RFBG Commissioning with Adaptive Secondary - 04 April 2010 UT

Night 16:

Observer: JHill, DMiller, FBian(Tucson)
Telescope Operator: JHill, DMiller (Tucson)
Telescope Support: MMidkiff
Adaptive Operator & Wind Monitor: RBriguglio (LBTO)
Vibration Operator: JEsquerra

Summary

The seeing at the beginning of the night was better than the previous seven nights (~0.8"), but after about 3:00 the seeing remained about 1.0", with occasionally jumps to 1.5".

About the only useful data we acquired was a full set of field data for Andrew, with the secondary at his requested new position (Tip=+15 Tilt=-5). A .csv file was sent to Andrew for analysis.

We started to take some AGw Transformation data, but the wind was out of the South so all the Stone fields had the telescope pointing directly into the wind. Runa was measuring 15 to 18 m/s wind on the 2nd floor balcony and the Anemometer was measuring 3 to 6 m/s with all vent doors closed. After the shell was Ripped after 6 or so Transformation points had been taken we decided to point more toward the North and do something else.

Data were collected to determine the focus position of the AGw probe to get the best focus on the IRTC. The seeing was 1.0" to 1.5" so it is not clear if these data are useful.

Doug tried an improve collimation procedure at 31 elevation to see if the Active Optics would converge below 35 el (the current routines in GCS and IDL do not). The seeing was 1.2" to 1.5" so the old Active Optics routines did not diverge, but would only collimate down to about 1000 nm rms. The new routines collimated down to 500 nm rms, but it is not clear if this was just the result of changing seeing. This experiment will have to be performed again when the seeing is better.

Doug successfully shutdown the telescope at 12:15 or so. The "End of the Night" instructions on the Operator's page were followed and all step were performed successfully. Just as a check, Runa walked up to the Visitor's Gallery to make sure the shutter doors were REALLY CLOSED. They were. Thanks Runa, I will sleep better knowing that someone actually checked that the doors are closed.

The forecast for Sunday night is for stronger winds, and even stronger winds for Monday night.

Preparations

Details

Open

01:54 Open shutter doors, T=1.6 degC, D=-8.6 degC, Wind 10 m/sec. Sky mostly clear.

02:05 Doug takes over as Operator

02:05 pointto Pollux TeleMode=TRACK gs=0. Edge of star seen on left side of IRTC. Primary on X and Y limit. Clear active optics (from last night). Limits OK

02:10 pointto Pollux TeleMode=TRACK gs=0 PAM-. Star is gone. ptmodify IE =-52 to center

02:25 wind at AdSec = 8 m/s. We are pointing at AZ=209. Will move to the East.

02:29 pointto M5_0328 TelMode=TRACK gs=0 PAM-, El=79

02:32 Runa reports that the Secondary will not flatten because of high forces, twice.

02:37 Secondary is flat

02:37 IE=-64 CA = -37

02:40 pointto M5_0460 TelMode=TRACK gs=0 PAM-, El=21

02:50 Runa applied new (measured last night) Astigmatism corrections on Secondary. Using Marco's at the beginning of the night

02:52 Change RX=-230 and IE=-95, and RY=40 and IA=-385 to get rid of coma Wind_Adsec = 2.2m/s

03:04 pointto BS9142 TelMode=ACQUIRE gs=0

03:08 Star not seen, but ghost at the bottom. Adjust to center with IE=-93. CA = -15 Some coma and focus

03:09 pointto BS9142 TelMode=ACTIVE gs=0 Adjust focus.

03:12 Collimate till Primary hit Y limit

03:20 Adjust Secondary RX to put coma in opposite direction

03:25 Collimate to 400 nm RMS

03:35 Hit X and Y limit on Primary. By moving RX to more negative we are making Y less positive. Now make Ry less positive. Still hit limit, but X is becoming less negative. Clear active optics and loose star on guider. Now have RX=-330, RY=10

03:39 pointto BS9142 TelMode=ACQUIRE gs=0 Set IE=-75 CA=-20 IA=385 (did not change IA, just did not report it above I think)

03:42 pointto BS9142 TelMode=ACTIVE gs=0 Collimate to 300 nm RMS

03:50 pointto StoneGagw TelMode=TRACK gs=0 No star seen on IRTC

03:55 pointto StoneGagw TelMode=ACQUIRE gs=0 Set IE=-65 CA=-30

04:02 pointto StoneGagw TelMode =ACTIVE gs=0 Collimate

04:07 IIF set to none mode on right. MCSPU reported that fault bits were on zero, but rotator kept tracking.

