Blog from October, 2023

Time/Date

20231023

People

Roy, Onkar, Connor, Azzan, Olivia, David

Log

1. Capturing Tau Cas FWHM 4.059 +/- 0.3  

ToDo

Notes

1. referenced page 349-209 in dfm eng drawings

Data

N/A

Time/Date

20231017T1330-1500

People

Roy, Onkar, Connor

Spaces Occupied

401, 433C

Goals

1. create 14 pin AMP cable connector thingy for primary GAM filter wheel
   1. unsuccessful

Log

1. began at 1:30pm
2. began stripping AMP cable after inspection of parts
3. realized connector that came with AMP does not match connector of GAM filter wheel motor port
4. halted operation save gam once again
5. sad
6. cleaned up

ToDo

1. find new connector, amp cable still good

Notes

1. referenced page 349-209 in dfm eng drawings

Data

N/A

Log

1. Start-up procedure

Date/Time:

20231010T1200-1600

People:

Gabriel and Onkar

Rooms occupied:

433c  

Goals:

Get cams working

Log 

NOTE: I am using camera names based on the suggested hostnames on the "TODO" section. So south, west, east and outdoor refers to the suggested hostnames. 

1. Manually connected to each camera using laptop (ethernet and then 12v to power camera).
   1. Removed the reset cap on the side of the camera using philips head screwdriver, held reset button pressed for ~5-6 seconds. 
   2. Camera switched to factory settings.
      1. Factory ip address for cameras is 192.168.1.109, cameras request ip from gateway 192.168.1.1   
         1. Figured this out by connecting the camera to laptop and using wireshark to sniff the ethernet interface for ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) network packets.
   3. Set (ethernet) interface static ip address to 192.168.1.1, along with default gateway to same ip. This is because the cameras by default try to get the 192.168.1.109 address and try to talk to the gateway at 192.168.1.1
   4. Go to browser and connect to http server of the camera (192.168.1.109)
2. You will be prompted by the camera to set locale settings (US and -4 timezone). 
3. Next stage will prompt for time, select sync system time.
4. Next stage will prompt you to enter a password, currently the cameras have the common password for networked devices. 
5. Skip next stages until you are shown a login screen. 
6. Login using credentials you set
7. Change static IP address and gateway
   1. Go to setting (tab) → Network (sidebar) → TCP/IP
   2. Click the static button
   3. Set the ip address to the appropriate one (assigned by DOIT based on the MAC address of the camera)
   4. Set subnet mask to 255.255.255.0
   5. Set gateway to 130.85.162.1
   6. Click save
8. Connected cams to blue iris
   1. Open Blue Iris
   2. Right click anywhere on screen
   3. Select the "Add new camera" Option
   4. Set appropriate full name and short name
   5. In type, select "Network IP"
   6. In options, disable all of them (most importantly disable the "Enable motion detector" option)
   7. Click ok
   8. In the "Network IP camera configuration" window that pops up:
      1. Select "http://" in the dropdown button to the top right
      2. Enter the IP address assigned to the camera on the text box right next to the dropdown button above
      3. Enter username and password used to log in to the camera. 
      4. Set "Make" to Generic/ONVIF"
      5. Set "Model" to "*RSTP H.264/H.265/MJPG/MPEG4"
      6. Set "RTSP port" to 554
      7. Leave "Stream profiles" to default (mostly empty)
      8. Leave "Advanced" to default.
      9. Click ok
   9. In the "New Camera" window, click on "Video" Tab
      1. Go to "Image Format" → "Max. rate" 
      2. Set rate to 333667 [29.97 fps (NTSC)]
      3. Click ok
   10. Device should be added
9. All cameras {4} have been connected to blue-iris. Outdoor camera needs another port assigned to it by doit, as the one assigned previously (13) is used by the weather monitor. 
   1. This was determined by trying to connect the camera to all ethernet ports on roof, while sniffing network on DC using wireshark. No packets were sent from the camera in our subnet, unless it was connected to port 13, which is taken up by weather monitor.
10. Mounted west, east and outdoor cameras, missing bracket for south camera.

ToDo

Suggestion: change the hostname to better describe our current setup. Since we only have 1 outdoor camera, I suggest we change the hostnames to reflect which cameras are mounted on the dome and which are outside:

• Camera assigned to 130.85.162.3 remains unchanged (dome-west.phys.umbc.edu)
• Camera assigned to 130.85.162.6 set to dome-east.phys.umbc.edu from scope-west.phys.umbc.edu
• Camera assigned to 130.85.162.7 set to dome-south.phys.umbc.edu from scope-east.phys.umbc.edu
• Camera assigned to 130.85.162.38 set to dome-outdoor.phys.umbc.edu from scope-cam.phys.umbc.edu (or something more representative as this is the camera located outside)

Mount south camera

ROY: Get another port assigned to our subnet(? ) for the outside camera (one next to weather station). Port 13 is already assigned and used by the weather monitor. 

Notes

East and west installed, south is facing upward, outside cam has network issues (see log and todo)

West camera seems to be disconnecting and reconnecting randomly. Works fine otherwise.

