These are procedures for remote, real-time observing at TMO during SSP 2025. last edited: 11 June 2025 (AWR)

Remote Observing Center

SSP NMSU 2025 will be using the 24“ B&C telescope at Tortugas Mountain Observatory. Observing will be done from Astronomy Building Rm 119, a.k.a. the TMO Remote Observing Center, a.k.a. the ROC.

Observing Team Responsibilities

It is the team's responsibility to have their observing log prep work completed before dinner on the evening of your scheduled observing shift. Missing, incomplete, or late prep work may result in the cancellation of your observing shift!

The Astronomy Building is locked at night. It is the team's responsibility to be assembled and ready to go before your shift starts.

  1. Early shift Assemble in the computer lab by 8:50 at the latest and be ready to walk over to the Astronomy Building with the TA on shift.
  2. Middle shift Assemble outside the Astronomy Building by 10:55 at the latest. The TA on shift will let you into the building.
  3. Late shift Assemble in the computer lab by 12:50 at the latest and be ready to walk over to the Astronomy Building with the TA on shift.

There are three general jobs during an observing shift. These jobs should rotate amongst team members from one shift to the next.

  1. Observatory control: Responsible for running the control computer - controlling the telescope and the camera, making sure data is saved to the correct directory, etc. This is done from a dedicated laptop which the TA on shift will bring to the ROC.
  2. Observing log: Responsible for entering data in the digital observing log in real time. Bring your laptop with you to the observing session to enter data in real time.
  3. General Monitoring: Responsible for monitoring the weather, watching the dome via the webcam, and referring to the wiki as needed. Bring your laptop with you to perform these important tasks.

Connecting to TMO

Use VNC Viewer on the dedicated ROC laptop to connect to tmo.nmsu.edu. Log in should happen automatically. The VNC Viewer is pinned to the taskbar on the dedicated ROC laptop.

The Remote Computer

The software is probably already up and running. If not start the necessary software on the remote computer (icons are left-to-right across the top of the remote desktop) in this order:

  1. Start FocusMax, which should also start SiTech and MaxIm DL (be patient)
  2. Start ClarityII
  3. Start ACP
  4. DON'T start Scheduler (It's for automated AAVSO observing - more on this later)

Keep an eye on things at TMO

The General Monitoring task should always have an open browser window with the TMO IR camera.

To turn the IR lamp on and off, Click Setup, then click IR Light (Mode = Off is off and Mode = Manual is on) & always remember to click save.

You should be in the habit of turning on the IR lamp and watching whenever the telescope is moving, then turning it off before you take data.

Connect to the telescope (if it's not already)

  1. Use the setup tab in MaxIm DL Observatory window to 'Connect all'. If only the large MaximDL window is open, click the small button that looks like an observatory (eighth from the left on the row of buttons)
  2. Connect to telescope in ACP using the Telescope drop-down for good measure.
  3. Upon connection, telescope's park position is displayed in the SiTech window. It should be at HA = -2h; dec = -20deg.
  4. If the SiTech status says 'Uninitialized' try connecting again. If this doesn't work, observing TA should contact Dr. R or Zach.

Connect to the camera (if it's not already)

  1. Use the Camera drop-down in the ACP window to connect to the camera. (This step will also open the Camera Control window in MaxIm DL.)
  2. This may take a few seconds. Be patient. (A vestigial window with camera name opens upon successful connection.)
  3. Once the cameras are connected, turn on the cooler for camera 1. The cooler is in the Setup tab in the Camera Control window. The default set to -12 deg C, if the camera struggles to cool down to this level, increase the set-point so that the temperature remains stable with a cooler power < 90%.

Open the dome

The dome should only be opened if you're positive it's not raining and not about to start raining. The weather TA should check the cloud maps, weather forecast, and physically go outside and look at the sky before opening the dome.

  1. Use ACP Dome Control to open the dome. Look for the button at the bottom of the main ACP window.
  2. Once open, the dome should slave to the telescope.
  3. If there's a shutter error, try rotating the dome.

Check pointing

First team of the night should definitely do this. We need to make sure the telescope knows where it's pointing. Subsequent teams, do this only if telescope doesn't seem to be pointing where it should.

  1. Slew to asteroid coordinates first, using GoToSync in the SiTech window. You may need to unpark the telescope first by clicking Start to allow the telescope to start tracking.
  2. Enter the coordinates of your asteroid. Make sure the J2000 button is checked. Then click GoTo. Do not use the “Sync” button.
  3. Select FindBrightStar.vbs script in ACP window by clicking the “Select the Script” button, and click “Run”.
  4. Enter filter #2 at prompt. Type `2` into the prompt when flashing.
  5. Let it do its thing. Windows may pop up and disappear; do not do anything until the dialog box in ACP says “Star is now centered in view”
  6. The FindBrightStar.vbs script may change the chip binning to 4. Change it back to 2 before proceeding.

Focus the telescope

Every team should run a focus routine at least once, even if the focus 'looks OK.' Repeat as often as necessary. Focus changes with ambient temperature.

