Subject: Re: [sloan-25mlog 7260] 2.5m obslog 20240526 (SJD 60457)
From: Kaike
Date: Mon, 27 May 2024 09:26:35 -0600
> On May 27, 2024, at 5:44=E2=80=AFAM, Conner via sloan-25mlog =
 wrote:
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>                       APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY SDSS 2.5M
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>                                 OBSERVING LOG
>                          Sunday May 26, 2024
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>                                  (SJD 60457)
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> ----  Observing Team ----
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> Conner Scoresby
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> ---- Observing Plan ----
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> Sun 26 May 2024    60457   0.85   03:05   03:22  10:37    12:40  19:56 =
  ---     dark until 05:33 ( 2.2 h), then bright ( 6.1 h, w/ 1.0 h for 8 =
deg design)
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> ---- Observing Summary ----
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> Clear night with average-to-good seeing. Observed from the queue all =
night, including completing one dark_rm epoch.
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> 1. It looks like a set of APOGEE calibrations were taken around 17:00Z =
but were not reduced. I took a fresh set of evening calibrations at =
checkout, and they begin with Exposure number 48950011.
Looks like that these exposure,  8950001- 09 are there. They are all =
15-read, object exposure. How are these exposures taken, via a script?
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> 2. Acquire stage fails on first design. Could be due to bright =
twilight, but it often failed after only 1 iteration:
> 02:36:30 hal.hal 163 cherno f error=3D"Guider failed: '[1] not in =
index'"
> 02:36:30 CmdDone: hal.hal 163 cherno acquire -r 1.0 -t 5 -x 5 =
--max-exposure-time 30 --dynamic-exposure-time
> 02:36:30 APO.DirtyQuail 8 hal e error=3D"Command 'cherno acquire -r =
1.0 -t 5 -x 5 --max-exposure-time 30 --dynamic-exposure-time' failed."
Yes. I checked the image and confirmed that the backgrounds are very =
bright in the first few GFA images and the telescope focus are little =
off (compared to later GFA images).=20
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> 3. Aborted BOSS and APOGEE exposures on Field-Design-Configuration =
101171-594338-14521 (a bright design) because dark time was coming. It =
was noticed that the Expose macro in Boson could not be interacted with =
if the exposure was in Auto Pilot, I could not abort the macro. =
Exposures were aborted via STUI. Even when Boson was showing no exposure =
was going, and that STUI was showing both BOSS and APOGEE were not =
exposing, HAL insisted an Expose macro was already going and it took a =
few minutes before I could expose through HAL again.
Jose: Can you please comment on this.=20
To abort ongoing HAL exposure, we need to abort APOGEE exposure twice =
since there are a pair of APOGEE exposure queued up. I usually issue =
boss exposure abort following by boss exposureClear, which allows me to =
start next exposure.=20
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> 4. Things were very slow today. It took Finder >30 minutes to connect =
to sdss data drive and Kronos was very slow updating in the first part =
of the night.
Have you checked if there were processes using large resources (memory =
or CPU time) at that time?
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> 5. Field 112359 (dark_rm field) was completed before dark time ended. =
Kronos scheduled a 2x4 dark_monitor field for the remaining time, but =
there was only enough dark time for one more design, so I continued with =
the dark_rm field.
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I guess that you mean =E2=80=9Ccontinue with bright field=E2=80=9D =
instead of dark field. Actually, it is fine to get 1 or 2 designs for =
the dark monitor fields which can be completed in multiple nights. Only =
dark 2X2 field need to be done at the same night. By the way, if seeing =
is good, we usually get very good signal on dark field even moon is up =
if the exposure integration can ends before 20 minutes after the moon is =
up.
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> ---- Software Issues ----
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> Boson/HAL Expose macro is essentially locked in while in Auto Pilot =
mode. I had an interesting situation where I discovered this. I could =
not abort/stop an expose macro through Boson while Auto Pilot was =
engaged. Disabling Auto Pilot keeps everything locked because the "stage =
must complete" before it is accessible.=20
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> Stopping BOSS and APOGEE through STUI works, but Boson/HAL seemed =
confused that an "Expose Macro is already running". I tried again a few =
minutes later and then it worked fine.
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> 03:36:02 APO.DirtyQuail 20 hal f error=3D"An expose macro is already =
running."
> 03:36:02 CmdDone: APO.DirtyQuail 20 hal expose --pairs --count 1
> 03:36:16 APO.DirtyQuail 21 hal f error=3D"An expose macro is already =
running."
> 03:36:16 CmdDone: APO.DirtyQuail 21 hal expose --pairs --count 1
> 03:36:31 APO.DirtyQuail 22 hal f error=3D"An expose macro is already =
running."
> 03:36:31 CmdDone: APO.DirtyQuail 22 hal expose -s =
expose_boss,expose_apogee --pairs -b 900 --count 1
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