Opening

Opening up again from a temporary closedown


If you are opening up from a temporary closedown earlier in the night, you can start from the mid section of the Opening Checklist below, at the note that says: "Start Here from Temporary Closedown".

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Opening Checklist

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1. Check Dry N2 levels - N2 bottles ground floor - not used with SQIID or Goldcam
   
2. Open hall door - leading to visitor gallery
3. Close double doors - at top of visitor stairway
4. Open sliding vent on door between dome and visitor gallery
   
   
5. Check cable wrap outside control room, and in the telescope fork mount.
6. Do Safety Walk Around - of Dome and the Inner Catwalk
7. Turn off Spotlights
8. Fill Dewar - log fill time on clipboard
9. Turn Telescope Cameras on - Guider and Wide Field
10. Stow Platform - ensure it's over, and down fully
    
    
11. Reboot Cyan - "TCS Computer Reset" button - panel "B" - wait for reboot to complete
12. Login to Teal - login and password on monitor
13. In XTCS - Select "Configuration" tab - then "restore tcs"
14. In XTCS - Select "Configuration" tab - then "your instrumnet" and "yes" to "save dialog"
    
    * * * Start Here from Temporary Closedown * * *
    
    
15. Retract Awning - use wall mounted remote
16. Open Catwalk Doors
17. Turn on Oil Pumps - Panel "A"
18. Turn on Drives - Panel "A" - watch Selsyns for telescope run away
19. Turn off Hi Dome Lights
20. Open Dome Shutter - Panel "A"
21. Open Mirror Cover - Panel "A"
22. Turn on Telescope and Building Fans - Panel "A"
23. Turn on Monitors for guider and acquisition cameras - Panel "A" area
24. Turn on Slit Camera (if using Goldcam) - Panel "A"
25. Turn on AUTO button - watch Selsyns for telescope run away - Panel "B"
26. Initialize Telescope use the Open button on the XTCS GUI - on teal
27. Turn on Dome Tracking - on XTCS GUI
28. Check Pointing - use Almanac Bright Stars
29. Focus the Telescope, and Observe

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Opening Checklist Details

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Check Dry N2 levels - N2 bottles ground floor - not used with SQIID or Goldcam

Check the pressure in the orange bottles on the ground floor for pressure above 300 PSI. If the pressure is below this, close the two "open in use bottles" valves, and open the full bottles on reserve. Be sure to listen for any hissing or leaking gas. For any problems at all ask for help on the radio, or for non time critical requests, enter a "Service Request" to ask for replacement bottle installation. This gas protects the dewar window from fogging when using the direct imaging CCD and Flamingos. It is not used or needed for Goldcam or SQIID.



Open Hall Door - leading to the visitor gallery

This allows the buidling fans to evacuate the dome air more effectively to reduce the effects of dome seeing.



Close double doors - at top of visitor stairway

This alignment also allows the building fans to evacuate the dome air more effectively to reduce the effects of dome seeing.



Open sliding vent on door between visitors gallery and dome

This alignment causes the building fans to evacuate the dome air to reduce the effects of dome seeing.



Check cable wrapups outside control room, and in the telescope fork mount

This ensures that the cables are in their shivs and not mechanically binding the equatorial fork motion, or being damaged at all.

The wrapups are checked in the dome by looking in the blue telescope fork mount, and in the control room by looking in the doors at the end of the control room to the left of the dome entrance.



Safety Walk Around

The Safety Walk Around ensures that pumps, compressors, dry nitrogen supplies, etc. are all at nominal operating conditions. Building air circulation is managed through doors and passage-ways being open, dome ventilation is improved by opening the catwalk doors at wind speeds of 35 MPH. Finally, the walk around is a safety check on handling gear, cable wraps, crane hook stowage, and loose objects on, or around the telescope and or dome.



Turn off Spotlights

Turn the switch off the spotlights that illuminate the telescope for the visitors. The switch is a normal light switch located on the wall next the stairs going up to the catwalk.



Fill Dewar

You will need to keep your instrument's dewar full. Liquid nitrogen will be available to you from the support staff. Your startup crew will discuss the requirements you need to follow for filling your instruments dewar. The fills will need to occur at least twice a day (unless using SQIID), and not exceed a 12 hour interval between fill times. If you have any questions the operators at the 4m or WIYN telescopes can answer them for you. Depending on the hold time of the instrument's dewar, it may be necessary to plan a brief interruption of the observing session to allow for the needed refilling, and or to come up to the dome early in the day, to ensure no warmup will occur. The fill times need to be logged on the clipboard, so that dewar hold times can be tracked.

