AGN07
MDM Reverberation Mapping
Program
2007 March – 2007 June
PROCEDURES MANUAL FOR
OBSERVERS
Version -9.34
2007 March 22
K.D. Denney, B.M. Peterson, M. Vestergaard, M. Dietrich, and R.W. Pogge
Table of Contents
1.5 INSIDE THE CONTROL ROOM: What is all this stuff?........................................ 6
2.4 Startup Procedures: Determine central wavelength (if unknown)............................ 10
A4. Checking the Seeing with the CCDS Acquisition Camera..................................... 29
i. Emergency Contacts (Contact info can be found on the cork board in control room)
Bob Barr:
Steven Magee:
Jerry Mason: IC/IE problems
Brad Peterson:
Rick Pogge: CCDS and Prospero/etc. problems
Marianne Vestergaard: General observing problems
1. Introduction
1.1 General Outline of Procedures
1. Startup: Carried out late afternoon. Bring up the control system in the control room. Fill the camera dewar on the observing floor. Do starting calibrations (“startcal” from prospero), verify the central wavelength and check focus of spectrograph.
2. Twilight Setup: Open dome, power up telescope. Initialize tracking, move to bright star to reset encoders. Focus telescope.
3. Night-time Observing: towards end of twilight, begin observing (a) targets, (b) flux standard stars. See suggested program section 5, page 21. Periodically check telescope focus, seeing, and weather conditions. Keep an electronic log.
4. Shutdown: Stop tracking, move telescope to stow position. Close the mirror cover. Move the dome to the stow position and close the shutters. Fill the CCD dewar with LN2. Take final calibrations (“endcal” from prospero). Write data to DVD. Fill out the observing report and any trouble report forms on the MDM webpage. Email the log to Kelly Denney and Brad Peterson.
1.2 Site Safety Rules
The observer is responsible for protection of the telescope and instruments. This responsibility is exceeded only by responsibility for human safety on the site.
The telescope must not be used if any of the following
conditions apply:
1. The wind speed exceeds 40 mph.
2.Humidity exceeds 85%.
3.There is condensation forming on cold metal surfaces such as railings or cars.
4.Dust/fog is visible in a flashlight beam.
5.There is a threat of rain or lightning.
6.There is snow on the dome.
In the threat of lightning, there is a written lightning shutdown procedure that must be followed. Make sure you ask the mountain support staff to show you this procedure.
1.3 A Note on Scripts
Prospero command scripts have been provided for most of the observing tasks in order to optimize the observing process and reduce the possibility for mistakes or inhomogeneous observing practices among different observers. You are required to use these scripts as described below. To see what scripts are available, enter “agnhelp” in Prospero.
The scripts are implemented as custom Prospero commands
(e.g., “agnhelp”). Type the script
name and then follow the prompts within the script. When the script is finished, a message will be printed to
the ProsperoProspero
screen, and the ProsperoProspero prompt
will return.
1.4 Data Requirements
Because
we will be acquiringrecording a large amount of data for
this campaign, there are a number couple of
procedures that need to be followed every night that will greatly , which will
drastically help with the flow of data through the spectral
reduction pipeline we’re .
File Naming Convention
All raw FITS format files will be named “ccdsYYMMDD.####”, where #### is a sequence number that should be set to begin with 0001 at the beginning of each night (the system adds “.fits”, so you don’t have to). The date code YYMMDD is the date of the “observing day” which runs from noon to noon in local time. For example, on the night beginning at sunset on March 21 and ending at sunrise on March 22, the date code is “070321”, and files will be named “ccds070321.0001.fits” and so forth.
Do not deviate from this file name convention. We use the filename to organize the
data by the date of observation, and mine the information from the FITS headers
when running the data through the pipeline.
The images sequence number start at 0001 with the first calibration image taken during the
afternoon and increment count up sequentially from
there. There is only ONE
EXCEPTION: when focusing the for any spectrograph with “focseq”,
you will be instructed to focus images or test images
(if something goes wrong and you’re trying to troubleshoot), change
the filenames with prospero command ‘filename’
to ‘focus.####’ or ‘test.####’ as needed. MAKE SURE to change the filename back
to where
it was (ccdsYYMMDD._#### ) after you are done focusing. Since focseq should be executed before
any afternoon calibrations are taken, you need to reset the filename to the
correct format above before proceeding.
AGN07 Observing Scripts
ward.Scripts should be used whenever
available (for basically everything).