Weather

Excellent

Data

N/A

Time:

202310104T0000-0100

People:
Onkar and Roy

Goals:

1. Install mSATA drive
2. Confirm all four 2TB HDDs work
3. Install windows10 to mSATA
4. Create spanned drive with all four HDDs
5. Document Process

Log:

1. installed mSATA drive onto motherboard
2. created win10 bootable USB
3. followed windows10 installation instructions
4. confirmed all four HDDs show up in Windows Drive Manager
5. created span drive to group all four drives as one shared folder
6. documented what we did several hours after doing it

Notes:

• FreeNAS is old
• ITX motherboard with single 4pin CPU power plug (basically can't upgrade to new board without also having to replace proprietary power supply which may be difficult)
• 8GB total of DDR3 ram
• will connect to internet and update drivers and windows later

Time

20231003T1800-2359

People

Roy, Onkar, Azzan, Katie, Ian

Plan

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1im2zylBgl5iNk50JS5J9OjzPX-rXxx6KH94n7SCl8fU/edit 

Log

1. Follow Start-Up Procedure
   1. Installed PICSARR On-axis
   2. relabled filter wheel filters in sharpcap to ugriz set
   1. (Align field to north)
2. Pointing
   1. vega
      1. set object position
      2. adjusted focus 2634
   2. 1ES 1959+650 (blazer)
      1. dim, could see at 60s exposure
      2. see chart for capture details
      3. recalibrated phd2 by clearing calibration and letting it rerun
      4. entered tracking rate of 15.022
         1. still slightly too fast but better distribution on phd2

Notes:

Time

1800
Sunset at 1848

People

Roy, Onkar, Olivia, Azzan, Katie, Connor

Plan

Detector characterization with BigPix (ASI 432MM) & Planetary (ASI 178MM) detectors

Log

1. Follow Start-Up Procedure
   1. Thor instrument rotator home position wont work, 2023-10-02 19:18:15.262     Error     40328764     Command Error: Move using invalid velocity requested     Function Name = Thorlabs::MotionControl::DeviceSupport::CGenericMotor::Home
2. Pointing at Vega
   1. Auxiliary vs normal tracking is different
3. (Align field to north)

Plan for ASI-178 vs ASI-432 matchup.

1. Preliminary Stuff
   1. Put the ASI-178MM and ASI-432MM Sensor Analysis files onto the data computer. These were run by Katie and Ian in the lab and are available here.
   2. We did this. We placed the 4x JSON files (2x for 432 and 2x for 178) in C:\Users\Director\AppData\Roaming\SharpCap\SensorCharacteristics on DC
   3. Put the ASI-432mm on the scope first with the filter wheel (verify filter positions with sharpcap designations – may need to have names re-entered).
      1. We did this as well and verified the filters in SharpCap EFW Setup
   4. Do your best to align the detector to be North-up using the instrument rotator.
      1. We did this as well, we pointed to Alberio and used the Thor Instrument rotator to find that (for this setup) 31deg was the best arrangement to have the field NSEW aligned
   5. IF IT IS STILL LIGHT OUT - take a series of 10 exposures in each filter pointed at clear blue sky. You can follow the guidelines here. Make sure to save as ‘flat’ in sharpcap, and note the detector (432MM).
      1. It aint
2. Field #1:  Phi Cas (mag 5 star in Cassiopeia). Looks like this if you are indeed north-up (top left is phi cas). Note: please use full frame and bin=1 for all observations tonight.

Last minute substitution: due to Phi Cas being at 35 deg directly over Baltimore city, and given clouds are absent to the south, let’s do another field:  18:32:51 +38:50:16

FINDING CHARTS (BOTTOM is the bigpix, top is 178mm, note the FOV differences)

I expect to see this well you will want to have exposures of ~ 1 second when live viewing. Main star is mag ~7, secondary is mag ~8. These are good values to test our setup.

1. Adjust focus to be ideal.
   1. We arrived at 2154.2 with a FWHM in SharpCap as 4.7 on 432 in b1
2. We will use the “Smart Histogram brain” tool to determine optimal gain settings for the field (see below for instructions)  (https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/4.0/#Smart%20Histogram) 
   1. Note that we needed to restart sharpcap after putting the sensor analysis files in place (see abvoe)
   2. Tools > Histogram (with sensor analysis files in place)
   3. BRAIN appears. Click it.
   4. We want to measure sky background
      1. Check Ignore Image edges/corners (we have vignetting problems)
      2. Click "Measure"
      3. Measure the sky background and note this down (with filter ID). 
   5. Once the background is entered, select

• • • ‘Optimize on dynamic range’
    • Min exposure - 5 s, max exposure 2 m
    • Stacking time 20 m.
    • Read Noise Limit - 50%
    • Save screenshots of the graphs in this google folder, if there is no option to save them as e.g. PDF.

PUT USED VALUES IN PARENTHESES - e.g., rounding to units of 10 or even 50 is fine for actual observations.

1. Once this has been completed, go ahead and observe the field for a few (5-10) exposures in each filter according to the settings above. 

1. END OF NIGHT stuff
1. FLATS. Please follow the instructions linked above. Point the telescope at our very own ‘flat’ in the dome, if this was not done earlier on the blue sky.
2. Darks. Please put the camera in a box or cover with lens cap and take darks using sharpcaps “Capture Dark” option. You can use a 10x average, and otherwise set the exposures and gains to match any combination used above. (There is no need to set or use filters, so if multiple filters used the same gain/exposure they can use the same dark).

NOTE: you can do the darks for the 432MM when you take it off, before putting the 178MM on for its comparison run. This will increase the likelihood of matching temperature, but weight this against the moonrise which will mess up your backgrounds.

Note: If you want, as a bonus, you could observe another field at another declination and fill in a similar table for at least a few filters, for one of the cameras (e.g., the 178). However with moonrise coming shortly after sunset you likely won’t have time.