Please be vigilant and take the responsibility of the fill timing on the dewars very seriously. Please do not allow the dewars to warm up. Each time a dewar warms up, it loses vacuum integrity, degrading its ability to hold for the needed 12 hour duration. Additionally, in the case of UV optimized chips, the warm up will cause a loss of sensitivity in the UV, for you, and for subsequent observers, until the dewar can be shipped back down town for renewed UV flooding, in order to restore this UV optimization.

W A R N I N G - Liquid nitrogen is a hazardous material. Please familiarize yourself, and your collaborators and students with all of the safety requirements for working with this dangerous substance. Skin or eye contact with liquid nitrogen will damage the skin or eyes. This can lead to freeze burns and blindness. Safety equipment is provided for your protection. If you have any questions at all regarding the proper use of, or handling of liquid nitrogen, do not attempt to use it. Ask for assistance. Your safety in handling this material is your responsibility. For any safety questions, ask the staff and we will assist you.



Turn Cameras on - Guider and Wide Field - on the telescope

Depending on the instrument and being used, the Acquisition camera and the Guider camera should be turned on at the beginning of the night - these are both turned on on the telescope.



The only other camera in use is the Slit Viewer Camera - (when using Goldcam). The startup folks will discuss camera use. Read the instructions on the diagram below to learn how to properly initialize the cameras.



To keep the camera detector from being damaged by current overload from a bright object, when it's first initialized, the camera gain must be turned all the way down. If the camera gain is not all the way down, the camera will not initialize( no yellow light will come on). So if you have no image - check that the camera gain is turned down fully, (fully counter clockwise) and the camera power is on. Then press the small red "Init" button to initialize the camera. You should get a yellow light showing you that it is initialized. Now you can turn up the gain and try to find a star.



Stow Platform - ensure it's over and down fully

In order to slew the telescope at normal speeds, and to ensure that the telescope does not hit the platform during observing - the platform must be stowed - this means all the way down, and all the way over to the east. There are controls for moving the platform both on the platform itself and just outside the door from the control room to the observing floor. If the platform is not down and over all the way onto the magnetic sensor on the pole, the telescope will move very slowly.



Reboot cyan - "TCS Computer Reset" button - console "B"

Depress the button that says "TCS Computer Reset" on console "B". This will reboot cyan, the low level telescope control computer. Once it comes back up, the "cyan" of VDU display will start updating again.

Wait for cyan to reboot and start updating again before logging into teal.




After cyan comes back up, then login to Teal (login and password on monitor)

On teal's console, just enter the user name and password to login to teal. The system will automatically bring up your needed software, such as the XTCS and XOE GUI's.

If needed, you will need to start the Linux TV Guider software from the desktop icons.



In XTCS GUI, under "Configurations" select "restore tcs"

This will restore the pointing offsets to the tcs computer cyan. The next step will select the instrumnet and it sets the f-ratio, and the instrument settings used for guiding.



In XTCS GUI, under "Configurations" select "Your Instrument" - then "yes" to "save dialog"

YOU MUST select the instrument you are using in the XTCS GUI, in order for the software to know what configuration to set. This must be done every time you log into to teal.

A dialog will popup that ask's you if you want to save the configuration; answer yes to the dialog.



Retract Protective Yellow Awning

There is a yellow awning that covers and protects the telescope from blowing snow, and drips from above. To retract the awning, make sure the weather is safe, and press the small "garage door" style opener, mounted on the wall of the dome interior, just when you enter the dome from the control room. In the morning restore the awning to the deployed position.



Open Catwalk Doors

Use your MM key to open the Catwalk Access Doors. Latch the doors open, using the metal bar latches outside the doorways.



Turn on Oil Pumps

The oil pumps must be turned on for the telescope HA drive to function.

To turn on the oil pumps press the OIL PUMPS ON button under PUMPS on Panel A. Button should light up and the oil pumps should be audible when they turn on.



Turn on Drives - watch selsyns for telescope run away

Both the drive power and the preloads must be turned on to slew and track properly.

