Introduction
The Telescope
& Optics
The
Detectors
The Imaging
Cameras
An Imaging
Cookbook
The Data
you Take Away
Exposure
times
OFFSET_RUN
files
CCD
Windows
Data
Catalogs
On-line
Reduction
Filters
Flat-fields
Blank
Fields
Orientation
Shutters
While the hardware which is used for f/3, f/1 and f/8 imaging may differ, the detectors are all run by the same software - the OBSERVER system.
Figure 4.1 - Schematic Diagram of the Hardware used in Imaging
While OBSERVER is a fairly complicated system in terms of the interactions it controls, it is actually quite easy to use for imaging applications. Because all our current imaging systems have either manual filter wheels and/or guide probes, or (in the case of the f/1 system) a separate filter control system, there is essentially nothing for the astronomer to control with OBSERVER apart from the CCD. All CCD operations are controlled from a single VT102 terminal.
CCD data is readout by one of two controllers, called either CCD_1 or CCD_2. The particular controller being used for your run will be written on the small whiteboard on the control panel. From there the data is stored in the Large eXternal mEMory (or XMEM) (see Fig 4.1), and saved onto the disk systems of a MicroVAX 4000. These disks are also NFS-mounted on a Sparc 10. Both the Sparc 10 console, and several X-terminals which can be connected to the Sparc 10 and the MicroVAX 4000, are available for the use of observers in the control room for on-line examination of their data.
Occasionally the XMEM may hang up and need to be reset. This can be done by pressing the black reset button on the panel behind the observing terminals.
The MicroVAXes data archive disk has a capacity of about 2 Gb on both DISK$INST and there is a further 2Gb of space on the `non-archival' DISK$DATA.
AAT Vaxcluster
Username: OBSERVER
Password: *********** (Ask your support astronomer)
Welcome to VAX/VMS version V5.5 on node AAT40A
Last interactive login on Friday, 5-SEP-1997 22:09
Last non-interactive login on Thursday, 31-JUL-1997 15:50
Welcome to the AAO OBSERVER system
This software was developed in house by the AAO software group.
It makes extensive use of the ADAM software system, supplied by
the U.K. Astronomy Computing support group - Starlink
Will now run ADAM setup procedures
ADAM version 2.1 available
Drama version 1.0 enabled.
Using generic control task observing system
Use SYSTEMS to list options, SYSTEM to change system
Task configuration is 13-Nov-96
Use VERSIONS to list options, VERSION to change version
Type CCD_n to run the new Large External Memory CCD
Type TEST1 for all tasks simulating
Type TEST2 for only TEL task simulating
Type TEST3 for all tasks simulating and INST logging
Type TEST4 for only CCD task simulating
Type FIGARO to set up for data assessment
**********************************************************
* PLEASE NOTE: *
* *
* Observers are asked to log into the OBSRED account *
* to do their data reduction. *
**********************************************************
If using RGO, type "RGO" before "CCD_x" command to record RGO details in
your data file's FITS header
40a>
Some programs - especially surveys - require the observation of large areas of sky, or dithering of observations around a particular position. In this situation it may be useful to start OBSERVER such that it can use an `OFFSET_RUN file'. This is a file which can command telescope offsets before each exposure in a sequence is started.
To use these files, you must use a different procedure to start up OBSERVER. In fact, you need to start two windows - one OBSERVER window which controls the CCD, and one ICL window which you use to control the telescope and OBSERVER together
Log in as above, onto a suitable X-terminal, and follow all the steps up to (but not including) unix_server and ccd_1 or ccd_2. Instead use the following
40a> xon aatxth (where aatxth is the X-term where you
want the second window to appear)
40a> rvicl ccd_1 (or rvicl ccd_2)
Now wait. The ICL environment will startup in the first window, and OBSERVER will start in a new window which will appear in a bit. This won't work if you don't give a valid display name at the xon command. Once the Idle: prompt has appeared on the OBSERVER window, you are ready to proceed. You can enter any of the usual OBSEVER commands in this new OBSERVER window. The first thing you should do is start the unix_server process by typing
Idle: unix_server on
in the OBSEVER window (not in the ICL window!).
