Mt. Bigelow 61" Telescope Observing Guide: ********************************************************** IMPORTANT NUMBERS: 61" Telescope -- (control room) 520-576-1283 (dorm) 520-576-1311 List of Suspects: Michael Meyer -- (home) 520-628-8805 / (work) 520-626-9199 Certified email: mmeyer@as.arizona.edu Erick Young -- (home) 520-299-8936) / (work) 520-621-4119/1743 Certified email: eyoung@as.arizona.edu Observatory Support: Marcia Rieke ( Instrument Scientist) (home) 520-577-1898 / (work) 520-621-2731 email: mrieke@as.arizona.edu George Rieke (Occasional Hired Gun) (home) 520-577-1898 / (work) 520-621-2832 email: grieke@as.arizona.edu Jim Grantham (Catalina Supervisor) -- (work) 520-621-7931 / (home) 520-621-7932 / (pager) 520-516-9128 UofA Motor Pool -- 621-7316 (FRS# 214150 & FRS# 401270) Forest Service -- 520-576-1344 / Road Conditions -- 547-7510 ********************************************************* LOGISTICS FOR STAYING AT MT. BIGELOW: Check the weather so that you have proper clothing. It can get very cold with winter weather conditions on the summit November thru March. Get key from Steward Observatory Operations Office (Penny Schmidt) for dormitory, telescope, and Mt. Bigelow gate lock - it is the same key for everything. Verify security code and Forst servie gate lock combination with Steward Observatory Operations Office before leaving for telescope. Stop at the grocery store on your way up. Bring enough food for your entire stay at the observatory. Basic items such as butter, oil, condiments, spices etc. should be available. If you have special dietary needs, be sure and bring whatever you need to be self--sufficient. Disable the alarm by typing in the code to keypad at left of door upon entering the 61". The keypad is on the left upon entering the dormitory hallway. ********************************************************** DIRECTIONS TO MT. BIGELOW: Check the weather to make sure it is safe to drive up to the summit. Drive east on Speedway to Wilmont. Take a left, going north on Wilmot. Wilmont will turn into Tanque Verde and will curve eastward. Continue on Tanque Verde past Sabino Canyon Road and Bear Canyon Road. Take a left (still north) on Catalina Highway Road. Drive north on Catalina Highway into Coronado National Park, climbing upwards. Will will encounter a ranger station where a ranger will be collecting fees from tourists for Mt. Lemmon. You do not need to stop if you are proceeding directly to the Steward Observatories Facilities. Continue up the road through the park toward Summerhaven. Past mile marker 21 look for Mt. Bigelow road. Take a right onto this road which quickly turns into dirt and gravel. The entrance to the 61" Mt. Bigelow telescope will be on your right. ***************************************************************** START-UP PROCEDURES: 1. Check that servos are off including a. Servo--enable in warmroom console. b. RA \& DEC servos in UPS room. c. white breaker switch in UPS room. 2. From platform console turn on MAIN POWER, TELESCOPE POWER, and auxiliary monitor. 3. Downstairs in the UPS room, turn on white breaker switch (right position is on) and enable the RA \& DEC servos (up is on). SERVO ENABLE switch in warm--room console should remain off until ready to move telescope. 4. Start telescope control system in warm room by typing "TCS" on PC console. When program has booted, hit function key to place servo amplifiers in software disable mode. 5. Check weather. If humidity is < 90 \%, winds < 40 mph, and there is no danger to telescope from rain, snow, or blowing dust, you may open the telescope. If it has snowed recently, you might want to "shake" the dome first by rotating. 6. Open shutter and raise upper wind--blind as well as lowering lower wind--blind. If concerned about humidity, open dome and check stability with meter. 7. Open mirror cover and open dome room door. 8. In warm--room, turn on fan from wall switch (unless wet weather threatens from outside) and power on PA system in warm room. 9. From TCS control, turn on enable servo switch on TCS console, turn disable off, tracking on , and initialize dome. 10. Start 256x software package on array control PC. a. Check disk space available. b. If necessary, delete data from previous nights. c. Create tonight's data directory with ">mkdir 981109 ". d. Change to 256x256 directory with the command ">ncd 256x256 ". e. Type "256x256>61tele " on PC and respond with "61 ". f. Select "2" for observing menu. 11. Power up camera in the dome: 12. Power up TV acquisition camera: a. In warm room, make sure shutter is closed and gain on TV camera control is ALL THE WAY DOWN TO LOW. b. In dome, HV to "on" and camera power to "on". Do not turn on "HV cont" in dome. d. Turn gain in dome all the way up. e. In warm room, TV monitor on, shutter to open, and HV--cont to "on". f. Adjust gain as needed being careful not to saturate on bright stars or dome room lights. 13. From dome floor, initiate slew to bright star. Must press SLEW ENABLE button on dome console. Check position of telescope and dome by eye. 14. In dome, check actuator settings for optics: 15. Find star with TV camera making sure not to saturate the TV. 16. On array control PC: a. Set current directory to the nights working directory. b. Toggle ethernet ON. c. Initialize filter position and set to K. 17. Acquire star with camera and make fiducial center of array on TV camera field of view using camera "movie mode" with 0.5 second integration. 18. Focus telescope using hand paddle in warm room quickly by eye using estimate of FWHM from camera software. 