Don't say we didn't warn you

There have been changes to the system. Much of this document is now being updated. CCDs are controlled by CICADA. See the on-line documentation.



The DBS red and the Imager are currently controlled via the same workstation, "mouldy". The data is stored on "mallorn", located in the Peripherals'Room and accessible by the Observer via the workstations "moist" and "mouldy" in the control room. Observers should not log into nor run processes on "mallorn" and "mgiantsso". This is a temporary arrangement due to the commissioning of the two DBS new heads and the Observer needs to check with Technical Staff before their run to make sure that everything is set up correctly and to learn what software versions to run from where. Please make sure that the file ".cshrc" in your home area contains the lines:

"unset autologout"
"limit coredumpsize 0k"

as the absence of these lines has caused problems in the past.



The new DBS detector has severe fringing in the red that can be removed with a flat field frame taken at the same spectrograph orientation as for the star.



Several users have reported there being no way to reliably abort an exposure mid-way through without losing the whole frame. Things have improved now but, unless you are aborting a particularly long exposure or sequence, you may want to consider waiting for the end of the exposure instead of risking to end up with more time-consuming software problems.



The 2.3m does not have any data archive! It is the Observer's responsibility to back up their data before they leave. Failure to do so is likely to cause total loss of data, as data disks are usually cleared by the next Observer at the beginning of their run.
Information about how to backup observing data can be found here.



Last modified: Wed December 7, 2005, by Marilena Salvo (salvo@mso...)