You can now use the ICL window to start an OFFSET RUN FILE, with the command
ICL> OFFSET_RUN filename
The OFFSET RUN FILE is a simple text file (with a default extension of .DAT) which commands telescope offsets and exposures. The exposures commanded can only change exposure times, so you can't use these files to execute a series of exposures with different filters. The default location in which ICL expects to find the offset run file is DISK$RAW:[OBSERVER]. If you create your own files using the OBSRED account, you will usually have to specify the directory as well as the filename
ICL> OFFSET_RUN DISK$USER:[OBSRED]MYFILE.DAT
The creation of OFFSET RUN files is discussed in Appendix 2. Note that to execute normal VAX/VMS commands at the ICL> prompt, you must prefix them with a `$' character.
You exit observer by simply typing the command
Idle: EXIT
which will prompt you to see if you want to log out of your login session also. Say 'yes' and you're done!
Once OBSERVER is running, your VT102 terminal will look like so :-
Figure 4.2 - Typical OBSERVER screen on start-up (ie minimal command list.)
The screen is divided into four areas.
Commands to observer are entered by simply typing on the keyboard (OBSERVER has no mice!). All commands can be abbreviated, so long as the abbreviations are unambiguous. For example, MAXIMISE can be abbreviated to MAX, or MINIMISE to MIN. They can't however be abbreviated to M.
Figure 4.3 - Typical OBSERVER screen, but showing maximal command list.
One thing it is worth doing as soon as you start OBSERVER is changing the colour table used by the XMEM to display the CCD data. There are a range of colour tables you can use; GRJT (the default) is a horrible multicolour mess; GREY is a grey table; GRAY (different spelling) is the most useful. It's a grey table, but it displays values above 65535 as RED, so it's easy to see saturated pixels. It is highly recommended to use this table, so type.
COLOUR GRAY
The CCD parameters you will need to set up are: (1) the window on the CCD you want to use; (2) the speed you want to read the chip out at; and (3) now to write the data to disk.
| Note that because of the residual image problems of the Thomson chips, the latter window must be used to test flat field exposures (ie exposures where the entire chip has large numbers of counts). If you use THOMSON_F1_CENTRE you will bin-up the rows you do not keep into the readout register, which could saturate it and produce residual image dark currents for hours! |
Binning: There is rarely much to be gained by binning the CCDs for
imaging - at f/3.3 you get 0.391"/pixel with the TEK, so you'd
need very bad seeing for there to be much point. It is possible you'd want
binning at f/8, however, where the scale is 0.13"/pixel with
the Thomson. In this case use the Thomson 2x2 binning window which
reduces read-out times significantly :-
WINDOW THOMSON_BIN2
Creating your own windows: Should you decide to create
your own window, you will not be able to write it into the default area
where OBSERVER goes to look for these files (which is
DISK$USER:[SYSDISK1.ADAMLOCAL.WINDOW.Q0_1A]
and .R0_0]), so you will have to specifiy the
full path when you run WINDOW, eg.
the following window was created to expose a 100 x 100 pixel region in
the centre of the TEK chip (this is even faster than the 300 pixel
windows).
WINDOW
DISK$USER:[OBSRED]TEK1K_CEN_100.WINDOW
The required extension for a window file is
.WINDOW.
Note that all the windows mentioned above are available as hyper-links
to the respective files, so you can play with them before your run if you
want to.
There are three fundamental types of exposures OBSERVER will take
Both DISK$INST and DISK$DATA have a capacity of about 2 Gb each. This is usually more than adequate for even the most prolific of observers, though for f/1 runs (where exposures of 5 minutes all night are not uncommon) the situation can become strained - the telescope staff try to ensure as much of this space as possible is available. Observers should consider using DATA USHORT if they think they are likely to run out of space.
