NICS User Guide
Contents
1. User Guide to Last revision December 2012 Francesca Ghinassi Vincenzo Guido H ow to start up NICS s user interface In wsastro first second or third desktop open NICS interface clicking the icon or type on terminal home tng fasti Observing tcl Verify from the Nics instrument status in the Acquisition window see below that NICS s pressure and temperature are in working range Verify from the information window under the exposure setup panel that the whole initialisation process see below was successfull it will appear in the window says NICS status OK Verify from the Nics instrument status that Telescope in ON If is OFF the tracking interface is down 1s posible to acquire dome flats anyway but it is not possible to acquire mosaic or other scientific frames In the letter case ask the operator to start the tracking interface Note If Telescope comunication is OFF Acquisition window will not be possible to show actual telescope telemetry derotator encoder position end dewar of NICS position Select the Observing Program from the drop down menu Select the Exposure Type from the drop down menu choose between science calib flatsky lamp test Take a short single frame 3 sec with any settings to check that the instrument is working properly Check the archive logbook http alexandria logbook 1f the new acquire2. Manual or Box use Manual if your object is not highlighted with a green circle These are the found objects select Box Mouse select e Select it with a click of the mouse inside the green circle or manually select the object e Ifclick Yes on the popup OFFSET window offset command is sent to the telescope 12 Move object to the mouse position The user has to Click the Move obj button Click Mouse position button Click near the object to move objects founds are highlighted with a green circle Select Manual or Box use Manual if your object is not highlighted by a green circle Select 1t with a mouse click inside the green circle or select manually the object Select the target position for the object with a mouse click If click Yes on the popup window offset command is sent to the telescope Move object to specific X Y coordinates Click the Move obj button Click Enter manually button Insert X and Y coordinates of the target and press lt GO gt Click near the object to be moved objects found are highlighted with a green circle Select Manual or Box use Manual if your object is not highlighted with a green circle Select it with a mouse click inside the green circle or select manually the object If click Yes on the popup window offset command is sent to the telescope 13 Pre reduction tools Some useful pre reduction tool
3. MA Spectroscopy SPE Polarimetric imaging IMAPOL end Polarimetric Spectroscopy SPEPOL sect the desired mode For each observing mode is choosing the instrumental setup filter camera attenuator grism slit Exposure Setup panel allows to manage the acquisition START Acquisition procedure allows to start the acquisition in MOSAIC or NINT mode The frames generated are saved into the archive In the NICS interface you can edit 3 fields to define the integration times e single integration time usually referred to as DIT The minimum allowed is 3 sec e number of coadds per group is the N number of integrations to execute with t DIT They are automatically coadded to produce a frame with a total integration time N DIT e Total number of group to use 1 only in the calibrations to repeat more frames with the same setup without moving the telescope For the choice of times it is suggested e Integrate to obtain the highest possible signal but below the 8000 ADUs e In imaging don t spend more than 60 90 seconds of total time per single position of the mosaic so that the variation of the sky level won t be too big to hamper its subtraction In spectroscopy don t execute a mosaic with a total time of more than an hour to avoid to lose the object from the slit If a long exposure time is needed at the end of an hour of integration verify the position of the object in imaging mode and successively start a
4. ON Click again the MOSAIC checkbutton to turn the status OFF e the mosaics read by NICS interface are found in the directory home tng fasti mosaics e the mosaics can be written either with absolute or relative movements absolute according to the pointing and relative according to the last movement and with steps in arsec or in pixels You simply need to write the first line of the mosaic properly with the mosaic mode so to allow the software to transmit it to the tracking workstation in the correct form Specifically the mode should be REL2LAST_AD mos relative in arsec AR amp DEC REL2LAST_XY mos relative in pixels X amp Y REL2SOURCE_AD mos absolute in arsec AR amp DEC REL2SOURCE_XY mos absolute in pixels X amp Y BRELTOSOURCE AD D BRELTOLAST AD If the first line is omitted or is badly written the mosaic will be 3 2 interpretated by default as 10 10 10 10 absolute in arsec AR amp DEC Example of mosaic test MODE X a offsetl Y d offset X a offset2 Y d offset2 X a offset3 Y d offset3 X aj offset4 Y d offset4 X ajoffsetS Y d offset5 e when writing occasional mosaics which won t be re utilized in the future please delete them or inform Francesca Ghinass1 To acquire a mosaic e click the checkbutton Mosaic OFF it will change in Mosaic ON e Select the mosaic from the list double click e Insert the values for Dit Ndit and Nint e Click on Start Acquisition
