GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting
AGENDA
Activities List
Last Week
=========
Observations for proposals
BB240 , GBT05A-040, GBT08A-011,
GBT08A-077, GBT07A-087, GBT07A-066,
GBT07C-033, GBT08A-058, GBT07B-034,
GBT08A-014, GBT06C-033, GBT07C-024,
GBT08A-006, GBT08A-018, GBT05C-035,
GBT07A-029, GBT07C-060, GBT07A-040
Completed proposals
GBT07A-040
Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
GBT08A-076 [ B] Nissim Kanekar
The nature of damped Lyman-alpha systems, as
traced by their spin temperatures
GBT07C-084 [F B] Laura Kasian
GBT Timing of a Young Highly Relativistic Binary
Pulsar
GBT07B-020 [ B] Ingrid Stairs
The Pulsar Triple System in M4
GBT08A-056 [ P ] Simon Dicker
Observations with MUSTANG on the GBT at 3.3mm
GBT07A-066 [ P ] Jim Braatz
The Megamaser Cosmology Project
GBT08A-057 [F B] Jennifer Donovan
A Continuing Search for Wet Mergers in a Dry
Sample
GBT07A-101 [ P ] Clive Dickinson
Ka-band CCB high-resolution mapping of spinning
dust
GBT08A-014 [ B] Jay Lockman
On the Trail of Smith's Cloud
GBT07B-034 [ B] Robert Ferdman
Timing Binary and Millisecond Pulsars from the
Parkes Multibeam Survey
GBT08A-058 [F B] Léo Barriault
GBT OH Observations at high galactic latitudes
GBT06C-033 [FP ] Andy Harris
A CO(1-0) Survey of Dusty Galaxies with Elusive
Redshifts
GBT08A-006 [F B] Tom Bania
Solving "The 3-Helium Problem"
GBT08A-018 [ P ] Nami Sakai
Production Pathways of Sulfur-Bearing
Carbon-Chain Molecules
GBT07A-029 [ B] Dick Crutcher
A Definitive Test of Star Formation Theory
GBT08A-083 [ B] Daniela Goncalves
The North Celestial Pole Loop
GBT08A-073 [ B] Viswesh Marthi
A deep search for associated HI 21cm absorption
in red quasars
GBT07A-051 [ B] Mike Hollis
A GBT Legacy Survey of Prebiotic Molecules Toward
SgrB2(N-LMH) and TMC-1
GBT07C-060 [ B] Fernando Camilo
GLAST timing at GBT: six key radio-faint pulsars
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup
Contact Information for 03/20/2008 - 04/03/2008
=======================================
Proposal PI Bands Email [NRAO contact]
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
BB251 Edo Berger X eberger@ociw.edu []
GBT07C-072 Marcel Agueros 8 agueros@astro.washington.edu [Scott Ransom]
BB240 Geoff Bower X gbower@astro.berkeley.edu []
GBT07A-086 Joel Bregman Q jbregman@umich.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT07C-084 Laura Kasian LS kasian@physics.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT08A-011 Maura McLaughlin 8 maura.mclaughlin@mail.wvu.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT07C-030 Joel Bregman K jbregman@umich.edu [D.J. Pisano]
GBT08A-077 Fernando Camilo S fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT07A-087 Paul Demorest S pdemores@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT07C-086 Pat Thaddeus K pthaddeus@cfa.harvard.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT08A-056 Simon Dicker P simon.dicker@gmail.com [Brian Mason]
GBT07A-066 Jim Braatz K jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT07B-034 Robert Ferdman L ferdman@phas.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT08A-047 Chris Carilli L ccarilli@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT07C-033 Jason Hessels 8 jhessels@science.uva.nl [Scott Ransom]
GBT08A-058 Léo Barriault L leo.barriault.1@ulaval.ca [Jay Lockman]
GBT06C-033 Andy Harris B harris@astro.umd.edu [Karen O'Neil]
GBT08A-006 Tom Bania X bania@bu.edu [Dana Balser]
GBT08A-018 Nami Sakai K nami@taurus.phys.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp [Larry Morgan]
GBT07C-049 Jaime Pineda K jpineda@cfa.harvard.edu [Jules Harnett]
GBT07A-029 Dick Crutcher L crutcher@uiuc.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT07B-029 Michael Kramer 8 mkramer@jb.man.ac.uk [Scott Ransom]
GBT05A-029 Paul VandenBout B pvandenb@nrao.edu []
GBT08A-082 Min Yun L myun@astro.umass.edu [Jules Harnett]
GBT07A-094 Scott Ransom S sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
BM270 James Miller-Jones X jmiller@nrao.edu []
GBT07C-060 Fernando Camilo 8 fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT07A-051 Mike Hollis 3468A jan.m.hollis@nasa.gov [Larry Morgan]
Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> March April May
Astronomy ~ 655 [415] 622 [480] 599 [361]
Maintenance ~ 22 [068] 9 [102] 42 [051]
Test & Comm ~ 44 [024] 56 [040] 43 [032]
Un-assigned ~ 23 34 60
Proposal Checkouts #[hrs]*
=========================
Awaiting checkout - 0[0]
Active checkout - 0[0]
On Hold - 0[0]
Schedule - 114[2915]
Completed - 537[6566]
* All but completed queue applies to GBT only proposals
Current backlog of Reg & RRS proposals [hours prior to 08A*] = 1374
[2005:63(5), 2006:251(10), 2007:1060(44)]
Backlog includes 67 hrs of monitoring projects
292 hrs of vlbi projects
Total time to discharge [hours] = 4704
Includes 114 hours++ of monitoring (not Large or Spec) after trimester 08A
1945 hours of Regular & RRS proposals
2419 hours of Large proposals
340 hours of VLBI proposals
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 08A
++ Time is counted in other break down as well. 08A
We supported 19 projects in 34 observing sessions, including 1 VLB run. The telescope was also scheduled for 13 hrs of PTCS tests and 9 hrs of maintenance. We were at half speed for 16.5 hrs due to low temperatures. Lost time was rather high (16.6 hrs, about 10.5%) of which 13.4 hrs were due to one or another weather factors.