To actually take data, you need to specify an exposure time and (optionally) an object name. This can be done in two ways. You can,
Whatever you do, it is worth briefly checking the parameters OBSERVER is using after you start an exposure (as opposed to what you think you may have told it) - especially if the exposure is a long one. It can be some what frustrating to finish a 900s exposure and find you are using only a 300 x 300 pixel window, or the wrong speed!
A few other commands are worth taking note of :-
GENERAL GUIDELINES - The follwing general guidelines
can
be applied to most errors
START UP PROBLEMS - There are a number of things which
can go wrong on start up, but they fall into a few categories.
SYSTEM FAILURE - Following a major problem, you will usually find yourself in the System Failure state. Generally you should try to RESET the system, and if that fails, reload it - if necessary by logging out and back in again. A reasonable sequence to try is as follows:
DATA RECOVERY - If the system has failed in such a way that there is data on the chip, or in the external memory that has not been transferred to the VAX and written to a data file, you will be notified of this at the next initialisation time.
If you need to recover data from the XMEM, do this before recovering data from the chip. The reason for this is that the RECOVER command can only recover the most recently created XMEM slot and if you read out the chip you will create a new and even more recent slot. To recover data from the XMEM
Idle: RECOVER XMEM
and to recover data from the CCD,
Idle: RECOVER CCD
Note that data cannot be recovered from the XMEM after it has been rebooted.
A number of procedures are carried out so commonly, but have a few wrinkles over straight observing, that they are summarised here.
Ensure that you always take flat fields with exposures of at least 5s and preferably greater than 10s, otherwise all you will measure is the shutter open-close pattern.
The Thomson CCDs are seriously affected by overexposure to light. While this causes no physical damage to the chip, recovery from saturation is slow, and high dark current and after images may persist for several hours if the chip is grossly saturated. You must be extremely careful not to everexpose the detector while taking flat fields. This usually means always testing you exposure levels first with very short (0.1s) exposures, or with your most insensitive filter in.
Thomson user must also note that small windows used to test flat field exposures must read entire vertical columns from the CCD - as does the sample 10 x 1024 window THOMSON_F1_TEST. If you use THOMSON_F1_CENTRE you will bin-up the rows you do not keep into the readout register, which could saturate it and produce residual image dark currents for hours!
Flat fields can be taken in a number of ways.
Flattening f/1 Data : The f/1 optics cause some vignetting at the edges of the field, so flat fielding is necessary not only to remove pixel-to-pixel sensitivity variations in the CCD but also to correct for this vignetting. Appendix 7 shows typical flat-fields for each of the currently-used filters. Experience shows that flat-fielding of images taken with the focal reducer can be done to better than 0.5%, but this requires some careful work to created a master flat-field frame from the median of twenty or so sky-limited frames. Observers whose fields contain few bright stars or extended objects can achieve this by making a super-sky-flat. If most of the data frames contain large extended objects such as bright galaxies, this approach is not usually feasible and there are two possible alternatives. One is to take twilight sky flats (as above), the other is to take a number of `flat' frames on the dark sky, offsetting the telescope by several arcseconds between each. Which of these is chosen will probably depend on the requirements of the observing program. There is no significant night-sky fringing with the current (thick, uncoated) Thomson CCD.
Flattening f/3 Data : Sample flat fields taken with the f/3.3 camera and the TEK ccd are available in Appendix 7
A suggested recipe is as follows:
Standard stars can be taken using regular `one-off' exposures, just
like any other frame. However, as the times used for standard stars are
usually short (5-15s) compared to the readout time (~60s), a few tricks
can save time and get you more data.
Both the Landolt (1992) and Graham E-region standards star lists are available in the control room.
