Summary

Contact your Support Astronomer

  1. If you do not know who your assigned SA is, consult the observing schedule posted in Remote Ops 2 (also available online). Contact numbers for all SAs are posted on the partition wall.
  2. You should make sure to discuss the following points with your SA:

Determine your observing account

  1. Consult the on-line Keck II observing schedule. Find the listing for today's date (note that the dates are HST, not UT dates).
  2. The eighth column of the table will indicate the account you have been assigned. For example, if it reads NIRES(1), your account is nires1. Enter this account name (in lowercase) when logging into Keck computers. Your SA will supply you with the password for your account.

Login and prepare your workspace

Regardless of whether you will observe from Waimea, mainland observing site, or from home (PJ observing) all of your NIRES software runs within VNC desktops. VNC servers for your run should be up and running five days prior to your run. Please follow the appropriate set of steps below to launch your VNC viewers on the primary and secondary workstations. Your SA will help you with the first startup of the system.

Waimea Startup Procedure

  1. Log in to primary seat. Log in to Hanauma in Remote Ops II using your assigned NIRES observing account (e.g., nires1; if needed, please contact your Support Astronomer to get the password).
  2. Launch primary and Secondary VNC desktops. Once you log in, ask the SA for the best way to start the instrument vnc windows. For this, you will need your account (nires1 from above) and the VNC viewers will be launched automatically.

    Remote Observing Site

  3. Please check with your local site manager for info about how to start uo the VNCs.

    At Home Observing (PJ Observing)

  4. Please follow the instructions for home observing.

About your VNC desktops

You should have four VNC desktops, two tan and two blue. The tan desktops are reserved for the IDL quicktools, while the blue desktops are the preferred place to launch a browser window, the secondary host applications, and the control GUIs.

Check instrument availability

You are not permitted to operate NIRES until the summit staff have completed their checkout procedure! Please follow these steps to determine when NIRES has been released for your use:
  1. Launch the Firefox browser from the desktop menu by selecting Firefox - NIRES Home Page.
  2. Click on the link labeled Instrument Ready? (available on the side menu on any LRIS webpage) to access the SIAS webpage.
  3. In the upper right of the SIAS webpage check the instrument status. If the displayed message reads NIRES NOT READY on a red background, then NIRES has not been released for your use. If it reads NIRES READY on a green background, then the instrument is ready for use. If it is past the nominal instrument release time (2:00pm weekdays or 3:00pm weekends), please contact your SA for assistance.
Note: you will not be able to take any dome calibrations until the telescope has been released; this generally occurs by 4:00pm HST.

Start primary and secondary host software

  1. Switch to VNC control desktops.
    On your primary host computer (hanauma in Remote Ops II), switch to viewing the VNC desktops; these are used for instrument control.
  2. Start the NIRES Software.
    Select NIRES Control Menu > Start All NIRES GUIs (observer). from the vnc desktop menu. An xterm window will pop up with the following message: 
    Welcome to the NIRES initialization script.  You should ALWAYS run 
this script at the start of any observing nights of your run to 
undo any changes that the previous observer made to NIRES and to 
re-initialize hardware and software.
    The script is self-explanatory.

    When finished, the script will print the message: 

    	Instrument initialization completed
    and the xterm window will disappear.

  3. Verify windows.
    Check that the following windows appear:
    Left screen
    (control0 desktop - tan)     		Center-left screen
    (control1 desktop - tan)     		Center-right screen
    (control2 desktop - blue)     		Right screen
    (telstatus desktop - blue)
    • Slit Viewer Display
    • SVC xterm
    • NIRES_SLIT_CAMERA_status display
    • Compass Rose
    • Slit-Nod Widget
    • Spectral Display
    • spectroscopy xterm
    • NIRES_H2RG_status
    • Exposure GUIs
    • PIG
    • FACSUM
    • XMET
    • Magiq

Check secondary host software (Needed on some Remote Observing Sites)

Perform the following actions on your telstatus screen host machine.
  1. Check for FACSUM/XMET.
    If your team includes remote observers who cannot view FACSUM and XMET on the gorgeous wall monitors in the Waimea Remote Ops room, you should verify that they are active. If not then launch them within VNC session "telstatus":
  2. Launch MAGIQ Guider Interface.

Verify or Modify Names set by the Program Identification GUI (PIG)

Program Identification GUI (PIG)
The PIG will choose default observer names which are based on the telescope observing schedule. To change these defaults, click in the observer name box and type the name(s) as you wish them to appear in FITS headers of your data. Then click "set". Note the data directory which gets assigned, and cannot be changed by the observer.

If it is a split (i.e., shared) NIRES night, then the first half observer directory will be named as the UTDate, and the second half directory will be the UTDate with "_B" appended. On split NIRES nights, clicking on one of the listed program names will make it the active program, which toggles to the appropriate directory where subsequent data will be saved to, with file numbers that either start at 1 or continue sequentially after the last file number written to that directory.