  1. Slew (back) to one of your predetermined focus stars.
  2. Set the camera to the filter you will be using for your observations, under camera control (“filter wheel” under the expose tab)
  3. Make sure the telescope is tracking and not stopped. If not tracking, hit start and “GoTo” Do not use the “Sync” button.
  4. Take a single exposure with the camera.
  5. Find the subframe box in camera control (in the expose tab): turn it 'on' and hit `mouse` and draw a square around the bright star. Out of focus stars might look like donuts. (If you need to exit the zoomed in image in MaxIm DL, turn it back off and take a new exposure)
  6. Set the camera control to continuous exposures, and press start. If you open screen stretch dialog box in Maxim DL, you can get the maximum pixel value, and also adjust the saturation of the image.
  7. In the FocusMax panel, click “Jog” (on the left side) and increment in or out by approximately 100 (though you can change this number depending on how out of focus the telescope seems).
  8. If the image has improved, continue to increment in that direction. If the image worsens, increment in the opposite direction.
  9. Continue to increment, decreasing the step size until you've reached a focus level you are satisfied with.

Take your time with this step. A good focus means crisp images, which will result in better astrometry.

Find your asteroid

  1. Slew to your asteroid - use the “Gotosync” tab on the SiTech window, and enter the RA and DEC of your asteroid for the time closest to the current time and click “GoTo.”
  2. Use the Expose tab in the Camera Control Window in MaxIm DL to take a single quick exposure to confirm field of view with your finding chart.
  3. If necessary, use Nudge Telescope in the ACP window to center the asteroid's predicted location in the image. For scale, the full field of view is about 36×24 arcmin.

Take your time with this step. Placing the asteroid near the center of the frame will make things easier.

Take data

Temperature Check - Before you take any science or calibration images, check the camera temperature in the middle dialog box in the Camera Control window in MaxIm DL. If the Cooler Power is at 100%, but the temperature has not reached the temperature setpoint, you're exceeding the maximum capability of the cooler and you'll need to set a warmer temperature. If the camera is cooled and the power is at or greater than 90%, you may want to increase the setpoint. It's better to have a slightly warmer but stable temperature than a slightly cooler but struggling to keep up situation.

IR Interference - Don't forget to turn off the IR lamp in the window that monitors the telescope and dome, especially if you are planning to take data with the Clear/Open filter.

  1. Click on the expose tab in Camera Control, and switch from Single to Autosave.
  2. To access the Autosave setup window, press the “Autosave” button.
  3. In the Autosave setup window, click Options to set the Image Save Path,
  4. Employ a clear directory structure! There is a Documents/Observations/SSP folder which contains sub-folders for each program and every observing team. All your data goes there. Be very careful and consistent about telling MaxIm DL what to name your images and where to put them! It is recommended to at least make a new folder for each night. Make a new folder by clicking the yellow button on top right of the folder
  5. Under Autosave Filename, give a reasonable prefix for your images.
  6. Let's start with a series of data. In the autosave menu, activate one of the lines to take a series of exposures for your asteroid. Select the type “Light” and the filter you focused with. Choose the proper exposure time (60 seconds is often a good choice), binning (always 2), and number of repeats. Update the suffix to your liking.
  7. Click Apply, then OK.
  8. In the Camera Control window, click start.
  9. When you get a chance, check the local filesystem through the vnc to make sure your data is saved where you wanted it to. After ~15 minutes, check the web link to make sure your remote data has been uploaded.
  10. Repeat for series of 5 darks. IMPORTANT: There is no shutter with the CMOS camera, so for darks you need to use the dark filter. To take darks in the autosave setup, select the type “Light,” and choose the “Dark” filter. Take a series of darks for each exposure length you're using. Don't forget to update the suffix to your liking.
  11. Let's take more data now! In the autosave menu, activate a line to take a series of five 1-min exposures. Repeat the same workflow as above, selecting type “Light” and the filter you focused with. Choose the proper exposure time, binning (always 2), and number of repeats.
  12. Right before the end of your shift, take another series of data.

If at all possible, locate your asteroid in the raw image(s) and make note of its (x,y) pixel location in a particular image. This will make it much easier to find it again when you're analyzing the data afterwards.

When you're done

1st and 2nd shifts should

  1. Set the camera to take “single” exposures.
  2. Leave the camera cooled for the next team.
  3. Rearrange the windows in an orderly way (see the screenshot above).
  4. Park the telescope (SiTech, under the “Scope” tab).

The last team of the night should shut things down. If the weather is okay:

  1. Open the “Scheduler” application from the desktop.
  2. Select “Dispatcher Running”. This will start-up automated observing for AAVSO.
  3. Turn off the lights on your way out.

If the weather is getting bad, AAVSO scheduler is smart enough to refuse to start. If that happens,:

  1. Close out any images in Maxim DL you took (keep the main Maxim DL window still open)
  2. Set the camera to take “single” exposures.
  3. Rearrange the windows in an orderly way (see the screenshot above).
  4. Close the dome (ACP)
  5. Park the dome (ACP)
  6. Park the telescope (SiTech, under the “Scope” tab)
  7. Stop the telescope (SiTech)
  8. Turn off the infrared lights in the dome.
  9. Turn off the camera cooler (MaxIm DL Camera Control)

Getting flat fields

Ask a TA for the field iron. Make sure it's on high heat, high moisture settings and iron your fields until flat. this can take as long as 45 minutes.

Accessing your data

  1. Data is automatically copied from TMO back to a nmsu astronomy computer on campus.
  2. You can access your data here. But right-clicking on every single image seems onorous. Someone might figure out how to use wget to batch download images.
  3. Do not mess with anyone's images except your team's.
  4. Do not trust the laptops' hard drives. Also copy your data to a thumb drive. Also copy your data to your own Google Drive or similar as you see fit.

Troubleshooting

If stars streak E-to-W and look like a dumbbell - This is a known and not completely diagnosed issue. There are a couple things you can try

  1. Try jogging the telescope away and back
  2. Instead of five 1-min exposures, take ten 30-sec exposures.