johan

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

- We closed just after midnight due to high humidity
- got more MOS observations done:
2011-2-RSA-007
- Ken worked on getting linear polarization observations working
2011-2-UW-010
- got science data for the following proposals:
2011-3-UKSC-003
2011-3-POL-005

Night Log 2011-11-10

2011-11-11T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Paul
SO: Zolisa
Others: Ken

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

- lost the first few hours of the night to cloud. opened up around 22:30 to >3'' seeing. attempted a few science observations. obtained data for:
2011-3-POL-005
- had some technical issues during the night.
- closed ~02:30 due to high humidity

Night Log 2011-11-09

2011-11-10T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Paul
SO: Zolisa
Others:

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

High winds hampered good mirror alignments, got swamped by high humidity and clouds just before midnight.

- obtained science data for the following proposals:
2011-3-RSA_UKSC-001
2011-3-POL-005
- commissioning data for:
2011-2-RSA-007 (mos tests)
CAL_BLANK (flat field data)

Night Log 2011-11-08

2011-11-09T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Amanda
SO: Patrick
Others: Paul, Keith, Dave C., Jonathan, Zolisa

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

. Bright night with high wind, some issues due to power loss, and closing early due to high humidity.

.Data taken for the following programs:
ENG_POINT
ENG_SCAM
2011-2-RSA-007 (MOS acq. only)
2010-1-RSA_OTH-008 (nonsidereal tracking test)

Night Log 2011-11-07

2011-11-08T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Amanda
SO: Patrick
Others: Paul, Dave C., Jonathan, Keith, Chris

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

. Very nice celebration today for the "start of science observations". Great effort on the part of the staff for getting everything ready and making sure it ran smoothly.

. Bright night, had some issues due to power loss and closed early due to high wind.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2011-3-RSA_UKSC-001
2011-2-RSA-014 & 2011-2-RSA-007 (MOS testing)
ENG_POINT
2011-3-POL-005
2010-1-RSA_OTH-008 (non-sidereal tracking test)
2011-2-RSA-001 (field capture only)

Night Log 2011-11-06

2011-11-07T09:10:00.001+02:00

SA: Amanda
SO: Patrick
Others: Dave C., Daniel Adams & Madeline (DST), Patricia, Ted, and Rutgers Dean of Science

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

. Bright/gray night, with mostly cirrus (excellent seeing) to mostly clear (moderate to good seeing).

. Data taken for the following programs:
2011-2-RSA-007 (MOS testing)
2010-1-RSA_UKSC-003
2011-2-RSA-002 (subarcsec images)
2011-3-RSA_UKSC-007
2011-3-RSA-014
2011-3-RSA_OTH-006
2011-3-POL-007
2011-3-RSA_UKSC-008
2011-3-RSA_UKSC-006
2011-3-GU-003