GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting
AGENDA
-
- Two track plates were replaced this week.
- Carol sent out requests for quotations on the plate bolts and nuts.
- Quotations on the field work are due next week.
We supported 14 projects, including 4 VLB projects, in 24 observing sessions. Average setup time was a very low 14 minutes. The telescope was also scheduled for 16.5 hrs of maintenance, 4 hrs of commissioning, and 2.5 hrs of receiver checkouts. Lost time was also low -- 5.4 hrs or 3.5% of the time scheduled for observing and commissioning), . The major causes of lost time were:
- Weather (Freezing rain) : 2.3 hrs
- Spectrometer : 0.8 hrs
- Shutdown for Leap Second : 0.7 hrs
- Astrid : 0.5 hrs
- Data Disc Corruption : 0.6 hrs
- All others (0.5 hrs)
From a hallway conversation with Chris Clark, the disc problem may have resulted in the loss of a complete run (I'm guessing 5C29, about 7 hrs of observing).
This is the third week in a row when the average setup time was low. We may be approaching the point when the setup times can be absorbed into observing time.
Last Week
=========
Observations for proposals
BW083 , GBT05A-041, GBT06A-043,
GBT05C-051, GBT06A-044, BM238 ,
GBT05C-042, GBT05B-032, GBT05C-021,
BK127 , BB218 , GBT05B-034,
GBT05C-056, GBT05C-026, GBT05C-016,
GBT06A-008, GBT05C-029, BW085
Completed proposals
BW083, BB218, BW085
Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
GBT05B-042 [ B] Michael Kramer
Timing and General Relativity in the Double
Pulsar System
GBT05C-041 [ B] Marcel Agueros
Detecting Pulsar Companions to Two Very Low-Mass
White Dwarfs
BM238 [F ] Emmanuel Momjian
Testing the AGN vs. AGN+starburst hypotheses in
the z = 4:4 QSO BRI 1335-0417
GBT06A-044 [F ] Jeremy Darling
Intrinsic HI and OH Absorption in Compact Radio
Sources at High Redshift
GBT05C-031 [ P ] Amanda Kepley
Magnetic Fields in Dwarf Irregular Galaxies: NGC
4214
GBT05A-011 [F ] Scott Ransom
Timing of the Binary and Millisecond Pulsars in
Terzan5
GBT05C-021 [F B] Marc-Antoine Miville-Deschenes
Characterizing Dust in High Velocity Clouds
BK127 [F ] Kirsten Knudsen
Resolving the AGN and the starburst in an
intensely starforming quasar
GBT05C-022 [ P ] Jim Braatz
The Accretion Disks and Supermassive Black Holes
in NGC 2273 and NGC 4051
GBT04C-043 [F ] Scott Ransom
Timing the Eccentric Millisecond Pulsar Binary in
Globular Cluster NGC 1851
GBT05C-034 [ P ] Seiji Kameno
Water maser tomography through molecular torus
of NGC 1052
GBT05C-056 [ B] Paulo Freire
A GBT S-band Globular Cluster Survey: Phase B
GBT05C-023 [F ] Fernando Camilo
PSR J1833-1034, the Very Young Pulsar in the SNR
G21.5-0.9
GBT05C-057 [F ] Regina Jorgenson
Search for 21cm Absorption toward Radio Loud,
Extremely Optically Faint Sources
GBT06A-039 [F ] Fernando Camilo
Deep Searches of Three Pulsar Wind Nebulae
GBT05C-004 [ P ] Chris O'Dea
Does Radio Power Depend on Black Hole Mass ?
