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ATNFMonitoring

Monitoring ATNF VLBI experiments

The following notes assume all 4 ATNF telescopes (Parkes, ATCA, Mopra and ASKAP) are being monitored. Ignore the parts of the notes which refer to telescopes not being used for the current experiment. These notes also do not explain how to setup an experiment - refer to the telescope specific notes elsewhere in this wiki.

Remote observing qualification

You must be appropriately qualified for remote observing with Parkes and ATCA, even if observing from the SOC. Refer to the specific observing documentation beforehand, or discuss with CASS staff.

Setup

Antenna Monitoring

Run the following standard telescope monitoring pages:

Make sure you register as as OIC at Parkes and ATCA and you "book" the observing beforehand

VLBI Monitoring

Run the following VLBI specific monitors

http://www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au/vlbi/lba_monitor.html
http://www.evlbi.atnf.csiro.au/recmon/index.php
recmon must be run on a machine with working sound turned on. Test this "Alarm Test" button.

Make sure all appropriate telescopes/recorders are enabled (or disabled).

VNC

Connect your local VNC client to the following VNC sessions. Refer to http://www.atnf.csiro.au/vlbi/wiki/index.php?n=LBAObservingNotes.VNCNotes for notes on setting up ssh tunneling if observing remotely.

Antenna notes

• ATCA
• Parkes
• Mopra
• ASKAP

NEW Video Screencasts NEW

Video tutorials for observing

• Parkes
• ATCA
• Mopra
• ASKAP
• Cdisko

Monitoring Summary

Regular Monitoring

Check the following every ~10min on lba_monitor and recmon web monitors.

• Pages are updating (check UTC time)
• No telescopes idle (see below)
• All telescopes on the same source (see below)
• Wind speed
• Recorder is running
• Data sampler statistics are OK
• PPS errors are low

Note that when ATCA or Mopra are hardware wind stowed, they may report to be "idle" or "drive error". Look at the wind monitor to decide if that is what has happened.

Because of the elevation limit, Parkes often misses out some sources. It till then just go to the next source it can reach. If the ATCA/Mopra elevation is < 30deg, this is most likely what has happened. You can verify this if you want by looking at the experiment ".sum" file in the ftp area.

Full check (every ~30min)

Check the following in the specific telescope VNC windows

ATCA, Mopra, Parkes

• DAS levels OK
• Recmon running

ATCA

• caobs running OK
• phases look OK on strong compact sources (see below)

The PI should have scheduled automatic phasecal commands within the schedule. If not you should run "corr pcal" in caobs if the phases drift too far apart, or consider dropping antenna from the tie array output if the phase stability is too poor on the longer baselines.

Parkes

• atsnap running

Mopra

• vlobs running
• Tsys values look reasonable (not ~0)
• GTP/SDO values OK

ASKAP

• px14_record running
• Stack counting down while tracking
• Antenna tracking
• No drive failures (red light on ASKAP GUI)
• ASKAP GUI not frozen
• VLBI drive not frozen