BIAS: There's not much special to mention about bias frames (or zero frames if you're of an IRAF bent) , except that there is a special command for taking them
BIAS
which is functionally the same as
RUN 0
except that your frames will get object names like BIAS_0001, BIAS_0002, etc. In both cases the shutter will never open. Sample BIAS frames are available in Appendix 7
DARK: Dark frames can be taken with the DARK command.
In both cases (but especially for DARKS) the dome should be dark, so you can't start these until after 4:15pm either.
The AAT points and tracks superbly, so there is no real need to check pointing. However, if you are carrying out a program where you are pointing blind (say, looking for optical IDs of radio sources), you may like to know where on the CCD is the position you have requested from the AAT. Or, you might be pedantic.
The night assitant will usually acquire what's known locally as a SNAFU star at the beginning of the night, just to check eveything is working and to make a seeing measurement with the telescope-mounted DIMM. You can take a very short exposure of this star (0.1s) or put in an insensitive filter (U or Halpha) to take a snapshot of this object.
| Users of the Thomson chip should avoid this procedure, or be VERY CAREFUL. If you overexpose the centre of the chip, you'll have a residual image which may not go away for hours. |
Section 3.1 contains a description
of the equipment an observer riding in the cage will find around him -
please familiarise youself with its contents. The observer riding in the
cage will be required to acquire guide stars and change filters.
The filter wheels, filter slides and filters are kept in the dark room on the sixth floor (next to the toilet). Also in this dark room are materials to clean the filters - but, please ask the AAO staff to do this for you if its necessary.
The following is a summary of the commands you're most likely to use on a typical night's observing. It is not a guide to how to carry out you SCIENTIFIC program, but a guide to the OPERATIONS you will probably use.
For general information on preparing for your run see Section 1.10 of the AAO's Observer's Guide.
Warning
Unlike other CCDs in use at AAO, the Thomson CCD is seriously affected by overexposure to light. While this causes no physical damage to the chip, recovery from saturation is slow, and high dark current and after images may persist for several hours if the chip is grossly saturated.
Observers are therefore urged to avoid illuminating the Thomson with bright lights either before or during an observing run. Since the dark current also takes several hours to stabilize after the CCD is first powered on, the system should be powered up as early in the day as possible, and observers should be aware that the dark current will increase substantially if for any reason the electronics have to be switched off and powered up again during the night. See Section 2.2 for more details on the dark current produced by gross saturation.
Because you can't turn all the lights out in the dome until after 4:15pm, there's not a lot of actual data taking you can do in the afternoon. However, it is worth check out your setup (have the right filters been put in the wheels, is the wheel mounted in the filter slide and installed in the camera head ...) and taking a few test GLANCEs to see if the CCD is working properly.
Hardware setup : The filter wheels, filter slides and filters are kept in the dark room on the sixth floor (next to the toilet). Also in this dark room are materials to clean the filters, if necessary - please don't do this yourself however ... ask the AAT staff. If you can't find your filters or filter wheel here, they may also be on the table on the PF Access landing, or actually mounted in the camera head. Your instrument scientist should be able to help you with all this setup stuff.
You should also check the CCD setup. This will be shown on the small whiteboard on the AAT control console in the Control Room. Your should check that the CCD is running `warm' (ie at 200K), unless you specifically want it to run `cold' for narrow-band observing. You should also check which controller (CCD_1 or CCD_2) the CCD is connected to.
Software startup : Now startup the OBSERVER system on the rightmost of the VT102 terminals.
Calibrations : Once the lights have been put out you can take the bias, dark and domeflat frames.
| Commands (user input is marked in BOLD font) | Comments |
| C | Conect to the MicroVAX |
| LOGIN: OBSERVER | Login as observer |
| PASSWORD:*********** | Your support astronomer will give you the current password |
| WARM | Skip this if you are not running the CCD warm (ie 200K) |
| CCD_1 or CCD_2 | Depending on which controller you're attached to |
| Now wait for the Idle: prompt | |
| SPEED FAST SPEED NONASTRO | Usually used for f/3.3 Usually used for f/1 |
| WINDOW TEK1K_DIRECT or WINDOW THOMSON_F1 | |
| COLOUR GRAY | Put in the useful colour table |
| GLANCE 0 | You should get a full size bias frame. |
| REPEAT 15 | Take (for example) a series of BIAS frames |
| BIAS | |
| DARK 3600 | Or perhaps a 1 hour dark |
The CCD will need to be filled with liquid nitrogen before observing starts. This is usually done before taking skyflats, but can be done in between taking sky flats and starting real observations if time is short.
