Summit Duties/Information

When observing at the JCMT as a visiting astronomer your role at the telescope is four fold:

  1. to monitor the scientific quality of the data obtained on your own project when conditions are appropriate for your project to be observed:
    1. To ensure a record of your monitoring is archived you should provide comments on your project via the OMP obslog this will ensure your comments are available to you after your summit shift via your project OMP page.
  2. to facilitate smooth observing/scheduling, by:
    1. . . . monitoring sky conditions and, in collaboration with the Telescope Operator, selecting programs to observe, consistent with the JCMT Flexible Observing Guidelines. This requires the use of the Query Tool. As a reminder a guide to weather on Mauna Kea – with regards to our own instrumentation – can be found here.
      1. decisions should be made with the Telescope Operator who has access to the same software
      2. it should be noted that SCUBA-2 450micron data require stable skies and a thermally stable telescope that might not occur until a couple of hours after sunset
      3. understand the requirement of the observatory to undertake routine engineering and commissioning observations to ensure the telescope maintains optimal scientific output (an example of this would be a pointing run or holography observations).
    2. . . . reporting faults to Telescope Operators when they are out of the control room (eg. stopped queue, red messages on JOS, large paz, pel because of stopped drives) –  where necessary paging them to alert of problems.
  3. to monitor and report back the scientific quality of the data obtained on behalf of other JCMT users. Feedback should be provided via the OMP obslog including:
    1. inspecting pipeline data products from the DR pipelines
    2. reporting the noise obtained within an observation
    3. reporting any background problems – poor baselines/ripples
    4. reporting any detections visible in the data and the strength/location of any detections
    5. reading and responding to any comments made in the program notes of the observation being taken
  4. to provide assistance in the case of an emergency as outlined in the Safety Briefing pages, and – if appropriate – personnel support for the Telescope Operator if a trip to assist another observatory is required. If you are asked to accompany the Telescope Operator to UKIRT you will need to sign the UKIRT waiver form that can be found here.

If you have any questions or problems during a night – depending on the question – you might initially want to ask the Telescope Operator otherwise please e-mail your support scientist for non-urgent questions or call for urgent questions.

Please remember that the summit is a wireless free area. Please switch your mobile into airplane mode, switch off the wireless on your laptop (internet cables are provided at the summit). This also applies to Bluetooth radios in all “smart” devices (laptops, tablets, phones, watches, etc.). If you wish to use your own laptop in the control room and it lacks an internal wired ethernet port (e.g. some newer Apple Macs that rely on Thunderbolt ports), please try to remember to bring the appropriate dongle.

Please note you will need to coordinate with your support astronomer and telescope operator the start of shift time. For support staff, the “start of shift planned departure times” can be found here (password protected). You will be expected to be ready and depart Hale Pohaku at this time. A typical observing night will last 14 hours including the drive to and from Hale Pohaku.

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