Palomar LGS Engineering Summary 02/11/06 UT

Personnel: J. Roberts, V. Velur, R. Flicker, L. Wang, A. Bouchez, R.
Burruss, K. Dunscombe.

Conditions: Photometric, V seeing ~0.5" (!)

1100-1400 Set up BTO open-loop control tests.
1500 Unable to detect HeNe laser in Q2 - laser appears 5x fainter than in
Nov.
1600 Beginning MGSU setup for tonight.
1745 Beginning MGSU experiment.
1800 Setting up aircraft safety experiment.  Unable to connect to ASCAM.
2000 Successfully gathered 5 sets of synchronized tomograph data on
asterism A1.  See attached observing logs for details.
2330 Handing over telescope to LGS engineering.
2400 Fixed HOWFS vignetting due to HOWFS baffle.
0020 Seeing 0.35" in K.  A better that average night on Palomar Mt.
0030 Attempting to beat the all-time Strehl record.
0105 Achieved Strehls of ~45% on V=14.7 star.
0140 Calibrating LOWFS acquisition software.  Acquisition time now <2 min.
0227 AO crash - AOCP no longer responding to commands.  Rebooted.
0245 Testing dual NGS mode.
        1. LLT uplink control apparently not working.
        2. LOWFS tip-tilt offload works fine when loops closed through TAO.
        3. Apparent conflicts between LOWFS and HOWFS loops, particularly
when
                opening the HO loop while LO kept closed on LOWFS.
        4. DM does not go to flat when opening HO loop (in dual NGS mode).
        5. Dual mode observing successful, when above problems don't occur.
We would be interested in discussing these issues and possible tests in a
conference call tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon.
0530 Calling night.