QSO Run Summaries

QSO Run Summaries 2009A QSO Run Summaries:

09AQ13 with MegaCam: the weather was not as nice as hoped during the July run. Clouds, cirrus, fog, and rain cost about 5 nights of sky time, while only slightly over one hour was lost to technical issues. Semester 2009A ends with less than perfect statistics: the Agency balance is a bit off, and while A-ranked programs are very close to 100% completion, B-ranked programs are those which suffered the most from this semester's bad weather, with a completion rate below 50%.
09AQ12 with ESPaDOnS: a good run to end the semester! Despite a few clouds, we observed every night and made very good progress on a few A-ranked programs.
09AQ11 with MegaCam: an excellent run weather-wise, with a half-night of high humidity and less than a handful of hours lost to thick clouds. There was a power outage at the summit but only one hour was lost on the sky. The IQ was also excellent, and mostly stayed in the 0.6-0.8" range. The agency balance is more reasonable. All A-ranked programs are at or close to the 90% completion level.
09AQ10 with WIRCam: finally an excellent WIRCam run with mostly photometric nights! The Image Quality was also very good the vast majority of the time. These excellent conditions allowed us to catch up and get much needed observations for highly ranked programs. The statistics show that the agency balance is not good, but this is expected given the very rough start we've had this semester. The A programs now have all or most of their requested data.
09AQ09 with MegaCam: about 2.5hrs were lost to minor technical problems. The good weather that had started with the ESPaDOnS run just before continued, and about 9 nights out of 15 were photometric, with a few more hours of useable sky with thin cirrus. Thanks to the good weather, the statistics have improved significantly.
09AQ08 with ESPaDOnS: the weather finally started to improve, and about 8 nights out of 10 were clear this run. A measurement of the cross-talk was done, and indicates higher cross-talk than last fall when we installed the new triplet (with new optical design and new materials). More engineering is planned for July. The good weather has allowed the QSO Team to focus on and obtain a lot of good data for A programs and a few B programs as well.
09AQ07 with MegaCam: another poor run due to the cloudy or foggy or windy weather. There was a little bit more data taken on average each night, compared to the previous run, but this is in part due to the fact that the very last night was completely clear.
09AQ06 with WIRCam: there seems to be a tendency for the weather to improve a little bit, even though it snowed again on April 10... This 13-night run got almost 5 nights' worth of validated data, for an average of around 1.5hrs of validated data per night.
09AQ05 with MegaCam: the storm that plagued the end of the last WIRCam run prevented any observing for the first 5 nights of the MegaCam run. It even snowed on April 1st (no, not an April Fool's joke!). Weather improved a little bit after the first few nights. Even though only one night was fully productive (photometric skies and sub-arcsec seeing), a handful of the nights left were partially useable, and every little bit of night counts. The statistics so far are not good because of the bad weather, but the QSO Team is doing the best it can. There were no major loss of time due to technical problems.
09AQ04 with WIRCam: it's getting worse! Out of this 11-night run, only 2 were used, and one night had bad Image Quality! The 9 other nights were plagued by high humidity, snow, dome encased in snow and ice, or high winds.
09AQ03: the winter weather continues, and more than half of the MegaCam run was lost to clouds, fog, or snow. Only 2 nights were free of clouds, the other 5 had thin cirrus or variable clouds. This has impacted high priority programs such as the NGVS Large Program, and also lower ranked ones. The start of the WIRCam run Q04 also suffers from the bad weather.
09AQ02: this first ESPaDOnS run for 09A was plagued by thick clouds and high humidity. Apart from a few hours of marginally useable sky at the beginning of the run, only the last 5 nights were productive. The QSO Team focussed on highly-ranked time constrained programs. CFHT also performed the first-ever daytime observations through QSO, using non-sidereal tracking too!
09AQ01: the semester started with a short 4-night run with MegaCam. The last night was lost to heavy clouds.

2008B QSO Run Summaries:

