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CLOSING DOWN THE T/S AND COMPUTERS

The closing down sequence of the JKT is considerably easier than the start up and less can, and does, go wrong. Moreover at this stage any problems never seem quite so important!

The recommended procedure is as follows -

  1. Completely switch off the acquisition TV by turning down the gain control until it clicks and pressing the red STOP button. Retract the old A/G box mirror to OUT. Turn off the Auto-Guider. Both the TV and Auto-Guider are interlocked with the fluorescent dome lights.
  2. Close the mirror covers.
  3. Close the dome shutters.
  4. Rotate the dome to avoid any expected bad weather.
  5. Make safe any instrument (eg close the dark slides ) and switch on the dome lights.
  6. Press button Z.P. to zenith park the telescope. Shut down Telescope Control Computer.

    Type FINISH, wait for the final message then type MA FX16:,OFF.

  7. After raising the black-out blind so you can see the telescope, switch the telescope control to ENGINEERING mode (button to right of key on upper right of console) and drive the telescope (buttons centre left of console) so as to replace any covers as necessary (usually applicable to f/8 only) then park the telescope at the zenith.
  8. Turn off the 'TELESCOPE POWER' key on the console.
  9. Cancel the alarm that sounds (left button of panel at lower right of console).
  10. It is always wise to put your data on tape at the end of the night as head crashes in the Disk Drives are not unknown. When these are FITS tapes put the 'D' tape in the tray to be copied (fill out a copy request as well). The 'C' tape is for you to take away, the 'D' tape is for the La Palma data archive.
  11. When you have finished printing files or copying data as appropriate, type SHUTDOWN to exit from ADAM and then type SIGNOFF <cr> at the user terminal of the instrument computer. ('SO' will do).
  12. Shutdown the instrument computer. The procedure is (at the system console):
  13. STOPALL <cr>
  14. OFF <cr>
  15. MA EGLE:,OFF <cr>

Go to the EAGLE diskand switch the PROTECT switch to protect and the right hand switch to READY.

  1. If appropriate, refill the CCD cryostat with liquid nitrogen.
  2. The Nightly Report Form. You must fill in the Nightly report form at the end of your night's work. Most of the entries are self- explanatory but note the following: The hours observed is most easily found by subtracting the time of the first useful observation (not flat field) from the time of the last observation. Astr.T. means Astronomical Twilight. The times can be found from the NAO booklet 'Astronomical Data for La Palma' or the table pinned to the Notice-Board. Enter the UT values, not sidereal, for the end of astronomical twilight in the evening and the beginning of astronomical twilight in the morning. You should be taking seeing measurements roughly every two hours throughout the night and entering them in the JKT Observers Log Book; and duplicate them to Dave Carter's form for logging the seeing. You can measure the seeing from the TV but it is much more reliable to use STARFIT on a short CCD exposure, especially the best of a focus run. Pay no attention to the 'seeing' displayed by the autoguider. Clouds (0-8) refers to the standard meteorological definition of cloud cover in eighths.

    Dust (0-2) is on an arbitary scale where 0 means horizon clean and hard, Teide easily visible 1 means horizon ill-defined, Teide seen with difficulty if at all. 2 means no perceptible horizon, Teide totally invisible, view across Caldera substantially impaired. 3 means you should lie down in the lee of your camel Complete the log book and leave any SERs or hardware fault cards or mag tape copy requests in the tray provided. (Duty Officer collection). (IF THEY ARE NOT LEFT IN HERE, NOTHING WILL HAPPEN.)

  3. Make sure the intercom is off (depress the .<- key so that the red light goes out).
  4. Lock the outside door as you leave.


next up previous contents
Next: TROUBLE SHOOTING Up: No Title Previous: List of standard catalogues


Tue Aug 5 05:37:08 MET DST 1997