User`s Manual for remote observations.
Contents
1. s test can be found here In conjunction with the Bonn shutter installed at the 1 23m telescope exposure times as low as 0 1s can be achieved with a homogeneity error less than 1 The shutter fast speed facilitates the acquisition of bright sources and sky flats The camera acquisition software supports a shutterless frame transfer readout mode which can be used in conjunction with a frame transfer mask placed in the filterwheel to achieve concurrent exposure and readout of a sub region of the CCD This readout mode is useful in those cases where high time resolution as in the case of planetary occultations is necessary As an additional benefit when using the frame transfer readout the shutter wear and tear associated with lengthy short exposure sequences is completely avoided The camera is installed at the telescope s Ritchey Chretien focus with no field corrector and has a plate scale of 0 314 pixel The corresponding field of view FOV is 21 4 x 21 4 The 4 position filterwheel accepts circular filters with a diameter of 100 mm that cover the whole FOV Alternatively an 8 position filterwheel can be installed that accepts 50 mm circular filters which only cover the central region of the CCD 1 2 Setup 1 2 1 Prepare telescope and camera for observation The DLR camera can be operated locally or remotely In both cases the procedure for the observations is basically the same as remote observations are performed through Wi2. Arguments none Return values 0 2 2 8 t state Get operational state of the telescope Arguments none Return values 1 hydraulics off 2 drives off 3 tracking off 4 m1 cover closed 10 ready for observing 14 2 3 Camera Commands To use these commands the acquisition program start_ccd on DLR controller must be running 2 3 1 camera_dlrl_ start Start an exposure Arguments wait nowait Optional Return immediately or wait until exposure finished Default wait Return values O success 1 error 2 3 2 camera_expmode Set exposure mode Arguments test normal Return values O success 1 error 2 3 3 camera_exptime Set exposure time Arguments exposure time Exposure time in seconds Return values O success 1 error 2 3 4 camera_exptype Set exposure type Arguments 15 science dark flat focus Return values O success 1 error 2 3 5 camera_objectname Set object name Arguments object name name of object to be exposed next Return values O success 1 error Example camera objectname some object Object names containing spaces must be single quoted 2 3 6 camera userdef Select predefined user settings binning chip geometry readout speed amplifier in start ccd The settings must be defined in start ccd and correspond to the User Setting buttons 1 to 4 Arguments 1 2 3 4 Return values O success 1 error Example
3. Directory on FTP server is correct and exists on the ftp caha es machine This will ensure that the images acquired are automatically uploaded to the FTP server Note that existing files in the destination directory on the FTP server with the same file name as the images to be copied will be overwritten without prompting e Initialize the telescope by clicking on the restart telescope icon start ccd Hardware Utilities 40 72 CCD Configuration X1 0 x2 4096 Dutput Filename YI 0 Y2 4112 amp N observations 201 4 test i0000 fits X bin 2 Y bin 2 Exposure Parameters Speed normal Time 0 0 s CCD Temperature Control O Temperature C 100 1 Type Science v Dewar dT C 3 1 5 Object Name Last Name Comment Exposure User Defs 1 User Defs 2 User Defs 3 User Defs 4 System Messages Press Start for a new exposure Exposure Time Left s Readout Progress 7 ho Used Disk Space Z2 57 TTET System Monitor Jan 20 11 05 34 RPC listening on port 4747 Figure 3 start ccd start ftp Directory on FTP server Last file copied System messages Server ready Figure 4 start ftp applet 1 2 4 Generalremarks e Please leave the camera acquisition GUI running at all times during your campaign as this will ensure proper CCD temperature monitoring e Atthe end of your campaign you can close the camera acquisition GUI but please leave the power supply
4. GUI on ultra2 Close the ftp start applet Leave the start ccd program running 22 6 Appendix III Spanish keyboard mapping DOONOOODHHE Ere Ia DEERREEELFEPE 23
5. e VObservations current yearycurrent date where date represents the date of the start of the night during which the observations take place Create a directory for the night on ftp caha es where the data will automatically be uploaded after acquisition The credentials for logging on the ftp server can be obtained from the CAHA staff The directory on the ftp server can be created with any ftp client from any computer The most convenient way however is to use the Total Commander application on DLR controller The ftp session credentials are stored in Total Commander under Net FTP Connect caha Please follow the naming convention from the previous nights Start the acquisition program by clicking on the AstPhot icon on DLR controller and select File Acquire You will be prompted for an observer t name an image name prefix and the folder in which the images are L a AstPhot stored before the GUI appears The camera GUI start ccd Figure 3 has a similar functionality as the one for the old camera on ultra2 Images acquired will be displayed automatically in AstPhot It is advisable to reduce the size of the displayed image in Astphot in order to speed up the update of the remote screen This is done by the command Window Zoom Squeeze in AstPhot e Launch the start ftp applet Figure 4 by clicking on the respective icon on the DLR controller desktop Make sure that the name of the destination directory shown in the field