08BQ16: when it's not ice or high winds, it's the instrument! We lost the first night and 3 hours of the second night with MegaCam due to an electronics failure. After that, the instrument behaved and only 45 more minutes were lost to various technical issues. One night was lost to clouds, and another to high humidity. Despite these obstacles, 95% of A programs and 90% of B programs have been completed. Semester 09A officially starts on Jan 30, but a few programs from 2008B, such as then CFHTLS which needs to be completed, are still in the queues for a few more nights.
08BQ15: this time, hurricane-force winds in the 60-80 knots range (60-90 mph, or 100-150 km/h) with gusts up to 100 knots prevented us from observing for the first 4 nights of this 9-night run with WIRCam. Once the winds died down, the sky was photometric with good IQ, which allowed us to finish the 2008B semester with 87% of A and B programs completed. The 4 nights lost to high winds roughly mean that we were not able to complete the 3 highest rank programs.
08BQ14: due to severe winter weather conditions and ice accumulation on the dome, the exchange from MegaCam to f8/ESPaDOnS was only made possible on Jan 6, the 9th day of the run. In addition to those 8 full nights lost to ice, 3.5hrs were lost to fog, and another hour to a telescope encoder problem. The cancellation of the mid-January AOB run allowed the addition of 2 nights to the run, which helped a little bit in getting more data for a few programs. The Large Programs suffered the most from the bad weather. This was the last ESPaDOnS run for semester 2008B.
08BQ13 with MegaCam got only 4 useable nights out of the 9 nights available. Due to heavy snowfall, access to the summit was impossible on a few nights. When access was possible, high humidity prevented opening the dome.
08BQ12 - Less than half of the nights were clear for this ESPaDOnS run. A handful of nights were completely lost to high humidity. The impact of weather, telescope pointing issues at the very beginning, and a delayed start to due a technical delay with the re-installation and alignment of the newly re-aluminized f8 have made this run a rather poor one.
08BQ11 - This was a difficult MegaCam run, weather-wise, but significant progress was made. A couple of hours were lost to technical problems.
08BQ10 - No major technical issues with WIRCam. The run was affected by weather (frequent thin cirrus, overcast skies, high humidity) but observations were carried on most nights. We are progressing slowly but surely on a few programs with a large number of allocated hours.
08BQ09 - Slightly more than half of the run had good weather, the rest was affected by high humidity or overcast skies, and it even snowed a little bit. There were no major technical issues, and we continued to make progress on high priority programs.
08BQ08 - The majority of this 7-night ESPaDOnS run was affected by thin cirrus to overcast skies, but we never stopped observing. Some exposures do not have enough flux to be reduced, but we tried anyway. Despite the difficult conditions, all highly ranked programs requesting strict time scheduling were executed as best as the conditions permitted. A few hours were taken on the sky to measure the cross-talk with a new triplet lens (new materials, new design). The cross-talk has decreased by a factor of 4, which is excellent! Some engineering was also executed to test the non-sidereal tracking, but more work remains.
Data from June 2007 were indicating the following cross-talk:
```
  crosstalk from v to q: -2.8%
  crosstalk from v to u: -2.9%
implying a total crosstalk from circular to linear of 4.03%
```
The new lens, currently installed, shows:
```
  crosstalk from v to q:  0.98%
  crosstalk from v to u: -0.25%
implying a total crosstalk from circular to linear of 1.01%
```
08BQ07 - Weather more typical of winter affected this short 6-night WIRCam run. All nights were affected by thin or thick clouds. Only 28 hours of data were validated, and 21 hours were lost to clouds. There were no technical problems with WIRCam, but a telescope hydraulics leak cost 2 hours of cirrus-filled sky.
08BQ06 - The weather was good for a Fall run, with 20 hours lost to high humidity or clouds. Time lost to technical problems was similar to the previous run, about 5 hours. A couple more hours were taken to characterize in more details the non sidereal tracking capabilities of the telescope. Because of the time lost to weather, we were only able to validate 6.5 hours per night on average. The 54 hours of high priority CFHTLS observations have been completed.
08BQ05 - The second WIRCam run was blessed with 14 nights of photometric conditions, and very good Image Quality (around 0.6" in Ks in general, with a few hours of variable seeing). Some time was taken on the sky to do engineering for the non-sidereal tracking mode that we plan to offer for 2009A. A little less than 3 hrs were lost to technical problems, which did not impact science too much since we were able to obtain a little over 8 hrs of validated data per night, an excellent performance.
08BQ04 - The second MegaCam run was exceptionally good weather-wise: all nights were photometric, and the Image Quality histogram peaks below 0.75 arcsec! The average exposure + readout time was 8.2hrs per night, despite a few technical problems which cost about 5.5 hrs. Among those problems, there was condensation in MegaPrime; the few affected images are clearly marked as so. A few more exposures are affected by slight vignetting from the Guide Probes. Under 1.5hrs were spent on on-sky tests of non-sidereal tracking.
08BQ03 - The first ESPaDOnS run of 2008B went very well. The 7 nights were all photometric, and had in general sub-arcsec seeing. A few exposures were affected by or could not be executed because of high winds. For the first 3 nights, an oil leak problem with the F/8 secondary mirror caused focus problems, but the observer was manually adjusting the telescope focus whenever necessary. Four programs requesting specific time constraints, time delays, or requiring long blocks of uninterrupted observing were successfully started or even completed.
08BQ02 - The first WIRCam run also went very well, with only a bit more than 1 night lost to fog and high humidity. The Image Quality was in general excellent.
08BQ01 - The first 2008B QSO run, with MegaCam, was very productive. Some time was lost to high humidity or thick clouds, but overall a lot of data were acquired, with good IQ in general. A few exposures were lost to condensation on the dewar window right after a fast peak in high humidity; the air flow was increased the following day. Other than that, there were no technical problems with MegaCam at all!

2008A QSO Run Summaries:

(07/30/2008) The last ESPaDOnS run (and the last QSO run for 2008A) just ended, 2 days earlier than previsouly scheduled: the database ran out of observations for 2008A programs, and we started 2008B programs early. The weather has in general very good. Only 1.5 nights was lost to fog, nights were generally clear or with thin cirrus only, and the IQ stayed under 1" most of the time.

