Night Logs

Keck tracks every night with a custom, in-house database. These form a complete log of what occurred every night… The routine, the problems, the small disasters of operating a complex facility on top of a mountain. Reading these logs every morning is a ritual for many of the staff. A synopsis arrives in our e-mail each day, to be read on an iPad over breakfast, or as soon as you sit down at your desk.

For many in the operations department the contents of the logs set the pattern of the day. Was this a quiet night with no issues? Or is this a day when you need to drop everything to address some serious problem on the mountain?

Below is a typical night log from a quiet night. Reading through the logs each morning reveals much about the inner workings of the observatory. Who was working the night, the visiting astronomers and their subject of study. The logs also contain a number of statistics that are used to monitor the performance of the observatory.

Keck staff tracks all manner of time losses and inefficiencies. This night was typical, about nine hours of good dark time available for observation, of which six hours was spent “working”.

Three hours lost? To what? We use a very strict definition of science time, including only the time the instrument is on-target and collecting data. The various inefficiencies; the time spent moving the telescope, setting up the instrument for each new target, reading out the data, etc. are tracked. By keeping track of these time losses we can potentially task someone with increasing the efficiency if we see any potential improvements to be made.

================================================== K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 ================================================== Id: K1-06923 Universal Date: 06/02/13 From: hhershley Institution: UCLA Instrument: MOSFIRE Observers: Logsdon, (UCLA), Kulas, Mace, McLean CARA Staff: hhershley njordan kwages jlyke Weather: Clear Wind Seeing: 0.8 Snapshot: 107 Dome ---- Opened (UT): 05:10 Temp: out=2.4 in=4.2 mirror=2.2 tube=3.5 Closed (UT): 15:01 Temp: out=1.5 in=1.9 mirror=1.6 tube=0.8 Moon ---- Rise (UT): 11:25 Set (UT): Brightness: 0.06 ================================================== Program: "A Detailed Study of Galaxies in High-Redshift Protoclusters Using MOSFIRE" PI: McLean Weather: The night was clear but with moderate winds that increased at times (but never closed us). Seeing started very good - 0.45" - but got worse toward morning (CFHT lists 1.89" at 14:30UT). Time Loss: Slews = 00:04 Dithers = 00:20 Readouts, etc = 02:31 MIRA x1 before 12deg evening. Telescope parked at MOSFIRE Stow. Dark Time 08:59 Integration Time Science 06:04 Calibration 00:00 Engineering Time 00:00 ----------------------------- TOTAL TIME WORKING 06:04 Time Lost To Weather 00:00 Software 00:00 Hardware 00:00 Inst inefficiency 02:31 Tel inefficiency 00:24 Other 00:00 ----------------------------- TOTAL TIME LOST 02:55 EndNightlog

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================================================== K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 K1 ==================================================   Id:              K1-06923 Universal Date:  06/02/13 From:            hhershley Institution:     UCLA Instrument:      MOSFIRE Observers:       Logsdon, (UCLA), Kulas, Mace, McLean CARA Staff:      hhershley njordan kwages jlyke Weather:         Clear Wind Seeing:          0.8 Snapshot:        107   Dome ---- Opened (UT): 05:10    Temp: out=2.4  in=4.2  mirror=2.2  tube=3.5 Closed (UT): 15:01    Temp: out=1.5  in=1.9  mirror=1.6  tube=0.8   Moon ---- Rise (UT): 11:25   Set (UT):         Brightness: 0.06   ================================================== Program:     "A Detailed Study of Galaxies in High-Redshift Protoclusters     Using MOSFIRE" PI: McLean   Weather: The night was clear but with moderate winds that increased at times (but never closed us).  Seeing started very good - 0.45" - but got worse toward morning (CFHT lists 1.89" at 14:30UT).   Time Loss: Slews = 00:04 Dithers = 00:20 Readouts, etc = 02:31   MIRA x1 before 12deg evening.   Telescope parked at MOSFIRE Stow.   Dark Time               08:59   Integration Time    Science              06:04    Calibration          00:00   Engineering Time        00:00 ----------------------------- TOTAL TIME WORKING      06:04   Time Lost To    Weather              00:00    Software             00:00    Hardware             00:00    Inst inefficiency    02:31    Tel inefficiency     00:24    Other                00:00 ----------------------------- TOTAL TIME LOST         02:55   EndNightlog

Following the usual boilerplate will be a section for each separate writeup, each thing that went wrong in the night. Below you can see a typical writeup for a stage fault in the AO system. Some time during the night a moving optical stage failed to move, indicating an error instead. In this case the stage is AFS, which moves to allow the AO finder camera, ACAM, to focus. The support astronomer re-initialized the stage and continued to observe. It may just have been a quick fault, but it still gets a writeup.

************************************************** Id: K1-21753 Universal Date: 05/14/13 05:54 From: htran To: echock ahoney acooper Urgency: C-Med Topic: AFS fault Keyword: AO1 ACAM Time Lost: 00:03 ************************************************** Tonight, as last night, the acquisition camera focus stage (AFS) faulted after laser zenith alignment. When going to the LGS checkout star and setting up bench, the aoacq tool stalled at "waiting for afs". The star on ACAM was out of focus. I initialized the AFS and re-setup bench. OK after that.

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************************************************** Id:              K1-21753 Universal Date:  05/14/13 05:54 From:            htran To:              echock ahoney acooper Urgency:         C-Med Topic:           AFS fault Keyword:         AO1 ACAM Time Lost:       00:03 **************************************************   Tonight, as last night, the acquisition camera focus stage (AFS) faulted after laser zenith alignment. When going to the LGS checkout star and setting up bench, the aoacq tool stalled at "waiting for afs". The star on ACAM was out of focus. I initialized the AFS and re-setup bench. OK after that.

The writeup has my name on it! Not sure what happened here, these things do just glitch, the system is a complex stew of software and hardware. I will check it out in any case.