5. ause they were already transmitted to the archive anyway The wsastro machine is strictly devoted to the control of the instruments and must not be used for data reduction to avoid to load it with data or even worse to delete or modify data by mistake For the data reduction Brunello is available On that machine the image reduction package SNAP is also installed 22 Shutdown the system Make sure that the lamps are turned off and especially that the diffusor is out window must appear as follow 2 Exit from the interface EXIT 3 Turn off the screen ONLY IF there s the need to turn off the system for A LONG TIME days N B Don t forget to print the log file located in home tng fasti Images logFile log if you are interested to have the historical of the observations 23
6. button The GUI executes the mosaic command according to the following steps 1 Reads the mosaic file determines the offsets and stores the offsets values 2 Moves the telescope to the first mosaic position and waits for telescope settling Obviously this operation is skipped in case the offset amplitudes are both 0 3 Acquires frame 4 Moves telescope to next mosaic position and waits for telescope setting 5 Repeats steps 3 4 until the mosaic ends 6 Moves to the origin i e moves the telescope back to the original position of the mosaic and waits for telescope settling before reactivating the START button N B If you want to read the content of the mosaic file selected you can click with the right button on the mosaic name Right click to read the content of prova txt E Mosaic ON prova txt A window like this will appear Ps Quicklook amp pre reduction fa SAOImage Quicklook ME Object image fo Training Sky Image y File JPV20017 fts Object N1893_N10 Value Center obj in slit Move obj Tools WCS Image x uy Frame 1 Zoom 1 000 Angle 0 000 Mean 632 32 Stdev 37 73 P IC Move panel l Center of Field 512 560 Mouse Position Enter manually X 500 p2 co k This windows is divided in to three parts e Center object in slit e Move object e Tools 10 Center object on slit For slit centering you need to a
7. cquire at least one image of the field 2 in case you need to subtract the sky The user has to 1 Click the Center Obj in slit button 2 Check the slit and the Y position on the windows N B To choose another slit and or Y value change the Y value first and then the slit Once the slit is selected press GO button the procedure will automatically ask you to select the object 3 Click near the object to be moved objects found are highlighted with green circles 4 Select Manual or Box use Manual 1f your object 1s not highlighted with a green circle ES a Select These are the found objects 5 Select 1t with a click of mouse inside the blue circle or select the object manually 6 If click Yes on the popup window Apply OFFSET dAlfa 23 06 dDelta 30 92 Wes Ho offset command is sent to the telescope 11 Move object The interface gives to the user three possibilities to move an object 1 Automatically move the object to the center of the array Chapt 4 2 1 2 Move an object to a user defined position with the click of the mouse Chapt 4 2 2 3 Move an object to a user defined position by inserting the coordinates Chapt 4 2 3 Move object to the center of the field The user has to e Click the Move obj button e Click Center of field button e Click near the object to be moved objects found are highlighted with a green circle e Select
8. d image shows up there If it doesn t please contact the support astronomer telescope operator Imaging Spectroscopy Filter K 1 95 2 30 v EE se BT Camera LF 0 25 pix gt IMAPOL SPEPOL Attenuator None 5794319 0 deg Elevation 0 0 0 NICS INSTRUMENT STATUS T_Array 79 61 K P_Dewar 4e 07 mbar Select Lamp Free Run STOP ABORT 28 11 12 13 47 42 printstatusl0 shold 4 sample and hold time on svb 28 11 12 13 47 42 printstatusl1 pixwait 57 sample and hold time on svb HEHEHE HRE HE EF NICS status OK HRRERARERRRAREAR 28 11 12 13 48 22 Calibration lamps connection OK 28 11 12 13 48 22 Telescope connection ok A AK z j i Illustration 1 The Nics Acquisition Window Figure 1 Nics instrument status NICS instrument status panel allows the user to have a quick look of the dewar criogenic status showing temperatures and pressure values It also allows to manage the connection with the telescope and have a look at the connection status through the OCS database The text color changes when the temperature pressure increase over the normal working ranges as shown in the following diagram Pressure mbarr T array K T TK When either the temperature or the pressure color turns to yellow it indicates a slightly critical value that warn us of some possible problems It is still possible to
