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Observing at CARMA

Observing at CARMA. Responsibilities of a CARMA Observer. Respond to alarms Diagnose (solve?) problems Report bugs Monitor weather (1mm or 3mm project?) Check/edit observing scripts Run science projects Run “array health” projects Flux calibration Baseline measurement

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Observing at CARMA

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  1. Observing at CARMA

  2. Responsibilities of a CARMA Observer • Respond to alarms • Diagnose (solve?) problems • Report bugs • Monitor weather (1mm or 3mm project?) • Check/edit observing scripts • Run science projects • Run “array health” projects • Flux calibration • Baseline measurement • Optical & Radio pointing • Beam mapping, aperture efficiency, and much more! • Evaluate data quality; assign grades • Check generator • Check computing system health • Write Nightly Reports • Report on array performance during Obs meetings • Perform special tasks during configuration changes • And be a good “babysitter” after you leave …

  3. The Real Time Display (RTD) Pardo et al. 2005, Wiedner et al. 2004, Pardo et al. 2004

  4. Monitoring a Project

  5. When you notice a problem: • Is it an emergency? • Catastrophic antenna failure (e.g. self-immolation, strangulation)? • Power failure or A/C failure in correlator room • Array idle • Can you solve the problem yourself? (Most problems are routine.) • Check the RTD pages • Check the Observer’s webpage (“Frequent Tasks” and other links) • If you need help: • Talk to the other observer! • Call the “babysitter” • Call/email/IM Nikolaus • Call/email/IM the relevant CARMA person (if you know who it is, and • if it’s during “working hours”) • Email rts@mmarray.org (for software/computer problems) or • hardware@mmarray.org (for hardware problems)

  6. Filing a Bug Report

  7. Monitoring the Weather

  8. Criteria for 1mm Observing • Check the phase monitor (measure of atmospheric turbulence) • Check the tipper (measure of opacity at 225 GHz) • Check the weather report • Current 1mm criteria: • Earray: (225 GHz) < 0.3 , RMSpath < 350μm • Darray: (225 GHz) < 0.3 , RMSpath < 200μm • C array: (225 GHz) < 0.3 , RMSpath < 150μm • Barray: (225 GHz) < 0.4 , RMSpath < 100μm • import watch1mm • watch1mm.watch1mm(350,0.3,npts=5,nmin=4)

  9. Criteria for 1mm Observing: phase monitor • Check the phase monitor (measure of atmospheric turbulence) • Check the tipper (measure of opacity at 225 GHz) • Check the weather report • Current 1mm criteria: • Darray: (225 GHz) < 0.3 , RMSpath < 200μm • C array: (225 GHz) < 0.3 , RMSpath < 150μm • Barray: (225 GHz) < 0.4 , RMSpath < 100μm • import watch1mm • watch1mm.watch1mm(200,0.3,npts=5,nmin=4)

  10. Criteria for 1mm Observing: tipper

  11. Criteria for 1mm Observing

  12. Selecting a Project • projectsWithinRange • keywords: lstStart, lstStop, band, arrayConfig, maxProj • projectsStartingAt • keywords: lstStart, haLimit, band, arrayConfig, maxProj • schedule (variations: schedule3mm, schedule1mm, scheduleAll) • keywords: arrayConfig, band, days, fixed, mode, pivot, startLST

  13. CARMA Project Database Interface

  14. Starting a Project • To begin running an observing script: • run(‘cs0011_1D_115FlyingSaucer’) • Restarting after a script crash: • restartScript(‘cs0011_1D_115FlyingSaucer’) • run(‘cs0011_1D_115FlyingSaucer restart=True’) • (skips calibration observations already made) • Command line options: • alarm=True • email= • flux, fluxstart=True • pb, pbstart=True • pnt, pntstart=True • opnt=True • tune=True

  15. Stopping a Project • run(‘cs0011_1D_115FlyingSaucer endtrack=13:30’) • Command-line options: • tmax=6.0 • Ending a track: • endtrack(‘13:30’) • endtrack(ut=‘20:00’) • setTmax(‘6.0’) • cancel  last resort only! • If the script crashes: • scriptClear

  16. The Quality Report cd /opt/sdp/sciencedata quality proj=cs0011.1D_115FlyingSaucer.1.mir prn=y see=y Quality will TRY to identify sources, gaincals, passcals, and fluxcals based on the information in the observing script, but you must verify these selections!

  17. The Quality Report

  18. Grading a Project • gradeProject(‘cs0011_1D_115FlyingSaucer’,1,’A-’,’I.M.Observer’, • ‘C3 & C6 out of array; lost lock on C11 at UT=23:35; high opacity • (tau>0.5) for last 2hrs’,5.0) • If grade ≥ B-, the time will be deducted from the allocation in the PDB. • If grade ≤ C+, no time will be deducted. • Grades, times charged, and comments can be seen in the “summary” file.

  19. “Array Health” Projects • Observe flux calibrators • Determine optical pointing coefficients • Determine radio pointing coefficients • Determine antenna positions (i.e. baseline solution) • Other (less common) “array health” tests: beam pattern mapping; • measure aperture efficiency, etc.

  20. Other Observer Responsibilities • Check generator • Check computing system health • Write the Nightly Report • Report on the status of the array at meetings (daily meetings with CARMA staff; • weekly all-CARMA telecon) • Be a “babysitter” after you leave. • During configuration changes: level antennas, determine initial pointing offsets, • adjust delays, determine initial baseline solution, etc. (Talk by Jin!) • Mitigate damage to the array from “Acts of God”: • wind, snow, hail, forest fires, errant hikers, UFO seekers, Deep Springs • students, etc.

  21. The Observers’ Webpage

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