6. of the camera acquisition program saying that information cannot be obtained from rts2 e See point 6 8 The CCD has dropped to a very low temperature e The CCD temperature controller has crashed possibly due to electrostatic discharge during nitrogen refill e Try a soft reset of the camera by restarting the acquisition program and leaving the power supply on in the confirmation dialog e Ifa softreset did not help try a camera hard reset by closing the acquisition program and switching off the power supply in the confirmation dialog Wait one minute and open the acquisition program again e If none of the above works just panic 9 The dewar dT has dropped to a value lower than 2 5 C e The dewar dT measures the temperature difference between the dewar and the local air If this value drops below 2 5 C the dewar isolation is degraded and condensation on the optical window may occur Contact the CAHA staff for reestablishing a good vacuum 10 The Temperature LED control on the camera acquisition program has turned red e The CCD temperature is increasing Liquid nitrogen needs to be refilled 11 The t_offset command does not work as expected e The t_offset command moves the telescope by a user specified amount with respect to the last position reached through a t_posit command As an example issuing twice the t_posit command with the same parameters will cause the telescope to be moved once Issuing the t_posit command afte
7. start ftp program is running on the DLR controller PC e Check the transfer status and the last image transferred in the notification area of the start_ftp program e Make sure the target directory is existing on the CAHA server start_ftp does not create the target directory e Ifyou are using a GUI based FTP client as FileZilla or the Total Commander to check the existence of the files on the CAHA FTP server make sure you refresh the view of the client after a transfer as these clients don t refresh the directory content automatically e Make sure the start ftp program points to tonight s directory on the FTP server If the program still points to an older directory newer files with the same name will overwrite existing files without warning 19 6 The image FITS header shows incorrect object coordinates or filter number or focus position or mirror temperature information e Telescope status information is retrieved by the camera acquisition by interrogating rts2 services If such information is not retrieved correctly some rts2 services might not be running In such case re initialize rts2 by pressing on the Restart Telescope icon on the DLR controller machine Please note that the rts2 services need a few minutes to be restarted If the acquisition program is started before that period it will report warnings as the communication with rts2 is not yet established 7 An error message is displayed in the notification area
8. tracking in DEC in arcsec h Example dither 10 9 50 2 40 13 12 5 This will move the telescope to the given coordinates prompt for exposure time and field name and start image acquisition Please note that the tracking is specified in terms of coordinate motion and not plane of the sky projected motion 11 2 2 Telescope Commands 2 2 1 ia filter Set filter In order for this command to work the filter GUI must be running on ultra2 Arguments filter number Number of filter to be set Return values O on success 1 if filter cannot be set failed to set requested filter filter number out of range Example la_filter 2 Set 2 filter in wheel 2 2 2 t_dspeed Set telescope R A and Decl coordinate motions Arguments tracking RA additional tracking in RA in arcsec h tracking DEC additional tracking in DEC in arcsec h Return values 0 success 2 telescope moving Example t_dspeed 10 5 20 3 Please note that the tracking is specified in terms of coordinate motion and not plane of the sky projected motion 2 2 3 t_focus Set telescope focus position Arguments focus position Focus position to be set Return values 12 0 Example t_focus 46 95 Set focus position to 46 95 2 2 4 t_moving Check if telescope is currently moving Arguments none Return values 1 telescope is moving O telescope not moving 2 2 5 t_of set Move the telescope by the specified offset from the lastt_posit poi