Here is a list of available scripts and what they do:
a.
agncal – take post-AGN calibration
observations (Xe and flat)
a.startccds – startup CCDS for a
night’s observing (also run after a shutdown or system restart)
b. focseq – take CCDS collimator focus spectrum sequence
c. startcal – take the start-of-night
calibrations
d. agnhelp –
lists these scripts and what they do, just like seen here.
a.
agnsetup
– setup CCDS for AGN spectral observation
e. doagn – take an AGN spectrum
f. chkfocus – take a CCDS focus-check Xenon lamp spectrum
g.dostd – take a sStandard
sStar
sSpectrum
h. endcal – take the end-of-night calibrations
i. agnnhelp – lists these scripts and what they do
All of these scripts are implemented as custom Prospero
commands, and are available on startup.
Seeing Estimates
Please make regular estimates of the seeing during the night. You can query the 2.4m observer for seeing estimates, but better is to estimate them from the CCDS Acquisition Camera images as described in (see Appendix, section 4, p. 30).
Weather Conditions
Please keep a detailed log of weather conditions in the “Notes” section of the logsheet (e.g. cirrus, wind buffeting, seeing, poor guiding due to these issues, etc.). You should also consult the weather station display in the control room for parameters you may think are relevant, like wind speed and direction, changes in temperature, etc. that might be factors.
Logs
Please keep an electronic log via excel (if you have a laptop) or open office on McGraw. Use the template from the previous observer, or use /lhome/data/AGN07/070324/070324.xls as a template, resaving it as /lhome/data/AGN07/YYMMDD/YYMMDD.xls. If this is impossible for some reason, keep a written log using the blank logsheets provided and fax them to the OSU Astronomy department the following day at (614) 292-2928. If no blank logsheets are available, you can print copies by typing:
“lpr -# 10 /lhome/obs13m/logsheets/agn07log.ps” (this will print 10 copies).
1.5 INSIDE THE CONTROL ROOM: What is all this stuff?
Figure
1: Main telescope control
monitors.
Figure
2: mcgraw workstation screen.
Figure
3: Telescope sStatus
and gGuider
mMonitors
and telescope controls and focus.
2. Startup Procedures
2.1 Startup Procedures: Inside the Control Room
1.
Make sure that We assume that
the Instrument Computer (IC) (in
the computer room) is running functioning and that the CCDS
is installed
and working. See
the CCDS manual (“CCDS and TIFKAM Data Taking Startup Procedure
inside the front cover of the binder) for info on how to start the
data-taking system if needed.
2. Make sure that the data-taking system (Prospero and all its
friends) are running on the Linux workstation (mcgraw), and
connected to the CCDS.
3. We will further assume that prospero (the data-taking
system) is operating. If any of these assumptions are incorrect, please consult
(1) Appendix, section 1. (2) the 1.3-m Telescope manual, (3) the Prospero
manual, and (4) the Boller & Chivens CCDS manual. Hard copies of (2) and
(3) are available in the white loose-leaf notebook labeled “Telescope Manual”
in the observing room. Do not be afraid to ask for help.
1.
Turn on
power supplies and monitor for guide cameraM (see Fig. 3).
Everything else should already be turned on.
4.Go to the xtcs window window oonn
mcgraw, click on the pink “setup” button, then select “clear link” from the
menu. Click again on “setup” and
this time select “set UT”. You should see the words “UT set on TCS” in the xtcs
status bar (bottom of window).
5.Use Prospero command ‘jd’ to list the current
Julian Date and take note of the integer JD on the log sheet. For example, at
MST 2005 January 25 18:00 the JD is 2453396.
1.Initialize the observing session by entering “startccdsRUNINIT” in the prosperoProspero
command window. on the computer McGraw.
You will be prompted with several questions and should respond as below (text
in boldface):
a. “Initialize Session <y|n>?” Answer: y
b. “Enable Writing Files to Disk <y|n>? Answer:
y
a.“Image Directory Path” Answer: /lhome/data (note: letter before home is lower-case ‘el’)
i. This is where the data will be stored.
i.If changed, it
will be on the dry erase board in the control room.
i.Current set
path is displayed in prospero status window (above the command window).
a.“Root file name for image: Answer: ccdsYYMMDD, where YYMMDD is the current date (local time
noon-to-noon) as described in Section 1.4 abovejdNNNN. (where
NNNN are the least significant digits in the current Julian Day number. Don’t
forget the trailing period. Current Julian day number can also be read from the
TCS monitor. For example, at MST 2005 January 25 18:00 the JD is 2453396 so
NNNN = 3396. It is IMPORTANT to get this right for our own bookkeeping
purposes. Note that Julian date begins at 5:00 am MST; the rootname we use is
that for the beginning of the local night. For example, on the night beginning with sunset on 2007
March 21 and ending at sunrise on March 22, type “ccds070321”..
b.“Starting image number” Answer: 1 (unless
you are restarting, then it should be number for the NEXT image to be
acquired).
c. “Observers names” Answer: last names (e.g., Smith and Jones)
d. “FITS header comment card for tonight: Answer: ‘MDM
Reverberation jdNNNN’, where as above, NNNN is the last four digits in the
Julian Date.
a.“Save setup <y|n>:” Answer: y
2.We use the 350 l/mm grating in first order. These will be
set by the “startccds” command, but you should see confirmation of this in
the Prospero command window and in the Prospero status window.