19. If first night of run, check alignment of filter wheel. See appendix A. 20. Slew to UKIRT faint standard star and take data (see observing notes below). NB: MJR recommends using standards from Persson et al. 1998. ****************************************************************** SHUT--DOWN PROCEDURE: 1. Turn off TV acquisition camera in warm room (monitor, close shutter, gain down, and HV cont off). In dome, turn off camera and power. 2. Put blank filter in. Take set of 10 dark frames for each exposure time for which data was taken (see Data Taking Procedure for details). 3. Stow telescope at zenith using TCS command and lower elevator platform in dome. Disable servo drives with command in the TCS. 4. Close mirror cover, close wind blinds, close shutter, park dome in the east and close dome floor door to catwalk. 5. Turn off fan and PA system in warm room. 6. Backup data to tape: a. Make sure all frames have been transferred to sun workstation. b. Create archive directory on sun for tonight's data ">mkdir 981109 " c. Delete all *.imh files, scripts, etc. d. Move all files into archive directory using ">mv * 981109 ". e. Creat tar file ">tar -cvf 981109.tar 981109 ". f. Compress tar file ">gzip 981109.tar ". g. Place DAT tape in tape drive. h. If previous archive files are on tape, skip over them ">mt -f /dev/nrst5 fsf # rtn>" where "n" is the number of previous files. i. Copy archive file to tape ">tar -cvf /dev/rst5 981109.tar.gz ". 7. Backup data to downtown computer: a. FTP to ethel, gould, or another computer. b. Change to storage directory (e.g. gould:/home/mmeyer/iraf/61inch). c. Set to binary transfer. d. Send data ">put 981109.tar.gz ". 8. Fill dewar with liquid nitrogen (see Appendix B). 9. Shutdown camera: 10. Shutdown servo enable on the warm--room TCS console, and the RA \& DEC servos in the UPS room. 11. Turn off white servo amp power circuit breaker in UPS room. 12. Turn off TELESCOPE POWER and MAIN POWER switch in the dome. 13. Exit TCS control program. 14. Send trouble report. 15. Arm the alarm on your way out: a. Exit door into vestibule closing door behind you. b. Reach inside to keypad, typing in the code and pressing "#" to arm the alarm. c. Close door and exit building within 30 seconds. ******************************************************************* OPERATING THE TELESCOPE VIA TCS: The TCS software runs in a "nested menu" mode. Using the arrow keys on the keyboard, one can move between the main menus; Motion, deClare, mOve, Position, Rates, Source, Time, pArameters, and shutDown. Hitting brings up a sub-menu with several options for each --- moves you DOWN in level. makes the sub-menus dissapear or in general moves you UP in level. If you need additional information concerning the TCS regarding rate adjustment, uploading catalogue files, etc. consult the manual in the control room. SOURCE -- In order to choose a catalogue of sources, enter the "Source" menu and choose the catalogue of interest or "Keyboard" in order to enter coordinates by hand from the keyboard. POSITION -- In order to load a set of coordinates as the next target, enter "Position" and either select a star from the desired catalogue, enter coordinates from the keyboard, or recall a set of coordinates from the list of saved coordinates. You can also "saVe" the current coordinates to the list if you wish. Finally, one can define offsets which can be used under "Move" as described below. MOVE -- Once the coordinates are loaded as the next target, you can move to the target by selecting "mOve" and entering "move to next". You can also move to "reference" which is a definable target position that can be reset. From this menu, one can also move the telescope to the current next position with a predefined offset "cur+offset". Another option is "stow" which moves the telescope to zenith. DECLARE -- From the "deClare" menu, you can "Define" the telescope coordinates to the position to which you should have pointed. This should only be done when you have carefully placed a star which has a very accurately known position (such as a source in the bright star catalogue or an SAO star) at some fiducial position. You can also "define the reference" position described above as well as "zero diff" - setting the offset differences to zero - which is useful when making relative motions around nearby fields of a few arcminutes enabling you to find your way back. Here one also declares the "dome east" at the beginning of the night. SHUTDOWN -- At the end of the night one calls the "shutDown" menu to exit TCS. Choose "auto" and follow instructions. DOME -- The only other feature of the TCS that one commonly uses is the dome monitor on the display with the "dome +" and "dome -" buttons. When the display is GREEN (RED) then the dome is within (father than) 2 degrees of telescope pointing axis. If this gets farther than 5 degrees then there is a chance the dome is occulting the telescope. ********************************************************************** Note the monitors are oriented below with the given field sizes: TV Acquisition -- IR Camera Display -- S N | | W --- E E --- W | | N S FOV ~ 2 x 2 arcminutes FOV ~ 4x4 arcminutes at 0.92"/pixel COORDINATES -- We need to have a standard file in the computer catalogue lists with the standards and target positions. Otherwise one can enter coordinates by hand and save them. Be prepared with lists of standards and finding charts for UKIRT Faint Standards, Elias standards, and target objects.