9. Observing with the DLR MKIII CCD Camera at the CA 1 23m Telescope Table of Contents 1 Observation Guide Using the DLR MKIII CaMera oooonccncncnonononononononnnnononnnnnnnncnnono no nnnnnnnanannnononcnnnos 4 1 1 ea m 4 1 2 SETUP a AGANG NINANG AGANG E REA 4 1 2 1 Prepare telescope and camera for observation oooooonncnnnnnnonnnonononanononannn an cc na nonn nora corn arras 4 1 2 2 SETUP e A M tates 6 1 2 3 Set up DER controller uii a adas 7 1 2 4 General remarks ee etii tti e a ee Ri Rose Pea eg 9 CMD Console Line Commands and Scripts Reference 9 2 1 da 10 2 1 1 a c AA 10 2 1 2 a ut arc uae iE ere EE 10 2 1 3 TE OCUS 10 2 1 4 SINGLE RR GUDANG READER ARR 11 2 1 5 ATENG Ta P 11 2 2 Telescope COMMANAS vi aaa aan ANDA aa LANANG 12 2 2 1 ia ms Nadie 12 2 2 2 peii m 12 2 2 3 Ep CU Sires TII II 12 2 2 4 I TOV TIO adas 13 2 2 5 ja SO TE SET p 13 2 2 6 Cc POS i M 14 2 2 7 TE PE QUG pM 14 2 2 8 uci DEED 14 2 3 Camera Commands un ld 15 2 3 1 Camero dlri RAE UI QD TE rerrercr creecerererrerrr ree er r
10. camera userdef 3 Set userdef 3 in start ccd 2 3 7 camera bin Set binning in start ccd Arguments binning x 16 binning y Return values O success 1 error Example camera_bin 2 2 Set binning in start_ccd to 2 by 2 2 3 8 camera_speed Set readout speed in start_ccd Arguments slow normal fast Return values O success 1 error Example camera speed fast Set readout speed in start ccd to fast 2 3 5 camera amp Select readout amplifier If set to 4 all amplifiers are used simultaneously Please note that changing output amplifier will change the orientation of the image Arguments 0 1 2 3 4 Return values O success 1 error Example camera amp 4 Use all amplifiers simultaneously 17 2 3 10 camera_format Set CCD geometry Note that only full frame format is supported if all readout amplifiers are used Arguments X1 first column X2 last column 1 Y1 first row Y2 last row 1 where the coordinates are counted starting from O Please note that reading out from all output amplifiers simultaneously camera_amp 4 does not allow the selection of a sub region Return values O success 1 error Example camera_format 1000 3000 1000 3000 Defines a 2000 x 2000 pixel sub region centered approximately at the center of the CCD 18 3 FAQ 1 5 cannot access the DLR controller machine with a Remote Desktop session e Make sure that the proper certificates ar
11. e installed on the local machine Only Windows clients are currently supported e Make sure that DLR controller is switched on by pinging it from wastro12 e It has been observed that on some windows clients the Windows update KB2592687 makes it impossible to connect to the DLR controller machine Uninstalling this update fixed the problem on those clients I don t find the icon of the camera acquisition program on the DLR controller desktop Where is it e The camera GUI is accessed through the AstPhot program by selecting File Acquire cannot start the camera acquisition program A warning says that there is another instance already running e Only one instance of the camera acquisition program can be running at a time This warning occurs if another user is logged onto DLR controller and left an acquisition session open In such case contact the DLR or CAHA staff to close the open session The filterwheel does not respond or loses its position The filterwheel GUI reports X 4X4 4 as a filter number These are symptoms that multiple instances of the ia123 daemon are running on the ultra2 machine e Close the filterwheel GUI e List all running processes in an ultra2 terminal ps al e Check if there is any running instance of ia123 If so look up its process id number pid e Kill the process by issuing a kill pid command in an ultra2 terminal Images are not automatically uploaded to the CAHA FTP server e Make sure that the
12. eer ee 15 2 3 2 rpg oo AAA ETE 15 2 3 3 CAMELA EM da dd 15 2 3 4 cC me ra q orar o kan PP O 15 2 3 5 camera op EC ENANA c 16 2 3 6 camera ugerdef a AA 16 Dn uU A N 2 3 7 camera A PEE 16 2 3 8 Camera SPSS ERAN RR 17 2 3 9 Camera A O 17 2 3 10 Came Ca format AA AA AAA AA ad IANG 18 Al tie DAAN 19 Appendix Start of night checklist nere nennnnn nnne nnn nnns 22 Appendix Il End of night checklist ooonooccconononanocoononcnnnnnonnononnnnnonnnnononnonnnnonnnnno Taai E Eiaa 22 Appendix lll Spanish keyboard mapping 111 a 23 1 Observation Guide Using the DLR MKIII Camera 1 1 Introduction The DLR MKIII camera is a fast readout low noise cryogenically cooled scientific camera presently installed at the CA 1 23m telescope It is equipped with an e2v CCD231 84 NIMO BI DD CCD sensor with 4k x 4k pixels and 15um pitch The sensor has 4 output amplifiers that can be used individually or in parallel for faster readout The chip is antireflection coated ER1 and is manufactured out of deep depletion high resistivity silicon This technology maximizes the quantum efficiency of the detector especially in the red and near infrared spectral bands The usable dynamic range of the camera is limited by the capacity of the video processor which is linear up to about 32k DN regardless of readout speed or binning setting The data sheet of the CCD can be found at the following link The results of the manufacturer