9. e between 8000 and 3000 ADU Calibration in dome The Exposure Setup Panel also allows to manage the calibration lamps using the button Select lamps NICS is equipped with three different calibration lamps Halogen Xenon Argon and a Diffusor The procedure to manage the calibration lamps allows the user to put the diffusor in position ON OFF and switch ON OFF one or more lamps at a time Here is an example of lamps off on the left and Halogen and Xenon lamps on on the right N B The time to put on off the Diffusor is about 20 seconds During this time the color of Dif label changes to blue and the interface is blocked 21 Image management The acquired images can be found in a folder named with the day the acquisition begun if after noon UT otherwise with the date of the previous day with the form yy_mm_gg under the directory home tng fasti Images It s important for the correct archiving of the images that before the acquisition the OBSERVING PROGRAM field is correctly filled with the code of the observing program in visiting mode and the EXPOSURE TYPE field is also correctly filled with science for the astronomic targets calib for any kind of lamps arcs or halogen flats flatsky for all the kinds of sky flats test for all the test acquisitions you don t want to use as astronomical data NEVER DELETE the acquired images bec
10. for the second object e Distance result appears on Ds9 display e Coordinates of the objects distance in X Y in arcseconds and the angle are displayed in Result window 19 Other tools e Rotate image This is a tools which allows the user to rotate the images e Sky subtract Allows the subtraction between the images selected in the combobox Current image and Sky image Default subtraction is done between the last two images taken but the user can choose different images e Cross talking correction Allows the correction for the crosstalk The procedure creates a new image named crossTfts In home tng fasti Images e 2MASS Displays an image retrieved from the 2MASS server at the current coordinates of the telescope positionand with the same position angle of the sky N B If you want to correct for the crosstalk an image subtracted you have FIRST to Subtract and THEN apply the crosstalk correction 20 Sky Flats To take sky flats it s strongly recommended not to use the mosaics moving the telescope 10 seconds of time every 3 seconds of integration is really a bad time optimization A few minutes before the civic twilight point the telescope where you want zenith is fine and then stop the tracking so the sky moves but not the telescope and from there launch 10 20 any number you think necessary integration groups of 3 seconds To reduce noise within the flats you need to integrate in a rang
11. new mosaic The total time for the observation is automatically update in the time remaining window The FreeRun procedure continuously acquires frames of DIT seconds integration time and displays the results without saving the images into the archive The images are 6 nevertheless available on disk as temporary fits files and may be used for quick on line analysis e g display subtracted frames display images divided by reference flat frames compute the FWHM of the stellar objects perform statistics of sub areas This mode can only be terminated by the ABORT command N B During the freerun analysis is not permitted The user can STOP or ABORT a running exposure or mosaic by clicking the corresponding button The STOP saves the on going exposure frame on disk and stops the other exposures and in case a mosaic is running terminates the mosaic and the telescope back to the origin position The ABORT aborts the on going integration of the detector In case a mosaic is running the telescope will remain on the position in which it was during the integration so if you are halfway through a mosaic you can lose the knowledge of the position and be forced to point again N B If possible avoid to use the ABORT It is recommended only in extreme cases e g if a very long integration is ongoing Mosaics The MOSAIC mode is available only when the telescope connection is active Click on the MOSAIC checkbutton to turn it