You should be ready to start taking sky flats about 15 minutes after sunset for f/3.3, 35 minutes after sunset for f/1. By this time your night assitant hould have arrived. He will startup the telescope, dome etc; open the dome for you; and move to a hopefully blank area of sky.
You should put in a small window for taking test exposures and wait until the sky becomes faint enough to start observing. You'll usually start taking flats in your bluest filter, and work redward.
Users of the Thomson CCDs beware! The Thomson chips are seriously affected by overexposure to light. Recovery from saturation is slow, and high dark current and after images may persist for several hours if the chip is grossly saturated. You must be extremely careful not to everexpose the detector while taking flat fields. This usually means always testing you exposure levels first with very short (0.1s) exposures, or with your most insensitive filter in. You must also use a test window (eg THOMSON_F1_TEST) which reads entire vertical columns, or else you may saturate the readout register.
| Commands (user input is marked in BOLD font) | Comments |
|---|---|
| WIN TEK1K_DIRECT_CEN or WIN TEK1K_CEN_100 or WIN THOMSON_F1_TEST | 300 x 300 pixel window in the center of the chip, or a 100 x 100 pixel window in the center of the chip, or a 10 x 1024 pixel window in the center of the chip. |
| GLANCE 0.1 | Test the sky brightness and wait. Make sure you have the correct filter in place. |
| GLANCE 1 | When you start to get about a fifth of the available counts (10000 counts for FAST speed, 5000 counts for NONASTRO) you're ready to take data. |
| WIN TEK1K_DIRECT or WIN THOMSON_F1 | Switch to the full window |
| GLANCE 5 | Flat fields should never be shorter than 5s and preferably not shorter than 10s. |
| Now examine the field and see if its OK. Is the frame unsaturated? | |
| KEEP | If it's OK the KEEP it. Otherwise try again |
| RUN 7.5 | Increase the time, move the telescope, and take another one. |
| ...... | Repeat until done |
Once you have finished your skyflats, the night assistant will want to do a few things with the telescope. These involve measuring the seeing with a telescope mounted Differential Image Motion Monitor (DIMM), (possibly with a finder telescope also), acquiring a SNAFU star, etc. Please be patient. If a SNAFU star is acquired you may want to take a quick snapshot to get the fiducial location of the telescope's pointing on your CCD image.
One this is done you are ready to check the focus (you may have to wait for the sky to get faint enough) - see Section 4.5.2.
| Commands (user input is marked in BOLD font) | Comments |
| Acquire a field with some brightish stars in it. | |
| SPEED NONASTRO | Use the fastest speed available. |
| TIME 10 | Set the exposure time to use per EXPOSE |
| MULTIPLE | Start Multiple mode |
| EXPOSE | Take an exposure, then move the telescope and adjust the focus. |
| EXPOSE | Repeat this step 6-8 times. |
| When done, readout the chip | |
| SPEED FAST, NORMAL, .. | Put the speed back to what it was before, if necessary. |
| Now display the image on the Sun or VAX and choose the best focus value. |
Once you know the focus for one filter, the focus for the other filters is determined if the focus offsets are known. The offsets for the AAO's filters are well determined. It is very important you remember that the focus must be adjusted everytime you change the filter. This means you must tell the night assistant when you change filters, so that he can change the focus.
Standards can be acquired in a similar way (though obviously without moving the focus).