13. erface they should contact Petr Kubanek directly The DLR controller machine can be accessed through a Remote Desktop session by logging on as user obs13 onto DLR controller caha es after the proper certificates have been installed see above The access password can be obtained by the Calar Alto staff The second Remote Desktop session connects to wastro12 This Windows PC computer solely acts as a gateway to the Sun workstation u tra2 because Solaris u tra2 operating system does not support the Remote Desktop protocol and the native X Windows protocol is not routed through the Calar Alto firewall for security reasons The ultra2 machine is used to start and monitor the TECS services on the tecs12 workstation It runs the TECS graphical user interface GUI which allows switching the telescope and dome on off and allows manual pointing of the telescope In addition u tra2 runs the filterwheel hardware drivers The wastro12 machine can be accessed through a Remote Desktop session by logging on wastro12 caha es Ultra2 can be accessed from wastro12 by using the Windows X terminal Exceed The respective access credentials can be obtained by the Calar Alto staff Note please make sure that the tcp ip ports used by the Remote Desktop protocol are routed through the firewall of your home institution In case of doubts please contact your system administrator it never helps but always wanted to write such a sentence 1 2 2 Set up ult
14. esult of the sequence is a composite image that consists of 8 exposures each one shifted by 30 lines last exposure is shifted by 60 lines to make the shift direction easily recognizable Arguments Focus position Initial focus position at the start of the sequence Exposure time Optional Exposure time in sec default current value in acquisition program GUI Step Optional amount the focus is increased between the exposures in cm default 0 03 10 Example focus 45 5 5 0 1 This will take a focus sequence with 5s exposure time each step starting at 44 5 and increasing focus position by 0 1 each step 2 1 4 single Take multiple images of a single field without moving the telescope Arguments Object name Name of object for Fits header Exposure time Exposure time in seconds Number of images Optional default 20 Example single 1_Ceres 30 15 This will take 15 30s exposures and write the object name 1_Ceres in the Header The telescope position must be set with the command t_posit beforehand 2 1 5 dither Take multiple images of a single field randomly moving the telescope between the images max 100 arcsec in RA and DEC The script will continuously take images until it is ended by pressing ctrl c Exposure time and name of the field are prompted by the script Arguments RA RAin hh mm ss s DEC Dec in dd mm ss s tracking RA Optional additional tracking in RA in arcsec h tracking DEC Optional additional
15. ndows Remote Desktop sessions which seamless relay the remote computer s desktop The only difference is represented by the necessity of properly configuring the remote session in case of remote observations In particular special certificates need to be installed on the client computer in order to access the camera acquisition computer DLR controller The necessary certificates along with installation instructions can be found here Figure 1 shows a sketch of the network topology for the remote observations DLR controller CAHA FTP server S gt gt Figure 1 Network topology Two Remote Desktop sessions are needed to perform the observations The first one to the Windows XP PC DLR controller This computer controls the acquisition the telescope and filterwheel operations The CCD camera is attached directly to this computer while the telescope and filterwheel are controlled by DLR controller by requesting rts2 services rts2 is a distributed system developed by Petr Kubanek which runs on various workstations in Calar Alto and that provides services for operating and retrieving status information from the telescope and the filterwheel In turn rts2 communicates with the telescope by using the telescope s native TECS protocol rts2 is also capable of controlling the acquisition of the DLR camera However this mode of operation is not supported by DLR If users wish to control the DLR camera through the rts2 int
