20170507 Commissioning Plan

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

twilight tests

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

Night time engineering:

Image quality tests

Purpose: The purpose of this test is to determine if there are any dome seeing constraints of the HET image quality. Thus this test should be done under good stable conditions, typically DIMM < 0.9" and not while the temperature is dropping, ie. the start of the night.

Procedure:

• Make sure conditions are stable and DIMM < 0.95.
• Select a target into the wind in the first half of the track. Use do_shuffle for all probes probably using the --use_brightness true option.
• Setup on the target on the ACAM and guide
• Set imagers with exposures of at least 5 seconds and WFS with exposures at least 15 seconds.
• Make sure metrology and images are being saved for 5 minutes.
• Pull out the ACAM and guide on the BIB with exposures of at least 5 seconds.
• Save images and data for 5 minutes.
• repeat for the full track.

Science Targets

• PSU17-2-002 bright time western targets at the start of the night. Might need to make a short/quick stack to get them.
• UT17-2-003 index 731 target GN2_3894 at 5 UT. It has sky brightness constraint of V=19 so watch this carefully.

Testing Probe offsets

Purpose: We want to see how accurately we offset using probe offsets with the same tools that we used for the guide probe measurements.

Procedure:

• Setup on For VIRUS on IFU 095 for Globular cluster ngc6205 in the east early in the track.
• Setup on GC1 (You can also run a WFS to keep good IQ).
• Expose VIRUS for 180 seconds syscmd -v -V 'expose( seconds=180, x_binning=2, y_binning=1, type="sci", object="ngc6205_095_E", observation=2, exposure=1 )'
• Wait for the shutter to close syscmd -l 'wait_for_shutter_close(observation=2, exposure=1 )'
• Move to 2nd dither position with a probe offset move mgp -toff=-1.27,0.73
• Expose VIRUS for 180 seconds syscmd -v -V 'expose( seconds=180, x_binning=2, y_binning=1, type="sci", object="ngc6205_095_E", observation=2, exposure=2 )'
• Wait for the shutter to close syscmd -l 'wait_for_shutter_close(observation=2, exposure=1 )'
• Move to 3rd dither position with a probe offset move mgp -toff=0.0,-1.46
• Expose VIRUS for 180 seconds syscmd -v -V 'expose( seconds=180, x_binning=2, y_binning=1, type="sci", object="ngc6205_095_E", observation=2, exposure=3 )'
• Wait for the shutter to close syscmd -l 'wait_for_shutter_close(observation=2, exposure=3 )'
• Move back to the start with a probe offset move mgp -toff=1.27,0.73

• Repeat the test but guiding on GC2 Be sure to change the observation number to 3
• Repeat the test but guiding on GC1 Be sure to change the observation number to 4
• Repeat the test but guiding on GC2 Be sure to change the observation number to 5

Relative Plate scale test with ACAM, GC1 and GC2

Purpose: There is some indication that the plate scale on the GC1 and GC2 is different than the theoretical values. We would like to collect a different type of data set to test this.

Procedure:

• Use do_shuffle to set up on a moderately brightness star, one that will not saturate on the ACAM in 5 seconds, perhaps 14th mag.
• Center up the GC1 and GC2 on their target stars.
• Guide on the GC1 with a very large guide box.
• Start the metrology loops for ACAM and GC2 make sure their boxes cover most of the range of the offset.
• Start saving 10 images on ACAM, GC1 and GC2.
• Do a fiducial offset but not so large that the GC1 and GC2 loose their stars. Perhaps 6" in X. I think the command is syscmd -v -T 'Guider1_offset_fiducial(dx_asec=6, dy_asec=0)'
• Wait for the Guider1 guide star to settle down at the new location.
• Start saving 10 images on ACAM, GC1 and GC2.

• start test over but do the offset in Y instead of X.

• repeat with GC2 guiding instead of GC1

• repeat at a different Az for a total of 4 different Az and 2 GC tests at each Az.

Closed dome engineering for bad weather, or while stacking:

Full set of LRS2 and VIRUS cals.

Special cals that need to be done:

• VIRUS 10 darks of 360 seconds
• 200 ldls flats
• FeAr? 1800s red x4

See and update ​longcals when done.