From: Rafael Millan-Gabet X-Sender: rafael@hataman.jpl.nasa.gov To: IOTA Group at CfA -- Ettore Pedretti , Jean-Philippe Berger , Rafael Millan-Gabet , John Monnier , Nat Carleton , Mike Pearlman , Sam Ragland , Wes Traub , Peter Schloerb , Marc Lacasse Subject: Feb 2003 YSO run - observer notes Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: For your records, and the web. -- Rafael, Pete PS: Left all optics covered upon departure Feb 2003 YSO run - Observer Notes --------------------------------- * Dates: Feb 7 - Feb 25 * Observers: JPB +, JDM, JDM, FPS * Overall summary: A lot of bad weather, but good observations on three YSOs (ABAur, FU Ori, MWC 863), spectroscopic binary (lambda Vir) and AGB star (V Hya). Used two IOTA configurations: N35 S05 C10, A-fixed, typical fringe offsets: SD1: -0.7cm SD2: -1.1cm N25 S15 C10, A-fixed, typical fringe offsets: SD1: +0.04cm SD2: -0.04cm * most of previous data has been moved from /home/iota16/u1/Data/ to /home/iota16/d1/Data/. There is now a plan to make the later drive the new DATA directory. * The overall observing efficiency when clear weather was very good: very consistently 10mins per complete observations (several hundred scans) including star and fringe acquisition. System is getting to be pretty good. * See below detailed notes from Pete on OT changes and frame grabber board. * Instrument issues: 1) OT telescope paddle commands (I believe only for telescope A) sometimes issues actual command in opposite direction and about x10 size compared with intended motion. 2) Telescope C does not track below roll about -58deg. OT reports happy tracking, so one notices this because star is lost, and on TV camera one can see stars drifting at sidereal rate. 3) LD2 often makes horrible motor noise. When that happens, must stop and then re-start LD motion. 4) I am pretty sure that as seen in the fiber explorer, telescope C images have much less well defined peak than for telescopes A and B. IONIC parabola focus needs re-adjustment? 5) Minor Sun administration points: (a) cannot save Netscape bookmarks on iota 17, which is unfortunate because it prevents have a nice collection of useful things during observing (ADS, Simbad, IOTA web etc), (b) why doesn't ssh from any of the Suns set the display in the remote machine, as is usually the case? Appendix 1: Delay system scripts ================================ N35S05C10 A fixed: ----------------- delay_sys -sname[0] ne35:_25Nov02 -station[0][0] 2653.605251 -station[0][1] 2311.896534 -station[0][2] -2.694060 -station[0][3] 3517.9001 -sname[1] se05 -stati on[1][0] -328.4712 -station[1][1] 377.4742 -station[1][2] 0.0716 -station[1][3] 500.3800 -sname[2] ne10 -station[2][0] 754.9485 -station[2][1] 656.9425 -statio n[2][2] -0.1432 -station[2][3] 1000.7600 -config a -delta[0][0] 0 -delta[0][1] 0 -delta[0][2] 0 -delta[1][0] 0 -delta[1][1] 0 -delta[1][2] 0 -delta[2][0] 0 -de lta[2][1] 0 -delta[2][2] 0 -zero[0][0] -165.39062 -zero[1][0] -269.57056 -zero[2][0] -104.34710 -zero[0][1] 0.0 -zero[1][1] 0.0 -zero[2][1] 0.0 N25S15C10 A fixed: ----------------- delay_sys -sname[0] ne25 -station[0][0] 1887.3711 -station[0][1] 1642.3562 -station[0][2] -0.3581 -station[0][3] 2501.9000 -sname[1] se15 -station[1][0] -985.4 137 -station[1][1] 1132.4227 -station[1][2] 0.2148 -station[1][3] 1501.1400 -sname[2] ne10 -station[2][0] 754.9485 -station[2][1] 656.9425 -station[2][2] -0.14 32 -station[2][3] 1000.7600 -config a -delta[0][0] 0 -delta[0][1] 0 -delta[0][2] 0 -delta[1][0] 0 -delta[1][1] 0 -delta[1][2] 0 -delta[2][0] 0 -delta[2][1] 0 - delta[2][2] 0 -zero[0][0] -165.39062 -zero[1][0] -269.57056 -zero[2][0] -104.34710 -zero[0][1] 0.0 -zero[1][1] 0.0 -zero[2][1] 0.0 Appendix 2 ========== Programming Notes for Feb. 2003 F. P. Schloerb During a run from Feb 20-24 I was able to make progress on a number of areas: 1. Upgrade of LMTMC software The LMTMC software is continuing to be developed with new features. In addition, we have been trying to hammer out bugs when they pop up. Ever since the computer hardware upgrade early this fall, we have had trouble with the LMTMC software crashing. Analysis of the errors reported by the crashes show that the treatment of strings is a common cause. We believe that the main problem is with the C library being used, which was one of many things that changed during the upgrade of hardware and operating system. Accordingly, we've adopted the gnu C 3.2 libraries in the hope of fixing this problem. We've installed a fully functional version of an upgraded version of the LMTMC software with the gnu c 3.2 libraries and compilers. This version is in the directory /home/iota/iotamc_G3.2 You may run it now exactly as you are used to running the software from the old iotamc directory. Start the vxworks software by typing: vxworks-start Start the LMTMC software by typing: lmtmc-start Start the DAQ vxworks software by typing: daq-start The DAQ IDL software must be started with the command: observe_g3.2 Please note that the change of libraries caused the sizes of some variable types to change. Accordingly, we can't mix the two versions in any way, hence the need for a separate IDL version too. Also, since the shared memory structure is different, it is prudent to do a full reboot of the vxworks system when changing from one version to another. 