12. ou ll have a good signal with the pyramid in the range of 1000 6000 ADU e Position the star you want to focus with the center of the field on the upper right quadrant would be optimal e Set IMA mode with Js as filter LF as camera and Pyramid e Set the desired integration time but not less than 10 seconds to average the seeing e Launch an acquisition e Click on Focus button e Click on the upper right spot 12 in the following example a First click no 2 BO Oy The correction values is written in the Result space Tell it to the operator to correct the focus with M2 WARNING the correction value has its own sign So don t target the sign of the correction when you tell it to the operator After the correction is applied start another integration in the same configuration and repeat the same procedure to obtain a better focus with successive interactions 2 or 3 When you focus with the pyramid be sure that the value of the focus dependent on the temperature in the dome 1s close to where 1t sholud be the operators can set the value for you 16 at any moment otherwise the focus procedure will diverge tipically corrections above 0 09 mm are suspect and you ll risk to waste a great amount of time N B Don t keep trying to re focus when residual values are of the order of 0 02 0 01 mm 17 Image analysis Show the most important informations of the selected object centroid position elliptici
13. s are available to the astronomers during the observations There are four of them e Image Cuts Chapt 5 3 1 e Focusing Chapt 5 3 2 Image analysis Chapt 5 3 3 e Distance calculator Chapt 5 3 4 Image Cuts The user only has to select the Ds9 clicking on it and press the H button then e click holding press to select point A of the object position e move mouse to the point B e release the mouse button at point B A green line will appear on Ds9 and the plot popups automatically Moving the green line with mouse or arrows the plot updates in real time To close click Q or select the green line end press Backspace To use an aperture go to the middle of the green line the mouse pointer change click and move mouse to create a box 14 X Y Zoom 0 563 Angle 0 000 Stdev 74 36 Mean 3004 File Edit Graph Font Dataset View Color Line Projection 13 071 13 669 13 668 28 530 28 530 28 530 fk5 coordinates 2 68e 03 2 76e 03 2 85e 03 2 93e 03 3 01e 03 3 09e 03 3 17e 03 3 25e 03 3 33e 03 The cuts can be moved along x and y by using the keyboard arrows 15 Focusing To focus NICS you need to e Point a field containing one or more bright stars below saturation so that they can be seen with the pyramid For example assume that the signal you ll obtain with the pyramid is more or less 1 4 1 5 of that you would obtain in Js without pyramid with the same integration time and y
14. ty eccentricity magnitude FWHM etc To perform an image analysis the user has to e Click X near the object objects found are highlighted with a green circle e Click into the blue circle a red cross will identify the selected object e Result appears in a popup window File Edit Font Object analysis results M 337 279 Y 461 425 Teta 6 5 To close the panel press O User can combine it with the Contour procedure by simply pressing the Y button with the mouse pointing the object 18 Slit fts Value 3036 FK5 a 0 54 39 195 28 31 49 89 6 Image x 407 506 Y 476 608 Frame 1 Zoom 4 000 Angle 0 000 Stdev 72 69 Mean 3013 Limits Low 2601 High 3415 14 2 68e 03 2 76e 03 2 85e 03 2 93e 03 3 01e 03 3 09e 03 3 17e 03 3 25e 03 3 33e 03 User can add or remove levels using a specific panel increase decrease the number of levels or change the limits than press Generate and finally Apply The number of levels increases decreases based on the user s choice N B If Ds9 doesn t responds to the keyboard please be sure that Ds9 windows is selected clicking on it Distance calculator Allows to calculate the distance between two objects in arcseconds To do that user have to e Click near the first object e Select the object clicking into a blue circle objects found are highlighted with green circle e Repeat these two steps also
15. work but you should inform Francesca Ghinassi NICS instrument manager Finally if any color turns to red you must stop observing and contact inmediately the instrument manager NICS temperature for optimal work can fluctuate between 90 and 75 Kelvin without problem Currently it is set at 85 K and it should fluctuate by no more than 2 degrees around this value The pressure can fluctuate between 10 4 and 10 9 mbar Initialization The interface will perform the following processes in this order e Open the communication with the database OCS e Open the communication with PC Fasti IP number 161 72 44 44 e Open the communication with the telescope and initialize the protocol e Open the communication with the calibration lamps IP number 161 72 44 100 port 3005 e Open the communication with motors IP number 161 72 44 100 port 3004 Motor Status Motor Status panel display uses different colors to show the status of each motor In position Moving Motor Error S means limit switch reached Grey Not connected to the Lantronix X means motor disconnected Not in position for the observing mode set 0 Reset position Note a motor in Yellow it means that the motor will move before starting the integration How to start the exposition Before starting an exposure must be selected in the Observing modes panel the setup of the observation NICS provides four modes Imaging I
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