- Snow (3 instances) - 9.6 hrs
- Winds (7 instances) - 2.4 hrs
- Ka-band hardware setup - 1.6 hrs
- Power 'glitches' (2 instances, 4 problems) - 1.4 hrs
- Hardware setup problems (2 instances) - 0.7 hrs
- Observers scripts - 0.6 hrs
- Astrid - 0.33
- Others (Archivist, Low temperatures) - 0.1 hrs
We're hoping to isolate the cause of the Ka-band hardware problems during maintenance today or next week.
Using Zpectrometer, Andy Harris and Andrew Baker have a very solid detection toward a high redshift (z ~ 2.2) object that had been previously detected with the Spectrometer.
GBT Telescope Operations -- Bob
- We changed out two of the Subreflector drive motors this week with reconditioned ones. One failed functional test, and appears to be a resolver issue. Time Weadon will take it to the vendor and discuss it with them. The original motor was reinstalled. A third one will be tried today.
- Normal maintenance activities.
- Power supply on converter rack needed to be power cycled after brown out.
- Spectrometer turned itself off. Turned out that a brownout THursday evening caused the chiller to go off-line and overheat the spectrometer.
- Nothing else to my knowledge
RFI Group Operations -- Carla
- Operational Support:
- Investigate cause of Warning status on LO1A with no message - no leads yet, but no reoccurrence either
- Brought Spectral Processor back up after power hit
- Sdfits user support
- Minor BOS support
- Observing script writing support
- PlanOfRecordC22008
Parts for the servo room arrived and I am on the telescope right now fitting them.
- Normal Spacecraft tracking
- Working on Ibob Spectrometer for low frequency mapping. Initial 2K channel version is operational and expect a dynamic web page soon.
- Expect MIT/LL group will arrive in early April with 1.5 to 3.0 GHz feed.
- Accomplishments
- Device availability, and the ability to schedule e.g. receiver changes, is now in place
- Work was done on: cleaning up the appearance (look and feel), calendars to show e.g. upcoming receiver changes and monitoring projects, importing Carl's project database into the DSS database, and including observer contact info, getting out statistical information on the schedule.
- Larry has started a user's manual for the summer tests
- Project meeting was held where we went over the calendar before the summer tests
- Upcoming
- SDD group will be finishing the projected calendar/statistical analysis software next week
- The database will be populated by all the backlog project next week
- Larry will continue work on the user's manual
- Only 12 more weeks until the tests begin
- Concerns
- We are still short astronomers for the upcoming tests, but we are working on a solution.
MUSTANG -- Brian
-
- Items/actions completed:
- Successful iteration of sponsor tests
- Fixes for last of the defects found during testing.
- MUSTANG OOF analysis handed off to PTCS/OOF team
- Effort requests completed
- Decisions made:
- First draft of tests to be run with MUSTANG during observation runs and criteria for selecting the run.
- Near-term activities (next ~2 weeks):
- GB MUSTANG hardware team meeting
- Finalize GB involvement in summer work on MUSTANG
- Construct list of items to test/check for array #3 this summer
PTCS program -- Marty
- Items/actions completed:
- Telescope test time requests submitted (100 hours, 25% servo, 50% holography, & 25% other)
- Visiting Committee handout produced
- Modeled the effect of the center row actuator offset problem on the beam efficiency and sidelobes at 38, 43 and 90 GHz
- Obtained the first all-sky Ka-band pointing run -- results looks good. There is no significant forward/backward offset, suggesting that the new hysteresis term in the model is working well.
- Items/actions in progress:
- Analysis of newly provided OOF data from MUSTANG scans.
- Developing specifications for new servo system
CICADA program -- John
- GUPPI
- Jason completed a preliminary 8-bit bit packing block for the initial GUPPI release. Later releases will be configurable for 2,4,8, or 16 bits of output word width.
- Randy completed and tested a vector accumulator complete with buffer BRAMS since the output burst rate is faster than the 10 Gb Ethernet link. The BRAMS are used to FIFO out the data into the bit packing routine.
- Only work remaining is to integrate the 10 Gb Ethernet "yellow block" into the design. John is the anchor on that part
- Software being developed by Ron, Scott, Paul, and now Patrick Brandt, who is here on a 1 year appointment.
- K band FPA spectrometer
- Discussions with Canadian NRC to possibly build a spectrometer for the array.
- Developing specifications for spectrometer
- Got a new computer for building Xilinx designs. It has more cache and processor cores than our best machine, and should run a bit faster.
- Accomplishments since last report
- A Zpectrometer chassis power connector was causing noise. The connector was unplugged and re-plugged which eliminates the noise temporarily.
- Upcoming activities
- Andy Harris will replace the noisy power connector on Friday the 7th.
- Phase Shifters and 45 twists returned from electroplating for finishing.
- Indentified a test dewar for single pixel tests.
- Completed thermal analysis for IR loading of wg window.
- Updated schedule with more detail as suggested by CDR panel.
-- RichardPrestage - 06 Mar 2008
Revision r1.14 - 07 Mar 2008 - 14:58 GMT - DennisEgan
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