TO duties

The WHT TO is responsible for effective night time operation. This document describes the TO responsibilities.

Job Activities (extract of job description)

Operate the telescope and the computer controlling it throughout the night, as required by observers.

Maintain records of the observations made, the configuration of the telescope and associated instruments and of the observing conditions prevailing for the same period and ensure that all scientific data is archived.

Inform the TO colleague who takes over, of the situation and issues.

Monitor operation of all the equipment and anticipate or rapidly respond to any problems that occur by analysing and correcting faults or calling in the Duty Officer to maintain the fullest possible operation of the facility.

Prepare the building dome, telescope and associated equipment and open the dome at least 30 minutes before sunset whenever possible.

Take responsibility for the safety of the area, the staff in it and all equipment during the night. Make decisions on shut-down of telescope operation, and if necessary to abandon the telescope because of conditions.

Operate the telescope

Know to use this TCS user interface commands

ACKNOWLEDGE, CLONE, HANDSET, HELP, TCSEXIT
DIFF_RATES, PROPER_MOTION, SOURCE
ADD, ERASE, INCLUDE, MARK, OUTPUT, REMOVE
BLIND_OFFSET, GOCAT, NEXT
APERTURE, ENTER, OFFSET, STORE, TWEAK
AGSELECT, AUTOGUIDE, PROBE
CALIBRATE
ALTITUDE, AZIMUTH, DOME, FOCUS, PARK, ROTATOR, STOP, UNWRAP
ENCODER, ENGINEERING, ZEROSET
STATION, INSTRUMENT
PAGE
LOG, POINT, RMS, SNAPSHOT
HUMIDITY, PRESSURE, TEMPERATURE, UT1UTC, WAVELENGTH

Check for telescope limits when moving
E.g. rotator and elevation limits.

Being familiar with equatorial coordinates and horizontal coordinates
Know to convert coordinates and to use the Staralt program .

Find guide stars using the GSS program ,
move autoguider probe, start autoguider and close the guide loop.

Operate RoboDIMM.

Maintain records

Show the observer how to add comments and make sure the nightlog is generated at the end of the night.
Provide the observer with data tapes and instruct where to backup the data. Fill in the telescope log book.
Report all faults in the ING fault database.

Inform colleagues, handover

At the end of your shift comment all problems you found to the next TO.

Monitor operation

Encourage the observer to frequently check the quality of the data. Monitor the tracking/guiding of the telescope, make sure the dome is tracking. Check regularly the weather page as satellite image, cocam image and seeing are important indicators. Make sure the audible humidity alarm is active.

Prepare and shut down

Talk to the observer before or at dinner. Ask when the telescope has to be ready e.g. for sky flats. If possible open the dome (ventilation improves seeing) 30 minutes before sunset. Make sure all lights in the building and the oil cooling plant are switched off.
Leave the telescope at the end of the night in park zenith position, mirror covers closed, dome closed and oil support switched off. Make sure all CCDs got filled with LN2 and note this in the log book.

Take responsibility

Check the weather condition on regular intervals. Go outside, check for lights left on and high clouds.
In bad weather conditions e.g. if the road is icing up decide about abandoning the telescope.
Stay in contact with the INT observer, make sure he/she is not forgotten nor left behind.