2. Other thoughts on crashing the system.... I think we have most of the troubles worked out in the new system. Testing showed that, where I could fairly well count on a crash running certain scripts, the new version allows me to run them over and over again with no harm. In addition to the C library change, we also have patched up a couple of other items in the current system that might have contributed to crashing: (1) the LMTMC long delay code was not recompiled after changes were made to the long delay server program and the vxworks program. I suspect this was the cause of the long delay command crashes; (2) we redid the "map" library to solve a problem caused in, e.g., scripts when objects were remapped over and over again. The old version was demonstrated to crash by tests after a large number of cycles, and the new version no longer has that problem. I believe that some crashes in the current system result from the operator's use of the mouse. I have found that it is possible to make a crash with the current system by making mouse clicks that jump from screen to screen in rapid succession. Being a little more deliberate is a big help. I also think that the problems, related to passing of strings in the system that cause the crashes, may explain some of the funny behavior noted with the paddles. Obviously if a string is garbled or not even received, then the system does something unexpected. If the string is really badly messed up (i.e. a bad address is passed), then you get a crash. I've found that the current system does mess this up sometimes. Happily, one of the places where I've caught it messing up is fixed in the new version, so I have hope that the newer version will be better across the board. 3. New Feature: Acquire Stars I added two new menu items on the Telescope Paddle to help in star acquisition. Under the StarTrack menu, there is a new item called "Acquire Star". Hitting this command will do a number of things: (1) opens loops on inactive telescopes; (2) sets up shutters to look only at the active telescope; (3) closed the loop on the active telescope; and (4) initiates the Piezo Mirror Search. If you are close, then the piezo mirror search will capture the star. You will know that piezo mirror search is active by looking at the StarTracker display. Near the bottom of the display, just under the telescope name (A, B, or C) an asterisk will appear when the search is active. The asterisk is YELLOW during the first two scans of the piezo mirror search range and turns to red thereafter. Give the thing a chance to complete the search before abandoning it. Now a bug with this new feature in the current system is that about half the time the piezo mirror search fails to start. No big problem, we've added this to the StarTrack menu with the Search On and Search Off menu items. Another reason these are helpful is that sometimes that star is not found in a piezo search. In this case you might wish to turn off the search and go back to square one for star acquisition. Note that this is one of the bugs that the new version of the program appears to have fixed. When all three telecopes have acquired the star once, you can run the Acquire All item under the CmdALL menu. This will: (1) open all loops; (2) open all shutters; and (3) close all loops. If the stars are close, then this procedure locks them all up. Suppose, though one star has drifted out of the frame. No problem: make that star active and use the Acquire Star button above. It'll bring the star in and then you can Acquire All again with good results. 4. Frame Grabber I installed the new frame grabber board and some initial software to run it. The frame grabber has been quite an adventure and special thanks to Gary Wallace are in order for beating it into submission. The frame grabber has four camera inputs. One of these (Camera 1 in Gary's nomenclature) has a slight problem reading out the image. In another bold move, I also managed to damage the input cable so that it now won't read anything. So we have three good inputs at the moment. The three inputs may be viewed with the NEW version of the LMTMC software. Under the Plot menu, you will find a menu called ImagePlot. This has four submenus, three which point to the TV cameras on the telescopes and one (called junk) that looks at nothing and is bad even if it were looking at something. Selecting one of these items will pop up a frame for the TV picture. To fill the frame, you should point to it with the mouse and click the left mouse button. The frame does not fill itself. You have to request a new frame with that button click. For fun, you may also push and hold the left mouse button to define a rectangle for a centroid measurement. Click the right mouse button and the program computes the centroid of the data in the rectangle and draws a red cross at that position. Neat huh? But so far it doesn't do anything that you can't do off the TV's, which are still with us. So have fun and try it out, but I doubt you'll want these big images cluttering things up. Let me know if there is any bad behavior of this test software.