Acquire test Spectroscopy and Slit Viewing Camera image

GUIs
Take test images to verify that they are reading out properly. Ths instrument is operated from command lines or by using the exposure control GUIs. NIRES does not handle very well (aborting exposures) so verify the exposure settings (e.g., exposure time, coadds) before taking images.
Command Line GUI

    Test Spectroscopy

    1. On the "Spectroscopy xterm" window type 
       gois
      to write test image to disk or 
      tests
      to just take an image.
    2. Verify the image displays in the Quicklook "Spectroscopy Display."

    Test SVC

    1. On the "SVC xterm" window type 
       goiv
      to write test image to disk or 
      testv
      to just take an image.
    2. Verify the image displays in the Quicklook "Slit Viewer Display."

    Test Spectroscopy

    1. On the NIRES_SPEC_CONTROL GUI set an exposure time of 2 seconds, 1 coadd, and 1 read and press "CONFIGURE."
    2. Press "SINGLE EXPOSURE" or "TEST."
    3. Verify the image displays in the Quicklook "Spectroscopy Display."

    Test SVC

    1. On the NIRES_SCAM_CONTROL GUI set an exposure time of 2 seconds, 1 coadd, and 1 read and press CONFIGURE.
    2. Press SINGLE EXPOSURE or TEST.
    3. Verify the image displays in the Quicklook "Slit Viewer Display."

Dome Calibrations

Arcs can be taken by using a set of Neon lamps on the dome. Most reduction procedures make use of the sky lines for wavelength calibrations and the arcs can be used as a sanity check. The arc images can be identified because the obstype is domearc

The dome lamps can also be used to take flats. These flats are mostly used to trace the illuminated regions on the science detector. The flat images can be identified because the obstype is domeflat

Nires does not have a hatch, cover, or shutter. It does not have moving parts so it does not have a blank filter either. Therefore, darks can not be taken. However, it is possible to take flatsoff that can be of use. The flatsoff images can be identified because the obstype is dark

The following is the procedure for taking the dome calibrations.
  1. Wait for the telescope to be released and in the dome flat position. If the telescope is released:
Using the SPEC GUI
Using Command Line Scripts
  1. On the "Spectroscopy xterm" window type 
     goflats [n]
    where n is the number of flats to take. The script will take n flats with exposure time of 100 seconds. The detector settings are set automatically to CDS (i.e., the script executes the following commands: "sampmodes 3", "nsamps 2", and "coadds 1").
  2. Verify the image displays in the Quicklook "Spectroscopy Display."
  3. On the "Spectroscopy xterm" window type 
     goarcs [n]
    where n is the number of Ne arcs to take. The script will take n dome arcs with exposure time of 120 seconds. The detector settings are set automatically to CDS (i.e., the script executes the following commands: "sampmodes 3", "nsamps 2", and "coadds 1").
  4. Verify the image displays in the Quicklook "Spectroscopy Display."
If the observer would like to take flats with dome lamps on and off then the 
 goflatonoff [n]
script can be used. This script works like the goflats with the exception that it takes an additional flat with dome lamps off after each flat. If the observer would like to take calibrations with different settings (i.e., exptime, coadds and/or number of reads) then the lamps would need to be turned on manually and the observations would have to be taken with the command line.
  • On the "Spectroscopy xterm" window type 
     domelamps spec
    to turn the dome flats on and 
      domelamps off
    to turn them off.
  • On the "Spectroscopy xterm" window type 
     niresarcs on
    to turn the dome arcs on and 
      niresarcs off
    to turn them off.
    • Until the telescope has been released (which typically happens by 4:00 PM), it's not possible to take dome cals. While waiting, you can take dark frames. Note that the instrument does not have a hatch or cover door. Therefore, the darks are really flats of the telescope IR background.

    Coordinate with the OA

    Observing Assistants customarily arrive at the summit around 5:30pm in winter and 6:00pm in summer. Once they arrive, you can do one or more of the following:
    1. Greet the OA.
      Introduce yourself to the OA and alert them to any immediate needs that you will have. Tell them if you are taking calibrations and inform them about your calibration plans.
    2. Wait for the OA to get settled.
      Setting up computers and bringing up all of the telescope control systems requires some time, and things go wrong much more often than we would prefer. Be patient while the OA prepares the telescope for operation.
    3. Inform the OA about your starlist.
      Now would be a good time to let the OA know where your starlist is, so they can verify that they have access to it.
    4. Inform the OA of your plans for the night
      It is always good practice to inform the OA of your science plans: depending on the LRIS modes you plan to use (longslit, MOS, imaging), the OA will make decisions on how and when is best to focus the telescope. The OA can also be asked about specific observing techniques you are interested into (e.g dithering, offset pointing, etc). Just before opening, your SA will also be available to help with these issues. Do not be shy and ask.

    Dinner

    If you are reading this, you're probably very tired and hungry. Moreover, the real work is still ahead of you. Now it is a good idea to go get dinner and all other sources of sustainment you may need during the night. In each remote ops room there is a folder labelled Restaurant Guide for you to consult. Please also note that Starbucks (across the road, in the Foodland food court) closes, mercilessly and irrevocably, at 8:30pm (except Fridays at 9:30pm and Saturdays at 10:00pm). But keep in mind that they open everyday at 4:30am!.