Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2012 09:28:17 -0400
From: Fred Hearty
Subject: Re: [sdss3-25mlog 700] Re: 2.5m obslog 20120530 (MJD 56078)
Thanks Kaike.
I heartily agree, the entire mountain team is fine tuned and doing an
extraordinary job.
(now if we can get the atmosphere to cooperate)
Fred
Kaike Pan wrote:
> Hi Fred and Peter,
>
>   Thanks for your understandings on this.
>
>    I just want to emphasize that we have very  dedicated team at APO. We are seeking
> every possibly opportunity to collect data.  For example, we are pushing our open/closing
> limits to get more data, scheduling all engineering tasks that do not require sky as cloudy
> night tasks.  Our pointing model has degraded to a point that observers might prefer to have
> a new point model. Considering there is only one month left before summer shutdown, the team
> decided to use calib offsets and update them in the first field of each night, and NOT to take
> another pointing model so that APOGEE can can more data. In summary, the team is good
> in making decisions on what should be done, is doing the best to collect more data for
> our projects.
>
>   SDSS telescope is operating at extremely high efficiency when weather allows us to open
> because of  efforts from both APO day-staff and nigh staff.  I don't have the final number yet,
> but I think that the time we lost to hardware,  software,  operation errors combined is below
> 1%.  I would say that this is very very low comparing to other telescopes. we are very proud of
>  this.
>
>    -kaike
>
>
>
>
>
> On May 31, 2012, at 3:03 PM, Frinchaboy, Peter wrote:
>
>
>> Sorry Observers,
>> 	My comments were not meant as criticism, and I apologize if taken that
>> way.
>> I trust your judgment on observing conditions, we're just having lousy
>> luck getting
>> Bulge data during bright time this year (we've gotten more during dark
>> twilight time,
>> for which we are VERY grateful of the observers efforts).  We are just
>> very limited
>> in our Bulge accessibility due to the low altitude and the moon position.
>>
>> I'll be at APO next week, if you'd like to discuss any issues.
>>
>> -- Peter
>>
>>
>> On 5/31/12 2:50 PM, "Fred Hearty"  wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Hi Steph,
>>> Thanks for the details.  We appreciate that the parameters the observers
>>> use for collecting science data are numerous, complex, and frequently
>>> subtle.  You guys do a great job getting data to the ground; we really
>>> have no reason to question your decisions.
>>> In our enthusiasm to get data when it's not raining (snowing, blowing),
>>> we might wonder if we properly communicated priorities and such to you
>>> -- but we collectively will try to not second guess your decisions.
>>> Will work on avoiding criticism of your decisions.
>>> Fred
>>>
>>> snedden@apo.nmsu.edu wrote:
>>>
>>>> Peter,
>>>>
>>>> The weather (in this case, smoke) does not know about your priorities,
>>>> and
>>>> we are not able to predict smoke levels hours in advance.  We open when
>>>> it
>>>> safe to do so.
>>>>
>>>> We opened under relatively high smoke conditions at the beginning of the
>>>> night to get the priority 9 plate plus the next one. We hoped the smoke
>>>> level would stay low enough for us to stay open. It did not. It only
>>>> dropped to an acceptable level just before 18 degree morning twilight.
>>>> The
>>>> priority 8 plate was out of range.
>>>>
>>>> Furthermore, even If we had been able to start the priority 8 plate at
>>>> 07:54Z, we would have intruded on BOSS time unless we only did one ABBA
>>>> sequence. If we had been able to open a little earlier than we actually
>>>> did, the BOSS plate would have been the proper choice.
>>>>
>>>> If you look at the weather data for the night, you will see that the
>>>> smoke
>>>> levels were very high and variable. Frankly, you are lucky you got the
>>>> plates you did. Some would say we stayed open too long as it was -
>>>> certainly, we pushed the limit. Your criticism is unwarranted,
>>>>
>>>> Steph
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> 5:35Z  encl25m : closed because of smoke and low priority APOGEE
>>>>>> fields.
>>>>>> Five hours were lost.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> Note: the APOGEE priorities are for scheduling decisions! Once they are
>>>>> picked we want the observed.
>>>>> Also we REALLY want the Bulge time!! Which was missed last night due to
>>>>> the closure, but you seem
>>>>> to have reopened to get a lower priority field.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you are going to close for low priority fields, please reopen for
>>>>> the
>>>>> high priority ones (8 & 9).
>>>>>
>>>>> -- Peter
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>
>