20160902 Commissioning Plan

Priorities for test are in the order listed in the plan below.

Highest Priority: Do any targets in the main queue from HTOPX. Be sure to pay attention to priority. There are low priority ENG16-2-100 targets as well as higher priority ENG16-2-666. For ENG16-2-666 please put fit 2 entries into a single track by starting near the beginning of the track.

Closed dome engineering:

ACAM streak test

Purpose: To see if any streaks (vertical coming up from the hot pixels as seen in recent stars) can be generated from either hot pixels or from cosmic rays.

Procedure:

• Make the dome as dark as possible and wait at least 30 minutes for the lights to stop glowing
• Deploy the FCU head to make the SAC as dark as possible.
• Take several very long ACAM exposures (perhaps up to 300 seconds if that is allowed).
• Look at the images for cosmic rays and report whether or not any vertical bleeds occur.
• Try warming the ACAM camera to 15 C
• Take as long exposures as possible to look for hot pixels and report whether or not any vertical bleeds occur.

Twilight Tests

start doing twilights with VIRUS with different tracker positions

Purpose: There is some interest in seeing what the long term illumination correction changes look like including what different track positions do to them. In preparation for this effort we would like to test a possible script that I have written to do this. The script is "twilightscript" in /home/mcs/astronomer/.

Procedure:

• Edit the script if this is not the first observation of the night.
• If this is being done in the morning twilight change the exposure times so the first expose command has the longest exposure.
• Setup the GC1 or GC2 with the B filter to wait for the correct flux levels to occur.
• execute the script

On-sky engineering:

Drift test: GC1-GC2-ACQ, still need Y and diagonal

Purpose: We want to see how much drift there is from one side of the IHMP to the other. Generally we want to guide on one GC and watch the others. This has been done in the south but we would like to see this also done for a vertical track (290 Az) and for a diagonal track ( 125 or 234 Az).

Procedure:

• Get a good stack with good groc
• Setup for a full track with good focus
• Start saving images with GC1, GC2 and ACAM
• TO should maintain focus
• Record DMI distances every 5 minutes during trajectory

Repeat the test for other required track.

Test offsetting from LRS2-B -> R using GC1 & ACAM

Purpose: We want to see if the position of the star in the GC matters for making good reproducible offsets from LRS2-B to LRS2-R.

Procedure:

• Setup on a star (not saturated so probably should use V=16) using GC1 and LRS2-B
• Setup on one of the GC in nearly exactly the center of the GC field (record the pixel X and Y used)
• Using repeated offsets from LRS2-B to LRS2-R positions (but only looking at the ACAM images) determine the best value to use for the offset
• Repeat the 3 steps above for a different star at a different Az (be sure to use the same X,Y pixel on the same GC).

Tests offsetting to OWFS1/2 using best ACAM position or center of GC1/2

This might be tricky to explain so it might be best for Matt to come up when the weather is better to do this test.

Test ACAM on rich field

Purpose: We want to see the vertical bleeding with different exposure times on different stars.

Procedure:

• Go to a reasonably rich field with both faint stars and bright stars
• Get good focus
• Take exposure times of 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 seconds in the field

doing globular clusters with VIRUS

Purpose: We need to fill the IFU with lots of stars. Take the same GC and move it to different corners of the IFU distribution using gstar2.

Procedure:

• Select a bright globular cluster with nearly a full track available.
• Using gstar2 put the center of the GC between IFU 103 and IFU 94
• setup on the target
• go through a series of dithers with 360 second exposure at each dither
• Using gstar2 again put the center of the GC between IFU 106 and IFU 95
• setup on the target
• go through a series of dithers with 360 second exposure at each dither
• Using gstar2 again put the center of the GC between IFU 83 and IFU 74
• setup on the target
• go through a series of dithers with 360 second exposure at each dither
• Using gstar2 again put the center of the GC between IFU 86 and IFU 75
• setup on the target
• go through a series of dithers with 360 second exposure at each dither

testing offsets on satellites

Purpose: We want to be ready for full observing on GS Satellite trajectories for CWFS observing. Thus we want to make sure that TTC works fully, that X-Y offsets can be applied.

Procedure:

• Get on the GSS
• See if you can move in X and Y to place in on the CWFS
• See if you can get the TTC to work and make offsets
• Try running the CWFS processing software and make each of the offsets to see if they go through and make sure the signs are correct.