To turn on drive power press the DRIVE POWER ON button under DRIVES on Panel A. Button should light up. The DEC PRELOAD ON and RA PRELOAD ON buttons should also light up. If they do not, press and hold them until they do.



Turn off High Dome Lights and Spot Lights

There are 2 spotlights that illuminate the telescope for the visitors that come through the observatory during the day. The light switch for the telescope spotlights is at the bottom of the stairs on the wall, leading up towards the catwalk on the east side of the telescope. Please turn them on each morning again, so our visitors can see the telescope.

Always turn off the High Dome Lights at Panel A , rather than in the dome on the wall. The switch on panel A must be toggled OUT so that when AUTO is turned off, the dome lights will remain. OFF

Check theHI DOME LIGHTS and LO DOME LIGHTS buttons under LIGHTS on Panel A. Both buttons should be unlit (press to toggle if necessary). Check the dome for any lights which might have been forgotten.



Open Dome Shutter

To open the dome shutter - assuming good weather; press and hold the button labeled DOME SHUTTER OPEN under SHUTTER on Panel A until the dome shutter is all the way up. The light inside this button does not work; listen for completed motion (listen for the "thunk" noise). Never open or close the dome shutter when the telescope mirror covers are open - an object could possibly fall on the mirror.

Open the dome catwalk access doors - they have "keeper" rods that are used to keep the dome doors open. Be sure to hook them up so they will stay open. Leaving them open while observing will increase dome ventilation and reduce the effect of dome seeing. Be sure to close them in the morning. Close the doors if winds get too high and you notice telescope shake. Your MM key will open the doors, just open one, and then walk outside to open the other one. You can not be locked out onto the catwalk.



Open Mirror Cover

Press and hold the button labeled MIRROR COVER OPEN under MIRROR on Panel A until the mirror cover is opened all the way. At this point the button should light up a brighter red.



Turn on Telescope and Building Fans

Press the button labeled BUILDING FANS ON/OFF button under FANS on Panel A. Button should light up. Fans should be audible. Press the button labeled TELE FANS ON/OFF under FANS on Panel A. The button should light up, but is intermittent. These fans will probably not be audible.



Turn on TV Monitors for guider and acquisition cameras

Turn on the Guider and Acquisition Monitors. Be sure the Telescope Status - VDU Monitor (cyan), is on as well.



Turn on Slit Viewer Camera (if using Goldcam)

On the camera control panel, turn the gain down fully for the camera labeled "Slit Camera". Then turn it's power on, and press the small red "init" button to initialize it.



Turn on AUTO

Press the AUTO button under STATION SELECT on Panel B. This will allow the Automated control of the telescope from Teal. Teal just acts as a high level interface to the lower level computer cyan, that actually controls the telescope. You can reboot teal in the middle of an exposure if needed, and cyan will keep the telescope tracking the whole time you wait for teal to come back up. Teal was implemented to provide GUI interfaces to cyan.



Initialize the Telescope (on teal in XTCS )



1. If not logged in already - Login to teal. The username and password are posted on teal's monitor.

2. If just logging in - wait for the XTCS and the XOE (your two main GUI's) to start up. In XTCS, select the tab "configurations" then, menu item "your instrument" (sqiid, direct ccd, goldcam). Then "save" in the dialog box that pops up.

Open button on the XTCS - A new GUI will popup with a checklist on it.

4. Confirm that the GUI checklist has been completed. And then click Initialize or Unstow. A new large pink button will now appear.

5. While watching the selsyns for a possible run away telescope (rapid motions for several seconds in either or both directions) (Panel B), click the large pink button that saysPress here to initialize the telescope. You should see both selsyns should move. This is how the telescope finds it's encoder values. The Hour Angle selsyn (on the operator's left) will move only a small amount. The telescope is now under the control of teal's XTCS (X windows - Telescope Control Software)system.



Turn on Dome Tracking

Select the On button beside the Dome label in the Tracking section of the XTCS



Check the telescope pointing

Follow the instructions on the "observing page" for checking pointing. Use a bright, unambiguous star, to check pointing with - normally of 3rd magnitude or brighter.



Focus the Telescope and Observe

Focus the telescope according to the instructions on the "Observing page" and the recommendations from the instrument start staff member.