20170517 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:

Support LRS2 Commissioning team

The highest priority for this night is to support Gary in any remaining tasks (Eng17-2-001 targets?)

test newly edited dither script

Purpose: We have updated the dither script to run to see if we can move and keep the WFS centered while doing VIRUS dithered exposures.

Procedure:

• Setup on a IHMP observation using shuffle.
• Get setup for guiding on a guider and observing with WFS1.
• take a dither set with the usual dither code $HET_SRC_ROOT/integration/hetdex-dither.py
• Watch carefully as you dither to see if the position of the WFS gets much worse.
• Report any problems.

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.

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 -V '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 -V '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 -V '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

Confirming the CWFS position

Purpose: With the remounting of the IHMP and the adjustments on the dither mechanism we need to test the position of CWFS.

Determine the Center of the CWFS:

• Select a bright star in a reasonably rich field with shuffle for the IHMP.
• Setup on the IHMP and start guiding on one of the guiders.
• The TO should offsets with probe moves being true to the last reported good CWFS position.
• Make small offsets to center up on the CWFS based on the CWFS x and y offsets.
• Once you are well centered on CWFS and guiding on a guider put the ACAM back in and get the position.
• Record this value on the markers page on the wiki.

Confirmation of readiness for science

• Try some different modes of operations.
  • VIRUS observing using $HET_SRC_ROOT/integration/hetdex-dither.py
  • LRS2 observing with VIRUS parallel with vlexp
  • Setting up on stars with all probes including WFS
  • Doing LRS2-B -> LRS2-R observing.

Closed dome engineering for bad weather, or while stacking:

Full set of LRS2 and VIRUS cals.

Special cals that need to be done:

• 200 ldls flats
• FeAr? 1800s red x4

See and update ​longcals when done.