20170801 Science Plan
Priorities for test are in the order listed in the plan below. Thus the Simultaneous observing project should have the highest priority.
Twilight:
Standard LRS2 twilight for any science frames that might be taken
VIRUS special twilights
Purpose: There is some interest in seeing what the long term illumination correction changes look like including what different track positions do to them. The script is "specialtwilight" in /home/mcs/astronomer/bin/. It takes a single argument which is the Observation number.
Procedure:
- Setup the guide camera for sky twilight (GC2, 0.1 sec exposure, B filter)
- When you hit the correct flux level (biased to a slight higher value, perhaps 5k) execute the specialtwilight script
Simultaneous observing with VIRUS-p and VIRUS
This project should be marked as engineering time in the priorities and should have the highest priority until 2 full nights of data (including some dark time) have been obtained. The dark time is the most critical.
Briana will be observing on the 2.7m so coordinating with her during the night will be critical. We will want to let them know when we are transitioning from one target to the next.
The basic flow of the night should be:
BD+26_2606 from start of track to end of track BD+28_4211 from start of track to end of track BD+17_4708 from end of BD+28_4211 until end of track GD248 from start of track to end of track BD+40_4032 from start of track until Feige_110 is available Feige_110 from start of track to end of track
Note that some of these stars are quite bright and thus may not work if the seeing and transperancy are really great. John did a test on 20170729 on BD+26_2606 and found that a 15k exposure produced 40k peak counts in the brightest dither so we might be ok. Below are the magnitudes and the exposure times we should try:
BD+26_2606 West, Az=271.61, V = 9.74, texp = 15 BD+28_4211 East, Az=82.251, V = 10.5, texp = 20 BD+17_4708 East, Az=102.371, V = 9.47, texp = 15 GD248 East, Az=106.535, V = 15.1, texp = 200 BD+40_4032 West, Az=299.323, V = 10.5, texp = 20 Feige_110 East, Az=180.00, V = 11.8, texp = 40
NOTES:
- All exposures should be dithered using vlexp -i virus -dither -np options
- When running shuffle be sure to use the --use_brightness true option because we want guide stars that have somewhat short exposures (2-3 sec) to be able to keep up with the dither.
- GC1 and GC2 should have their filters set to "g" at all times
- Images should be saved with both guiders once in focus (so even before the exposure begins)
- When running shuffle be sure to use the --az yourAZhere option to force the same Az for each IFU. Use the Az in the list above.
- For BD+40_4032 I had to use do_shuffle -v --use_brightness true --catalog USNOA2
Come in a bit early and run all three setups with the fixed Az through shuffle for each target at the start of the night and have them ready to cut and paste as needed.
The general flow of the setups will be:
- Setup on IFU 074 and take a dithered exposure
- Setup on IFU 104 and take a dithered exposure
- Setup on IFU 074 and take a dithered exposure
- Setup on IFU 106 and take a dithered exposure
repeat the steps above as often as one can during the track.
Current trimester Science
This is the highest priority
Current trimester engineering
Testing of the ACAM position
Purpose: We want to see if the ACAM position changes with respect to the IHMP over time. We want this data about 2 times per week and when ever we get an unusually high or low temperature.
Determine the Center of the BIB:
- Select a 14th mag star in a reasonably rich field with shuffle for the BIB
- Setup on the very center of the BIB field of view (79, 98) and save an image.
- Guide on one of the guide probes
- Put in the ACAM and save an shallow image with the target star not saturated.
- Report on the position of the BIB in the night report and on NightOperations/Commissioning/Results
- Save a deeper image which should show more than a dozen stars.
Determine the Center of LRS2-B
- Select a 14th mag star in a reasonably rich field with shuffle for the LRS2-B
- Setup on LRS2-B and start guiding on one of the guiders
- Take LRS2-B spectrum, probably 60 seconds.
- Adjust the position so that the star is at the center of LRS2-B IFU using lmap until the offsets are less than 0.3"
- Confirm the star is at the center of the IFU by taking a spectrum.
- Once it is as the center of the IFU put in the ACAM and take a shallow image so that the star is not saturated.
- Report on the position of the LRS2-B in the night report and on NightOperations/Commissioning/Results
- Take a deeper image so that there are large number of stars.
Determine the Center of LRS2-R
- Select a 14th mag star in a reasonably rich field with shuffle for the LRS2-R
- Setup on LRS2-R and start guiding on one of the guiders
- Take LRS2-R spectrum, probably 60 seconds.
- Adjust the position so that the star is at the center of LRS2-R IFU using lmap until the offsets are less than 0.3"
- Confirm the star is at the center of the IFU by taking a spectrum.
- Once it is as the center of the IFU put in the ACAM and take a shallow image so that the star is not saturated.
- Report on the position of the LRS2-R in the night report and on NightOperations/Commissioning/Results
- Take a deeper image so that there are large number of stars.
Prep for new trimester science
We need to determine how out of focus we need to be to get M17-3-002 STANDARDS (which are often 6th mag). I was thinking that we might write a script that would move the star around during an exposure but we need to know how out of focus we need to be for reasonable exposure length to work. Try being above focus by 0.5 mm but centered on the LRS2-B IFU and take an exposure. Determine how long we have to expose to get 10,000 counts. How about 1.0 mm? Try a few test exposures and charge this to engineering time.
Next Trimester Bright time Science
Do any science targets that require bright time such as PSU17-3-002.