GBT05C-016 [ B] Alberto Bolatto
A Search for HI and Molecular Absorption in an
Extremely Reddened QSO
GBT06A-008 [F B] Toney Minter
A Better Approach To Finding Pulsars With OH
Absorption
GBT01A-005 [ P ] Barry Turner
A High-resolution Spectral Survey Of Tmc-1 At
Q-band
GBT05C-009 [ B] Gilles Joncas
GBT HI Observations of the DRAO Deep Field:
Determining Foregrounds for Planck
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup
Contact Information for 01/19/2006 - 02/02/2006
=======================================
Proposal PI Bands Email [NRAO contact]
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT06A-062 Jean-Luc Margot X jlm@astro.cornell.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT05A-041 Paul Demorest L8 demorest@astron.berkeley.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT04C-050 Wendy Lane A wendy.peters@nrl.navy.mil [Rick Fisher]
GBT06A-066 David Nidever L dnidever@virginia.edu [Jay Lockman]
GBT06A-044 Jeremy Darling A jdarling@origins.colorado.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06A-056 Paul Kondratko K pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05A-011 Scott Ransom S sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-001 Vincent Fish C vfish@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT04C-031 Paul Kondratko K pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05C-010 Yi-nan Chin U einmann@astro.phys.tku.edu.tw [Dana Balser]
GBT05B-034 Ingrid Stairs L istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-033 Marko Krco L marko@astro.cornell.edu [Karen O'Neil]
GBT05C-056 Paulo Freire S pfreire@naic.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-057 Regina Jorgenson A regina@physics.ucsd.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT04B-014 Paul Kondratko KU pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05C-014 Katie Devine K devine@astro.wisc.edu [Ron Maddalena]
GBT04A-038 Brian Mason B bmason@nrao.edu [Brian Mason]
GBT05C-015 Chris Henkel K p220hen@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de [Jim Braatz]
GBT05C-037 Nissim Kanekar A nkanekar@nrao.edu [Glen Langston]
GBT05C-004 Chris O'Dea K odea@cis.rit.edu [Ron Maddalena]
GBT06A-018 Joe McMullin Q jmcmulli@nrao.edu [Dana Balser]
GBT06A-009 Jim Condon K jcondon@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
BB191 Richard Barvainis C rbarvai@nsf.gov []
GBT05B-019 Mallory Roberts S roberts@physics.mcgill.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-018 Tim Robishaw L robishaw@astro.berkeley.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT01A-005 Barry Turner Q bturner@nrao.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT05C-019 Tim Robishaw L robishaw@astro.berkeley.edu [Toney Minter]
Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> January February March
Astronomy ~ 534 [349] 538 [237] 258 [060]
Maintenance ~ 35 [060] 33 [051] 23 [068]
Test & Comm ~ 176 [027] 97 [026] 72 [006]
Un-assigned ~ 0 5 392
Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 0
Active checkout - 3
On Hold - 25
Schedule - 83
Completed - 432
Current backlog [hours prior to 05C*] = 801
[2001:21(1), 2002:60(1), 2003:19(1), 2004:220(12), 2005:481(19)]
Total time to discharge [hours] = 3736
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 05C
Digital Electronics Status 30 Dec 2005 – 6 Jan 2006
***Operations, Problem summary***
No problems
***Development***
Cal-Tech Continuum Backend (CCB):
Martin Shepherd has been working on updating documentation and on ways to back up the hard disk in the CCB without removing it from the system. His NRAO funds have been all used up so he is working for us for free now. The back-up system has been successfully tested this week.
Long Term Accumulator
Some work has been on-going to upgrade the test fixture. In the process it was found that some Xilinx chips on this board have a ground bounce problem. This is more likely to occur as more bits are switching (“Simultaneously Switching Outputs” or SSOs). The implication here is that shorter integration times are preferred to longer ones from the hardware point of view. For example, the S/N 7 board never makes errors with 0.3 sec integration, but always makes errors with 6 second integrations.
***Plans***
- Update CCB documentation
- Support commissioning efforts
- work on phase switch transients in the CCB
Today ends Week 1 of 6 in the first development cycle of 2006. As a result, the software group is just getting started on its updated list of commitments, which can be viewed at PlanOfRecordC12006.
There are three releases planned for this cycle, which will end around February 15: a regular release of M&C, an updated Astrid which will include spectral line plugins for both science and engineering use, and GBTIDLv2 which will include flagging. Work will also continue on Penn Array software for use in the upcoming engineering tests, and continuing support will be provided for CCB/Ka commissioning and Astrid.
Physical infrastructure upgrades will also continue through this cycle, culminating in the installation of a replacement for vortex, the separation of telescope-specific and telescope-independent databases, and all upcoming software releases on the new infrastructure.
Operational support this week included: checking into John Hibbard's missing GO FITS files, investigating issue where ScanCordinator's children are not prepared after a configuration, and software support was provided after the /home/gbtdata hardware swap.
Astrid has been having severe problems since Thursday AM, when Hibbard's GO FITS files problem started. Jim reported odd behavior during his observing time, and then problems became severe again during Brian's session last night, around midnight. Because the weather was not good for his observing, Brian gave the time up to troubleshooting and hopefully to fix the problem around 2:30am. As of 7:45am Karen has started observing, but no news on whether the problem has been identified or fixed.
Very little to report here. Almost nothing pulsar-support-wise has happened over the past 3 weeks besides disk maintenance, observing, and some astrid prep for other astronomers projects. This week has been completely devoted to AAS prep including the press conference on Ter5ad. The Science paper will be published electronically next Thursday -- hopefully GB gets some good press...
MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen
The 43m Tracking continues to be performed regularly Tuesday through Friday of each week
from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM EST. On 06 Jan 05, the MIT/LL folks performed spectral band pass
observations of Cygnus A and Cas A.
We also performed tests of the 43m IF path with input to the GASP pulsar back end.
Pulsar 1937+21 was easily detected. Paul Demerest set up GASP for us. (psr193721_400MHzII.pdf: 43m+GASP)
The re-wiring work and programming for the 43m logic controller appears to be
going well.
-- RichardPrestage - 05 Jan 2006
Revision r1.11 - 06 Jan 2006 - 14:52 GMT - MelindaMello
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psr193721_400MHzII.pdf