Now you're ready to observe.
| Commands (user input is marked in BOLD font) | Comments |
|---|---|
| Acquire your target object. Get the observer in the cage to put the correct filter in. Set the focus value appropriate to your filter. Get the night assistant to find a guide star from the GSC and give the X-Y guide probe position to the observer in the cage. Acquire the guide star with the eyepeice. Then switch the guide probe to `PMT' and see if the star is visible on the ST4 CCD camera (you may have to focus the eyepiece and the ST4 CCD at the start of the night). Start guiding. | |
| OBJECT ABEL9999/B | Object name |
| TIME 1800 | Time |
| RUN | Go |
| OBJECT ABELL372/B | You can change the name before the exposure ends if you have to. |
| RUN 900 ABELL372/V | You can also put all the stuff on the one command line |
| .... | From here on, you're on your own. |
The `cage riding' observer will usually demand to be changed out somewhere in the middle of the night. This is usually a good opportunity to top up the liquid nitrogen in the dewar.
The data can be examined on-line with either the VAX or Sun workstations. Remember the VAX data goes in files like
DISK$INST:[CCD_1.960237]37FEB0001.SDF or
DISK$DATA:[CCD_1.960237]A.SDF
which you can see from the Sun in files like
/vaxinst/ccd_1/960237/37feb0001.sdf or
/vaxdata/ccd_1/960237/a.sdf
You should use the OBSRED accounts for looking at your data. Appendix 7 has details on how to start the IRAF and FIGARO packages, and some hints on how to display the data.
Simply reverse the above precedures for sky flats (if you want them), staring with the reddest filter and moving to the bluest as the sky gets brighter. You can log out of the OBSERVER system if you like, but it isn't necessary. The CCD will have to be topped up with liquid nitrogen in the morning.
On the weekend, the afternoon technician will not come in until 2pm. It is therefore the observer's responsibility to get the dewar filled before then if necessary (if say, you go to bed early because its snowing). The night assitant or support astronomer will show you how to do this.
If you plan on saving your data to your own tape (as opposed to having the AAO extract a tape for you from the AAT archive), you should start that going before you go to bed also.
If this is your last night, make sure you fill in an Observing Run Report form!
For general information on preparing for your run see Section 1.10 of the AAO's Observer's Guide.
Photometric standard stars should be chosen carefully, as many are too bright to observe with a 4m telescope. The minimum recommended exposure time is 5 seconds, as set by the shutter timing. Stars brighter than about V=12 may saturate the CCD in less time than this - though this will depend somewhat on seeing. You can also observe somewhat brighter stars by de-focusing the telescope. Both the Landolt (1992) and Graham E-region standard listings are available in the AAT control room.
It is also worth giving some advance thought to flat fielding. If sky flats are to be taken at the start of the night, there is only a relatively narrow time window in which this is possible and it is best to forewarn the night assistant that twilight sky flats are needed so that the telescope is ready at the appropriate time (see Section 4.5.1).
If you plan to use filters other than the standard UBVRI, you should contact your support astronomer well ahead of your run to check that this is feasible.
Details of how to prepare a catalogue are given in section 5 of AAO TM 7 ( Telescope Control System) and in Appendix 4. Observers need only create a suitably-formatted file on the VAX or Sun - the night assistant can then transfer this to the telescope computer at the start of the night's observing.
Since most f/1 observers have a long list of program objects with only a relatively short exposure time on each, some advance planning of the run will help increase efficiency. Most importantly, it is advisable to prepare a co-ordinate list (data catalogue) which can be entered into the telescope computer before the start of the run. This allows the co-ordinates of each object to be recalled automatically when required without the night assistant needing to enter them from the keyboard. Appendix 4 has a description of how to create these data catalogues. Observers need only create a suitably-formatted file on the VAX or Sun - the night assistant can then transfer this to the telescope computer at the start of the night's observing.
