The Penalty Box

I’ve been at Kitt Peak (along with Mike Jones) for the past several days doing optical follow-up on ALFALFA HI detections. Specifically,we’re searching for stellar counterparts to potential nearby gas-rich low mass galaxies. I’ll write more about the science at some point in the future, but for now I want to focus on the observing we’re doing.

The WIYN telescope looking up through the dome slit. (Photo courtesy Mike Jones.)

We’ve been using pODI on the WIYN 3.5m telescope. ODI stands for One Degree Imager, and pODI is the partially filled ODI – rather than a one degree field of view it has a ~24′ field of view, with a few outlying chips sampling the full field of view. The instrument is still being commissioned, meaning it is offered as “shared-risk” observing. This is pretty common for new instruments. Not only does it allow science observations to begin sooner, it also lets the engineering and instrument team know what needs further work and development. There’s nothing like bringing in an outside observer to break your instrument – they don’t know all the ins and outs and will naively try things that don’t work.

Looking at the primary and tertiary mirrors of WIYN. (Photo courtesy Mike Jones.)

We’ve experienced some of the shared-risk with the “penalty box”. Last night we had to cycle power to the detectors two separate times because some of the controllers stopped responding. Unfortunately, every time you cycle the power you have to wait an hour for the system to become stable. Any data you take during that time can’t be calibrated, so you end up twiddling your thumbs a bit. Following the observer previous to me, I’ve been referring to this waiting time as being in the “penalty box”.

There are other aspects that go along with using an instrument that is being commissioned. For example, not all of the control software is complete yet. We have everything we need to run the telescope, but not everything is integrated fully so we have lots of windows open. Some of the windows also have a few quirks that can be confusing, but we’ve developed a routine and it seems to be working well.

All our monitors and windows. (Photo courtesy Mike Jones.)

While there are always issues that go along with using a brand new instrument, it’s also super exciting. And new instruments bring new capabilities.

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