AGES Observing Checklist for CIMA 3.1 – May 2010

1. Ask the Telescope Operator to select ALFA.
2. The Telescope Operator will start up TOGS (ask for ‘TOGS for AGES’ to avoid confusion with the TOGS setup for ALFALFA).
3. Login to Observer2 as “dtusr” (password is on the monitor, if observing remotely the Operator will let you know what it is)
4. Start CIMA from the right-mouse-button menu. Choose the ‘smart’ version of CIMA (version 3.1), the project number ‘a2048’, and the ‘Line’ mode.
5. Select ALFA on the ‘Receiver selection menu’ and hit ‘Accept’
6. Open the Command file observing window by clicking ‘Command file observing’ on the CIMA main menu
7. Load and run the YYMMDD.cmd file corresponding to the current date. If there are both morning and evening observations for AGES, there may by YYMMDDam.cmd and YYMMDDpm.cmd (or YYMMDDa.cmd and YYMMDDb.cmd) files, make sure to select the correct file for the time of observation.
8. The command file should automatically run both the TOGS calibration script and the AGES observing. If there are problems, then the command file will need to be restarted.
1. If there are problems during the TOGS calibration, should be restarted from the top.
2. If there are problems during AGES observing, it shoudl be restarted from the line “LOAD ages_mock.conf”
9. Watch the sky roll by for a few hours. Don't forget to fill in the log form available at http://www.naic.edu/~ages/a2048/logform.html
10. Submit the log, and move the files following the instructions that will appear on the browser.
11. Go to bed!!

Notes and trouble-shooting:

• If a scan is aborted, it is no longer necessary start a new FITS file as CIMA now does this at the start of the observation.
• If the WAPPs get confused, restart them by clicking the “Restart the WAPPs” button in the “CIMA utilities” window, then restart the command file from the beginning and note the event in the AGES log. For AGES, CIMA will calculate the next scan that can be reached in time and will start that scan. For TOGS, it will be necessary for the observer to decide whether there is sufficient time (around 7 minutes) to run the calibration script.
• Togs instructions for AGES

Prepared by R. Minchin and E. Momjian

Last updated: Wednesday, 26-May-2010 15:51:13 AST, by R. Minchin