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NIRI Most Common Errors for Phase II
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- Guider:
- Guidestars: (1) are too faint, (2) are inaccessible by the probe
arm in some or all offset positions, (3) cause the probe arm to occult
the detector or slit in some or all offset positions. Use the Position Editor (the "Image"
button in the main OT menu) in the OT to visualize the offsets and probe
positions for your field.
- A Guide star is defined but is parked/frozen when pointing on source
or is active when pointing off source. Fix this in the offset iterator by setting
the PWFS to the appropriate guide star or "park" or "freeze".
- OT Setup:
- No (or not enough) acquisition observations are defined (including
slit images). Use the NIRI
OT library routines
for acquisition examples.
- Observations are (1) not prioritized, (2) not RA ordered or (3) not
grouped for clarity. This can cause confusion at the telescope.
Priority should
be set for every observation. Observations can be reordered by dragging
them to the top level of the OT program. Groups can be reordered by
dragging a single observation in the group to the top level of the OT
program, which will move all observations and the group.
- Observing conditions are too strict. Choose the most relaxed
conditions that can be tolerated and still meet the science goals. The
sky background, which refers to optical sky background, should be set to
"Any" for almost all near-IR (1-5 microns) observations. The water
vapor should be set to "Any" for 1-3 micron observations, and carefully
considered for observations at wavelengths >3 microns (see
here
for more information).
- Observing conditions for acquisition & target observations don't
match. Please set the constraints to be identical for the acquisition
and science. This will keep your observations together when the OT is
searched based on conditions.
- No
observe component
is defined (and therefore no observations will be taken).
- Observations are longer than 3 hours of spectroscopy or 4 hours of
imaging. See
smallest schedulable elements.
- There are no notes to the observer. Notes are particularly
important in the following cases: (1) the observing conditions are
unusual or cannot be fully specified in the "Observing Conditions"
component, (2) there are special temporal constraints for the
observations, (3) science targets are expected to be close to
saturation, (4) there are very bright non-science targets in the field
which can be saturated and (5) the science target is not obvious. See
Note.
- No finding chart has been submitted for fields where confusion is an
issue or the
OT Image Server are not
good enough. Send finding charts to your contact scientist.
- Filter change / dither position iterators are in the wrong order
leading to large overhead times.
- Detector:
- Exposure times are inappropriate.
Too short if they violate (1) Minimum
possible exposure time, (2) Minimum recommended exposure time, or (3)
simply add excessive readnoise when saturation is not an issue.
Too long if they allow (1) saturation
of the sky (particularly in L and M), (2) saturation of the source or
(3) sky lines to change too much between dither positions.
- NIRI Detector Modes (Readmode, Well
Depth or Subarray size) are inappropriate for the science goals or
integration times.
- The Subarray size changes between the science target, calibrations
and standards.
- The "Spectroscopy 1024x512" subarray size should not be used,
because it does not decrease array readout time.
- Standards and Calibrations:
- No flats or arcs (for spectroscopy) are defined. These
calibrations should be explicitly
defined in the science program, although time will not be charged to the
PI for these observations.
- Telluric standards
(spectroscopic modes) or imaging standards (found in
the NIRI OT Library)
are not defined.
Last update 2006 September 1; Andrew Stephens, Tom Geballe & Joe Jensen