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GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting

16 Feb 2007

AGENDA

• Upcoming Activities -- Carl
• Az Track, Antennae Report -- Bob
• Observing News -- Ron
• Scheduling Status -- Carl
• Microwave Electronics Status -- Roger
• Digital Electronics Status -- Randy
  • Operations, Problem Summary
  • Development
  • Plans
• Software Status -- Amy
• PTCS Plans -- PTCS Team
• Pulsar Related -- Scott
• MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen
• Commissioning Plans -- Ron
• Any other Business

Upcoming Activities -- Carl

Az Track, Antennae Report -- Bob

• Dennis and I are in Savannah to observe final machining of the first set of plates. Continental has 11 sets welded. Delivery to the site of the first 12 will be in about 2 weeks.
• We received 10 wear plates on Wednesday. This brings the total to 13 on site.

Observing News -- Ron

We supported 19 projects in 29 observing sessions, including 2 VLB runs. The telescope was also scheduled for 16.5 hrs of maintenance, 10 hrs of software tests for the new release, and 8 hrs of PTCS tests.

Again, lost time was dominated by the weather:

• Weather (23.7 hrs, 17%)
  • Temperatures (3 instances) : 19.4 hrs
  • Snow/Ice (4 instances) : 4.3 hrs
• Observer Error (0.7 hrs, 0.5%)
  • IF Target : 0.5 hrs
  • Observing script : 0.2 hrs
  • Pointing at low elevation : 0.7 hrs
• Software/Hardware (2.6 hrs, 1.8%)
  • Spec Proc Config : 0.8 hrs
  • Astrid lockups (4 instances) : 0.6 hrs
  • Scan Coordinator : 0.5 hrs
  • Spectral Processor : 0.2 hrs
  • VNC : 0.4 hrs
  • NLT's (Active surface, Ariel reboot)

Scheduling Status -- Carl

Last Week
=========

Observations for proposals
   GBT07A-020, GBT07A-098, GBT07A-089, 
   GBT06B-032, GBT07A-001, GBT06C-020, 
   GBT06B-033, GBT05C-043, GBT06C-045, 
   GBT07A-015, GBT07A-104, GBT06C-035, 
   GBT07A-016, BB227     , GBT06C-003, 
   GBT06C-049, BM253     , GBT06B-028, 
   GBT06C-028, GBT03C-028

Completed proposals
   BB227, BM253, GBT06C-028

Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
  GBT07A-063 [  B] Amanda Kepley
       Magnetic Fields in Irregular Galaxies             
  GBT07A-030 [ P ] Brian Mason
       A Search for Polarized, Anomalous Microwave       
       Emission from Lynds 1622 - copy                   
  GBT07A-031 [ P ] Jim Braatz
       The Megamaser Cosmology Project: Accelerations in 
       Maser Disks                                       
  GBT07A-020 [F  ] Scott Schnee
       The Relationship Between Gas And Dust in the      
       Starless Core TMC-1C                              
  GBT07A-098 [FP ] Fernando Camilo
       Studying the magnetar XTE J1810-197               
  GBT06C-052 [  B] Scott Ransom
       Continued Timing of the Binary and Millisecond    
       Pulsars in NGC6440 and NGC6441                    
  GBT07A-001 [F B] Alberto Bolatto
       A Search for HI Absorbers in a Sample of          
       Gravitationally Lensed Systems                    
  GBT06A-056 [ P ] Paul Kondratko
       Are there Unrecognized NGC4258-like Systems Among 
       Known Water Masers in AGN?                        
  GBT06B-044 [F  ] Robert Ferdman
       Timing Binary and Millisecond Pulsars from the    
       Parkes Multibeam Survey                           
  GBT07A-036 [  B] Yi-nan Chin
       Confirmation of Interstellar Benzonitrile         
       (C6H5CN) -- A Key Tracer of Benzene               
  GBT05C-043 [ P ] Nissim Kanekar
       A blind GBT survey for redshifted molecular       
       absorption                                        
  GBT07A-015 [ P ] Jeff Mangum
       Formaldehyde Densitometry of External Galaxies    
  GBT07A-104 [  B] Peter Martin
       The Spider's Web from Ursa Major to Polaris       
  GBT06C-049 [F B] Karen Masters
       Mapping Matter in the Nearby Universe with 2MASS  
  GBT07A-080 [F  ] Maura McLaughlin
       Continued Radio Timing Observations of RRAT       
       Sources                                           
  GBT06B-018 [  B] Michael Kramer
       Timing and General Relativity in the Double       
       Pulsar System                                     
  GBT05C-027 [ P ] Jeff Mangum
       An Exact Identification of High Densities in      
       Molecular Clouds                                  
  GBT07A-050 [ P ] Claudia Cyganowski
       Kinematics of Ionized and Molecular Gas           
       Associated with IR Dust Bubbles                   
  GBT03C-028 [ P ] Fabian Walter
       The Molecular Gas Content in z>6 Quasars: Probing 
       the End of Cosmic Reionization                    
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup

Contact Information for 03/01/2007 - 03/15/2007
=======================================
Proposal   PI                 Bands Email [NRAO contact]    
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT07A-030 Brian Mason        X     bmason@nrao.edu [Brian Mason]
GBT07A-063 Amanda Kepley      X     kepley@astro.wisc.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT07A-042 Andrea Tarchi      K     a.tarchi@ira.inaf.it [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-051 Lincoln Greenhill  K     greenhill@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT07A-010 Bob Mutel          8     robert-mutel@uiowa.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT07A-098 Fernando Camilo    S     fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT07A-089 Fernando Camilo    8     fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-032 Steve Begin        S     sbegin@physics.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-043 Laurent Pagani     K     laurent.pagani@obspm.fr [Larry Morgan]
GBT07A-034 Jim Braatz         K     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06B-044 Robert Ferdman     L     ferdman@phas.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-033 Jason Hessels      8     jhessels@science.uva.nl [Scott Ransom]
GBT04C-031 Paul Kondratko     K     pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT07A-048 Larry Rudnick      L     larry@astro.umn.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT04A-001 Paul VandenBout    Q     pvandenb@nrao.edu [Ron Maddalena]
GBT06C-045 David Champion     S     champion@physics.mcgill.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT07A-015 Jeff Mangum        U     jmangum@nrao.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GT007      Greg Taylor        L     gbtaylor@unm.edu []
GBT06C-058 Gary Fuller        KUX   G.A.Fuller@manchester.ac.uk [Larry Morgan]
GBT07A-039 Rick Fisher        L     rfisher@nrao.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06A-017 Jeremy Lim         Q     jlim@asiaa.sinica.edu.tw [Dana Balser]
GBT04B-014 Paul Kondratko     KU    pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-017 Miles Blanton      U     mcb39@physics.unc.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06C-018 Ingrid Stairs      LS    istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT03C-028 Fabian Walter      Q     walter@mpia.de [Dana Balser]
GBT07A-072 Lisa Wei           L     hwei1@umd.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT07A-050 Claudia Cyganowski K     ccyganow@astro.wisc.edu [Toney Minter]

Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> February  March     April     
    Astronomy ~  566 [211] 632 [524] 607 [309] 
  Maintenance ~   39 [026]  41 [059]  32 [051] 
  Test & Comm ~   68 [008]  60 [025]  42 [008] 
     Shutdown ~    0         0        14       
  Un-assigned ~    0        18        29       

Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 0
  Active checkout - 0
          On Hold - 14
         Schedule - 95
        Completed - 606


Current backlog [hours prior to 07A*] = 970
   [2002:0(4), 2003:15(1), 2004:75(21), 2005:418(21), 2006:457(32), 2007:5(1)]
   Backlog excluding 50 hrs of monitoring projects after 07A = 919
Total time to discharge [hours] = 3133
   Includes 108 hours of monitoring after trimester 07A
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 07A

Microwave Electronics Status -- Roger

Greenhill reported "ghost" sidebands at 100MHz offset on some strong SiO? maser observations. 100MHz sidebands are present on the 10.50 GHz LO3 generator. An improved 500MHz crystal oscillator was installed, reducing the sidebands by ~30dB. Follow-up observations are needed to reevaluate the system.

A cabling error was found between the Ka-band receiver and Spectrometer. The error did not effect CCB or Zpectrometer observations.

Maintenance day tests to investigate a reported instability in one L-band receiver channel were inconclusive and need to continue.

Design work continues for the C-band integrated receiver package. The PCBs have been received. Fabrication of the housings continues.

Work on the updated Converter Module detector boards continue. Several have been assembled and tested.

Brian, Steve, and Roger attended a one-day performance review of the MUSTANG array at Goddard.

