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SV Notes for MJD 56236 (starting evening of November 4)

Observers

Observer 1 Observer 2 Run Manager SISPI Expert on Call Eyeball Squad
Soares Santos Depoy Soares Santos Honscheid Romer

DECam Configuration and Setup

SISPI Configuration File sv.ini
DECam constants DECAM:CURRENT
Proposal ID 2012B-0003
Image Processing (Calibration) NCSA
Image Processing (First Cut) NCSA

Almanac

Twilight ends 21:36, middle of night to hand over to community SV at 01:26

Moonrise at 00:51, 68% illuminated, 80 degrees away from our Mini-Survey field on Stripe 82.

Weather Conditions

Observing Plan and Goals for the Night

  1. Standard bias and dome flat sequence during afternoon
  2. Please try to get dome open for temperature equilibration at earliest appropriate time, be sure all cooling/ventilation systems are on.

This plan is with the expectation that guiding and tracking are both too poor to obtain any meaningful long exposures. If the guiding/tracking issues are resolved, we can revert to the SV_11_2 plan of obtaining SN Template observations in good conditions.

Monitor Conditions:
  1. Check on DIMM status, running if at all possible.
  2. Make sure RASICAM is online if weather conditions permit.
  3. A few times per night ask the operator to contact the other telescopes on Tololo to get their seeing value. Record those in the eLog.

If good conditions - sky is clear or thin clouds, and seeing is <=1.4":

  1. Photometric standards sequence as soon as dark enough (grizY in 3 fields at different airmasses, preferably one at X < 1.25, one at X = 1.25-1.65 and one at X > 1.65). Follow link for the suggested fields and scripts. Douglas suggests standards can begin 30 min before astronomical twilight.
  2. Repeat standards hourly if the night is photometric, ask for as many in AM hours as Dara is willing to provide.
  3. StarFlat sequences of 20 wide dithers in each grY (g and r first, with Moon down). Move to lowest accessible Galactic latitude (b>=10 degrees) to increase stellar density w/o crowding. Should take ~20 x (80+30)s = 37 min per filter, ~3 hrs total.
  4. Polar Axis determination exposures.
  5. If seeing is <1.1" and reasonably stable, take series of Alignment_Observing in i band to check relative focus of science array and F/A chips, and to characterize PSF response to motion in all degrees of freedom on hexapod.
  6. In photometric conditions, take BD+17 sequence.
If poor conditions - thicker clouds and/or seeing >1.4"
  1. Photometric standards at evening and 1:10 AM if thin clouds or clear
  2. Take StarFlat sequence if thin clouds or clear
  3. Polar Axis determination
  4. DECal sweeps that were not completed during commissioning

Notes from the 4PM Meeting and Additional Comments

Notes from Observers

Here is Night Summary

Notes on Analyses of Night's Data:

Sky conditions for the night from TASCA (time stamp in UT):
TASCA b-filter animated GIF for this night