NOTE: if you have to restart the data-taking system for
any reason during the course of a night (e.g., restarting after a lightning shutdown
or recovering from a system crash), you will need to run the “startccds”
script again, but this time take extra care to answer “Starting image number”
with the number of the NEXT image to be written in sequence. For example, if after restarting the
system the last image written to disk is /lhome/data/ccds070321.0069.fits, then
answer “70” for “starting image number” above.
The grating and order may not be listed in the Prospero status
window, if it has been restarted since the previous nights observing. These
parameters can be updated by entering “grooves 350” and “order 1”. The central wavelength will also need
to be entered. How to determine this is described in the next section on how to
check the spectrograph focus.
2.2 Startup Procedures on the Observing Floor
Fill the camera dewar on the observing floor (see Figure 5, below):
Figure 5. Insert the fill tube into the fill port of the camera dewar, gently pushing it in as far as it will go (upper left). Turn on the fill valve (upper right) on the liquid nitrogen tank. The camera dewar is full when liquid N2 pours copiously onto floor. Turn off fill valve. Do not attempt to move the liquid nitrogen tank until the fill tube has completely thawed or it will shatter. Fill tube will fall out when it has thoroughly thawed out. Return liquid nitrogen to stow position on platform. Record the fill time on dry erase board in control room (lower left). If the tank is getting low on liquid nitrogen, inform the support staff immediately so they can get you another tank.
2.3 Startup Procedures: Check Spectrograph Focus
Before you take any calibration data you need to check the spectrograph focus as follows:
1.
Change image filename
to ‘focus’ by typing “filename focus.0001” in the ProsperoProspero
window.
2.Note the current collimator focus in the prosperoProspero
status window on mcgraw. The dial units are the ones in square brackets (e.g.,
[860]).
3.Run the script ‘chkfocus’ or follow steps (a) to (d)
below:
a. Place the finder mirror in the beam by flipping the
Finder Mirror switch to “in”. The finder probe takes 20 seconds or so to
insert, to please wait.
b. Change the slitwidth to 1 arcsecond by entering
“setslit 47” (47 microns = 1 arcsecond) in ProsperoProspero
window.
c. Turn on the Xenon lamp by clicking the “Xe” button
in the MIS Lamp window. Check the slit-viewer monitor to see that the lamp
comes on.
d. Enter “exp 120” to set the exposure time and enter
“go” to start the exposure.
4.Go to the IRAF command window and examine this
exposure by entering “implot filename.nnnn” where ‘filename.nnnn’ is the name
of the comparison lamp exposure you just took.
5.In the IRAF graphics window, enter “: a 20” and “:l
350” (letter ‘el’) to display the average of 20 rows around line 350 (where the
spectra appear on the CCD).
6.Measure the line widths of the arc lines using key
‘p’: place the cursor at the base of the blue wing of the line, hit ‘p’ and
place cursor at the base of the red line wing and hit ‘p’ again. The line width
and center will be displayed at the bottom of the graphics window.
7.Repeat this for the other lines taking note of the
line widths.
8.For a good focus the line width should be about
2.3-2.5 pixels. If the line widths typically have this value, the focus is
good. If not, you’ll have to refocus the spectrograph (go to Appendix Section 2
at the end of this manual).
9.Once the focus is good, you are ready to take the
afternoon/early evening calibration data. See the next section for this task.
10.
Once done, turn off
lamps (if on).
11.
Change filename to be
ready for beginning of the night calibrations by typing “filename ccdsYYMMDDjdNNNN..0001”
(where again, YYMMDD is the observing day date (see §1.4 above).
2.4 Startup Procedures: Determine central
wavelength (if unknown)
At this point (when the spectrograph is focused) you can check or
determine the central wavelength as follows:
1.
With a well-focused
Xenon arc lamp plot the spectrum with “implot”.
2. Find the Xenon spectral line atlas in the CCDS
manual that covers the range from 4000Å to 6000Å (also reference Figure 6
below). Using this atlas identify two well-defined spectral lines at either end
of the chip. Good reference lines are the 4501Å, 5028Å, and 5823Å lines located
at approximate pixel position 134, 531, and 1124, respectively.