Digital Electronics Status -- Randy

Operations, Problem Summary

Development

Plans

Software Status -- Amy

Software regression testing went well. The reports from our two integration tests and regression test are available on the wiki. We had a successful software release this past Wednesday, February 14th. The release notes are available at http://wiki.gb.nrao.edu/bin/view/Software/ReleaseNotes_7_1.

Just a few notes regarding the release:

• All identified issues which caused Astrid to hang have been resolved. Because many problems are hard to reproduce, we ask that anyone who experiences an Astrid "hang-up" call a software engineer if possible and subsequently report that occurence along with detailed information in an observing report.
• There are new legal nchan values for Spectral Processor configurations. They are "low", "medium" and "high". As a result, configurations that contain numeric values for nchan are now invalid.

Operational and user support was relatively light this week and included:

• Assisted in resolving confusion over Ka rcvr labeling in sdfits/gbtidl.
• /home/sdfits filled up to 65 Gigs and online sdfits filler failed. Cleaned up directory and restarted online filler.
• Responsed to report of Astrid failing on some machines, e.g. fourier and euclid. Found minor bug and resolved during maintenance.

PTCS Plans -- PTCS Team

Engineering

• During Wednesday morning's servo tests, the optimal gain for azimuth friction compensation has been identified (0.90). In the analysis so far, it appears to be the same for daisy scans, nods, and circles. Detailed plots can be seen here. We still need to analyze the fast-switching simulation scans. It looks like we can stay on schedule for releasing the modification for general use at the end of the month.

Astronomy

• Last Friday night, the PTCS observing run was mostly wiped out due to below 0 temperatures. The K-band gain curve could not be done, however we did manage to get 3 hours of observations toward the test of the accuracy of the absolute coordinate system for maps. Frank is looking into ways of reducing the data.
• Work continues on writing and testing software (by Joe, Ron and Frank) to support the derivation of a new pointing model, and software to process inclinometry data (by Kim). Hopefully we can get the first version of an Antenna Characterization File to Kim next week?
• The pyrgeometer has been running for almost a week and appears to be working as advertised. For example, its value is mostly pegged at the cloudy end during the recent two-day storm. A plot can be seen here. Comparison with archived cloud cover forecast data can now be done by interested parties. It will be interesting for high-frequency continuum observers to see if the pyrgeometer reading correlates with their assessment of the weather based on their data quality.
• Fred continues his work on modelling the GBT beam pattern as a function of panel-to-panel and actuator position errors. The model will be compared to data from previous attempts at traditional holography with the goal of providing a realistic expectation of what improvement we might gain from a fresh attempt with the existing traditional holography system.

Pulsar Related -- Scott

Last week I was at the GLAST meeting at Stanford. Was lot of pulsar talk including some meetings about what telescopes will/can contribute to young pulsar timing. There were representatives from ATNF, Jodrell, Arecibo (kind of), and GBT (me, Dunc, and Maura). Bottom line is that it seems like there is a plan now. There will probably be a proposal at the next deadline asking for timing of 3-4 of the hardest pulsars (3C58, The Mouse, pulsar in G21.5 that Fernando is now timing, and possibly one other) that are outside of the Arecibo range. AO time will be requested for ~2 pulsars, and the other ~100+ high-priority pulsars will be covered by Jodrell (80+) and Parkes (20+). I also saw a copy of a MOU between NASA and NRAO that is in a draft stage (hopefully Richard has already seen that...)

This week I was in Montreal, but Ryan made some progress on the 8-bit Spigot modes. The week prior we took test data on the original MSP using S-band and saw the pulsar easily (using the Spigot in a completely uncalibrated manner). However, I'm a bit worried since there appears to be large "extra" features in the pulse profile. Perhaps we are not unshuffling the lags in the correct manner (although the bandpass looks pretty good). There are also serious problems with the calibration -- incorrect values are being loaded in the Spigot. Rich Lacasse and David Kaplan have offered some of their services and I'm hoping to put in some solid time on this this coming week.

Side note: I'm getting sick and am not sure if I'll be at the Commissioning meeting....

MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen

• Normal spacecraft tracking. Only problems were weather related.
• We're still working to undersand the calibration data.
  • At 700 to 900 MHz we have Tsys of approximately 170 K.
  • We need to perform tests at more frequencies

Commissioning Plans -- Ron

We're making progress on December's data but no news to report other than we're still getting great baselines. We're essentially trying to find the combination of observing techniques that take our baselines from great to greatest. We'll then use that technique this weekend during our commissioning time.

Any other Business

-- RichardPrestage - 01 Feb 2007