04:14 offset 0 -30, take 2sec x 30 frames of background on IRTC /newdata/irtc.20100404_00034_cube.fits

04:19 IIF set mode to none

04:22 cl > tran_Stone_mix1.cl

04:23 first IRTC acquisition failed (we clicked continuous) Second set is bad because AdSec Ripped.

04:26 pointto StoneGagw TelMode=ACQUIRE gs=0

04:29 Stop and start AOS at Runa's request

Field Aberration Measurements on BS9152

Data are in /OldRepository/AGW_Data/100326_Field

05:09 pointto BS9152 TelMode=ACQUIRE gs=0

Reset the secondary shell.

05:12 pointto BS9148 TelMode=ACTIVE gs=0

Reset the secondary shell.

05:48 pointto BS9148 TelMode=ACQUIRE gs=0

05:51 OSS failed, have to kill OSS and restart.

05:56 pointto BS9148 TelMode=ACQUIRE gs=0

05:59 pointto BS9148 TelMode=ACTIVE gs=0

Primary hits the limit

06:08 pointto BS9152 TelMode=ACQUIRE gs=0

06:11 pointto BS9152 TelMode=ACTIVE gs=0

06:20 restart AOSR. Shell is set.

06:22 restart guiding, seeing is 0.8-0.9

06:30 restart OOS

06:40

GStar	wfscimage#
Sequence	1
0	10 - 12
0	2 - 6
Sequence	2
17	7 - 9
18	13 - 15
0	16 - 18
7	19 - 21
0	22 - 24
4	25 - 27
0	28 - 30
1	31 - 33
0	34 - 36
9	37 - 39
0	40 - 42
0	43 - 47
17	48 - 50
0	51 - 53
18	54 - 56
0	57 - 59
7	60 - 62
0	63 - 65
4	66 - 68
0	69 - 71

Ran into a Y limit on the Primary so Adjusted Rx to -430 and IE to -65 Restart the sequence

0	76 - 78
1	79 - 81
0	82 - 84
9	85 - 87
0	88 - 90

Sequence	3
0	91 - 95
17	96 - 98
0	99 - 101
18	102 - 104
0	105 - 107
7	108 - 110
0	111 - 113
4	114 - 116
0	117 - 119
1	120 - 122
0	123 - 125
9	126 - 128
0	129 - 131

09:36 go to StoneLagw (south) acquire mode to check whether the wind speed is OK. Wind is OK. IE = -53, CA = -31. Turn to ACTIVE mode to collimate.

35	irtc.20100404.094834.fits	irtc.20100404_00046_cube.fits
31	irtc.20100404.095044.fits	irtc.20100404_00047_cube.fits
21	irtc.20100404.095255.fits	irtc.20100404_00048_cube.fits
19	irtc.20100404.095504.fits	irtc.20100404_00049_cube.fits
15	irtc.20100404.095711.fits	irtc.20100404_00050_cube.fits
23	irtc.20100404.095951.fits	irtc.20100404_00051_cube.fits
17	irtc.20100404.100200.fits	irtc.20100404_00052_cube.fits
20	irtc.20100404.100409.fits	irtc.20100404_00053_cube.fits
18	irtc.20100404.100620.fits	irtc.20100404_00054_cube.fits
35	irtc.20100404.100910.fits	irtc.20100404_00055_cube.fits	is bad. The shell is not flat
31	irtc.20100404.101127.fits	irtc.20100404_00056_cube.fits	is bad . The shell is not flat

It is too windy in the south.

10:53 cl < focus_seq.cl on BS9177 The first pair of images are irtc.20100404.105337.fits and irtc.20100404_00057_cube.fits The last pair of images are irtc.20100404.110104.fits and irtc.20100404_00063_cube.fits

11:03 turn on the active mode on BS9177 to collimate. seeing is 0.8

11:07 go to track mode and cl < focus_seq.cl The first pair of images are irtc.20100404.110832.fits and irtc.20100404_00064_cube.fits The last pair of images are irtc.20100404.111715.fits and irtc.20100404_00071_cube.fits

11:19 turn on the active mode on BS9177 to collimate. seeing is 1.0

11:21 go back track mode and cl < focus_seq.cl The first pair of images are irtc.20100404.112224.fits and irtc.20100404_00072_cube.fits. The last pair of images are irtc.20100404.113020.fits and irtc.20100404_00078_cube.fits

11:32 turn on the active mode on BS9177 to check the collimation.

11:45 go to M5_0835 in track mode. elevation is 31, adjust IE and CA to center the star IE=-63, CA=-23. Adjust secondary Z to focus z = 2.45 (previous 2.60)

11:54 turn on active mode. guide star= 5 to collimate. As the seeing is so bad, we can not tell whether the new collimation routines are better or not.

Close

-- JohnHill - 04 Apr 2010