Photometric standard stars must also be chosen carefully, as many are too bright to observe with the f/1 system. The minimum recommended exposure time is 5 seconds, set by the shutter timing because the large shutter of the f/1 system takes a finite time to open and close. Stars brighter than about V=14 may saturate the CCD in less time than this, and are therefore unsuitable.
It is also worth giving some advance thought to how the data are to be flat-fielded. If sky flats are to be taken at the start of the night, there is only a relatively narrow time window in which this is possible and it is best to forewarn the night assistant that twilight sky flats are needed so that the telescope is ready at the appropriate time (see Section 4.5.1).
If you plan to use filters other than the standard glass V, R and I filters supplied with the system, you should contact your support astronomer well ahead of your run to check that this is feasible.
Since an autoguider cannot be used with the f/1 system, there is no need to supply guide star positions.
For general information on the AAO, see the AAO's Observers Guide.
Your support astronomer will usually be either already be on the mountain, or will arrive the night before your run. So the most likely place to find him will be at dinner at the Lodge. If you need to track down your astronomer in the afternoon, the most likely locations for hime are (a) asleep, (b) having breakfast at the Lodge, (c) in one of the offices on the 1st floor, (d) in the computer room on the 2nd floor, or (e) rattling around on the 6th floor (including possibly in the dome, on the catwalk or at PF access).
The name of the Technician-on-Duty (also known as the Afternoon Technician) will be shown on the console in the control room. The technicians usually leave the phone numbers where they can be contacted on the console whiteboard. If there are no numbers listed there, try extension 6283 or 6284 (the electronics lab on the first floor).
During observing runs, a night assistant is in charge of the telescope. This assistant has absolute power to shut the telescope down and/or close the dome for reasons of telescope safety. The night assistant will operate the telescope and control system to acquire and track an object and will assist the observer as directed. The observer will normally be responsible for the actual data taking and control of the instrumentation.
Under all circumstances, the night assistant has the final say over decisions to open or close the dome.
Observers should be aware that the dome floor and console level walkways can be dangerous places at night when the telescope is in darkness. No-one should enter these areas after dark unless they are already familiar with this part of the building.
For new observers, the support astronomer can arrange a tour during the afternoon or before the lights go out. Torches (or flashlights) are available next to every entrance to the dark areas of the dome. Astronomers entering these areas must take one of these torches with them, and return it when they leave the dark areas. Astronomers entering these areas must also let the night assistant know that they are going out into the dome.
No food or drink may be brought into the 6th floor control room, but the small observers' lounge on the same floor has a refrigerator and microwave oven as well as facilities for making tea and coffee. Toilets are located on the console floor (level 6), the office floor (level 1) and the main floor (level 4).
A `Fault Report' is submitted by the night assitant whenever something goes wrong during the night. CCD imaging astronomers should be aware that if the rectification of a Fault Report requires the CCD to be removed from the camera head, the AAT's staff will go ahead and remove the CCD without further reference to the astronomer. Astronomers are therefore advised that if it important to their program that the CCD not be removed (eg. to retain the previous night's flat fields), they make sure to inform the night assitant to make such a note in the Fault Report.
Each observer is required to fill in an Observing Run Report form at the end of their run. This form is used to provide feedback to the observatory on its facilities, how successful your run has been, and any problems you may have encountered during your run. The contents of these forms are sent directly to the Director, as well as the responsible AAO staff. As well as being required of all observers, it is also strongly to your advantage to help us improve the AAO's facilities by providing us with your feedback!
The form can be found at http://www.aao.gov.au/local/www/jmc/surveyform.html
Introduction
The Telescope
& Optics
The
Detectors
The Imaging
Cameras
An Imaging
Cookbook
The Data
you Take Away
Exposure
times
OFFSET_RUN
files
CCD
Windows
Data
Catalogs
On-line
Reduction
Filters
Flat-fields
Blank
Fields
Orientation
Shutters
This Page maintained by : Chris Tinney (cgt@aaoepp.aao.gov.au)
This Page last updated: 7 Sep 1997, by Chris Tinney