16. nting Arguments offset RA offset in RA in arcsec offset DEC offset in DEC in arcsec ad xy Optional Specifies whether the offsets correspond to RA Dec coordinates or in projected sky coordinates Default ad Return values O success 2 telescope moving 3 telescope not ready e g drives off Example t_offset 30 30 Caution the offset is computed from the last position reached through a t_posit command If the telescope is pointed via the TECS GUI or through a direct TECS command t_offset will produce erratic results 13 2 2 6 t_posit Point the telescope to the specified position Coordinates are in J2000 and can be entered either in deg or hms dms Arguments wait nowait return immediately or wait until pointing finished RA Right ascension in deg or HH MM SS SS DEC Declination in deg or sDD MM SS SS Return values O success 1 wrong syntax 2 telescope already moving 3 coords malformed 4 coords not reachable 5 telescope is not ready e g drives off 6 commanded position is not reachable 7 timeout only with wait option 8 pointing failed reached coordinates differ from commanded coordinates can only be checked with wait option Example t_posit nowait 10 9 50 2 40 13 12 5 This will move the telescope to RA 10 h 9 m 50 2 s and DEC 40 deg 13 m 12 5 s and return immediately 2 2 7 t request Get telescope status RA DEC HA LST AIRMASS and print it to the console
17. on in the exit confirmation dialog box 2 CMD Console Line Commands and Scripts Reference These scripts and commands can be used to control the telescope and the camera There are python versions py and Windows batch versions bat of the scripts commands They can be both be used directly from the Windows CMD command line or called from a python script or a batch file respectively However using the commands from the command line will not display the return codes Look at oscript rts2 py on the desktop for examples on how to examine the exit codes 2 1 Scripts 2 1 1 dark Take a series of dark or bias exposures The object name is set to darkXXX Xs where XXX X is the exposure time If the exposure time is O the object name is set to bias Arguments Exposure Time Exposure time in seconds Number of images Optional default 20 Example dark 30 15 This will take 15 dark exposures with 30s each 2 1 2 multidark Take dark or bias exposures with multiple exposure times Up to 8 exposure times are supported Arguments Number of images Exposure Time s List of exposure times in seconds if O object name is set to bias Example multidark 10 0 50 120 This will take 10 bias images 10 dark exposures with 50s and 10 dark exposures with 120s 2 1 3 focus Take a sequence of 8 exposures at different focus positions It is recommended to set up a sub region and set the binning to 1x1 before starting a focus sequence The r
18. r the telescope has been moved through the TECS GUI or through a direct TECS command will result in an unpredictable behavior 12 What is the system gain of the camera in el s e The system gain of the camera is listed in the image FITS header for the particular camera setup used 20 13 What is the readout noise of the camera for my configuration e The easiest way to determine the current readout noise of the camera is to compute the standard deviation of a sub region of a bias frame e g by typing s in AstPhot and multiply the result by the system gain 21 4 O p s on BE NOLI e rerep Wn PF O ae Appendix I Start of night checklist Establish Remote Desktop connection to wastro12 Establish an X Window connection to ultra2 Verify that the start tecs GUI is running otherwise start it Verify that the filterwheel GUI is running otherwise start it Verify that only one instance of the ia123 process is running Establish Remote Desktop connection to DLR controller Create a local directory for the night Create a directory for the night on the ftp server Launch or update the start_ftp applet and verify that it is pointing to the correct ftp directory If not running start Astphot and start an acquisition session Set acquisition directory in start_ccd Initialize telescope by clicking restart_telescope Start telescope GUI on ultra2 Appendix II End of night checklist Shut down telescope from telescope
19. ra2 Start an ultra2 X Window session on wastro12 by using the Exceed X Window terminal The access credentials for ultra2 can be obtained from the Calar Alto staff Check whether the start tecs GUI is already running Figure 2 If not open an ssh session to tecs12 from an ultra2 terminal by typing ssh tecs tecs12 The necessary password can be obtained by the CAHA staff In the ssh session type start in order to launch the start tecs GUI Check whether the filterwheel GUI is already running If not type ia123 amp on a terminal window on ultra2 Please be aware that ultra2 has a Spanish keyboard mapping which Y might differ from the keyboard mapping on you Remote Desktop client See the Appendix for a Spanish keyboard layout Check that only one instance of the ia123 process is running otherwise anomalies may arise in the filterwheel operations This can be achieved by typing ps al in an ultra2 terminal window In case multiple a123 processes are running they can be killed by typing kill PID where PID is the process ID corresponding to ia123 as listed in ps al start tecs current version w previous version y test version w under develop staff only start tecs Pl Figure 2 start tecs GUI 1 2 3 Set up DLR controller Create on DLR controller a directory for the night The images should be stored locally on drive eX Please follow the naming convention from existing folders i e
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