(07/19/2008) The last WIRCam run of 2008A went very well, with photometric skies but for a few hours of high humidity, and excellent IQ in general. The statistics for the whole semester look good.

(07/08/2008) The second ESPaDOnS run went extremely well! The weather was nice and the observing was very efficient. The scheduling constraints of several programs remain a challenge but when weather is good, things are possible! We made spectacular progress on A and B programs. Balance of the agencies is a bit off but not critically so. The reduction pipeline has also been performing really well and data are available to PIs very shortly after an observing night. Excellent! And for yours truly, this was my last shift as queue coodinator at CFHT. It was fun! - Pierre

(06/24/2008) The WIRCam run was a mixed bag, with some great nights and some very bad ones due to unstable weather. We made good progress on a lot of programs and we hope that the stats will be incredible by the end of the last run in July!

(06/12/2008) The last run for MegaCam went really well! We lost some time to weather but it was a very productive run. We were able to finish a lot of programs. The statistics for the semester are outstanding, maybe one of the best "A" semesters ever! A side note is that we took the last data for SNLS during that run. What a success story! The QSO Team is very proud of this achievement! The experience acquired will help a lot during the implementation of the large programs. As a personal note, this was my last run of coordination with Megacam since I will be leaving CFHT to take charge of the WIYN Observatory at the end of September. Mostly good memories are coming with me! ;) - Pierre.

(05/27/2008) Another WIRCam run done! It went very well. Weather was cooperative so we made progress on a lot of programs. At this time, A programs are essentially done and B programs are progresing well. The only negative point is the agency time balance being off but we hope to fix that during the next runs. It should be another stellar semester for WIRCam! Stay tuned..

(05/15/2008) The third MegaCam is over and it went well. Some weather was lost to cirrus and some thick clouds but it was a productive run as a whole. The camera bahaved very well, no time lost at all! Good progress made on a lot of programs so there is hope after all!

(05/02/2008) The second run with WIRCam went well despite again some significant time lost to bad weather (some day, our luck will turn...). We made good progress on A programs but the stats on B programs are not so good. The balance of the agency time is a bit off but we will correct that during the later runs.

(04/14/08) The run with MegaCam is over. It was a mixed bag again. The beginning was productive but then weather was quite bad during the last week. Progress was made on several programs though. We had some technical issues with MegaCam but not impacting too much on the science. Not too bad!

(03/28/08) The first ESPaDOnS run ever went quite well! Except for a setup problem, due to a software bug, at the beginning of the run and quite a bit of time lost to bad weather, we were able to get a lot of data. Observing efficiency is quite high already and when weather is good, nights are just very productive. However, as expected, the challenge with ESPaDOnS comes from the numerous time-constrained programs, which often conflict with each other. It is going to be challenging to make that works while respecting some of the fundamental rules of QSO. At the moment, the time between the agencies is not balanced at all for instance but we are hopeful to be able to improve that in the remaining runs. In any case, this run went well, the system is already very efficent. We are still learning but that's a good start!

(03/14/08) The second MegaCam run is now over. It was much better than the first one, although we have had to fight periods of terrible seeing (5"!) at times. We made some very good progress on a lot of programs, including CFHTLS. The camera worked really well too!

(02/25/08) The first WIRCam run for 2008A was excellent. The weather was mostly good, except for a few periods of bad seeing. Good progress has been made on several programs. So, a good start for WIRCam and let's hope it continues!

(02/16/08) The first MegaCam run of 2008A was unfortunately very poor. Most of the run was lost to winter conditions on Mauna Kea, fog or clouds. We got a handful of decent nights. So, not much progress made... Hopefully, the rest of the semester will be better...

2007B QSO Run Summaries:

(01/17/08) The last MegaCam run of 2007B was excellent! Surprisingly for this period of the year, the weather was quite good. We were able to make lots of progress and the stats at the end are quite satisfying for A programs. Balance of the agencies is ok. Not bad! Reports of 2007A should be available soon.

(12/17/07) It was brutal... We almost completely lost the entire 14 nights run for Megacam due to snow, fog, wind and clouds. Very little progress was made during this run and only a handful of good observations could be obtained. Seems winter is back with a vengeance!

(12/03/2007) The last run of 2007B for WIRCam is over. Unfortunately, it was not a good run, with lots of nights lost to bad weather and bad seeing. The stats are decent though but we could not achieve 90% and up on all A programs. Not much control we have on the weather....:(.The instrument behaved quite well, however, and when the sky is clear, we are very efficient on the sky.

(11/15/07) The last run for MegaCam was quite good, although again several nights were lost to weather. The instrument behaved well, the new i' band filter looks excellent, and we were able to make a lot of progress of several programs. Agency time is a little bit off but we will work on improve this dring the last 2 runs of the semester. Stay tuned!

(11/02/07) The fourth WIRCam run was excellent! Weather was ok, except for some periods with cirrus and fog. We were able to make spectacular progress on several programs. The stats are looking quite good at the moment. The balance of the agency time is not too bad either. Let's hope for another good run in December!

(10/19/07) The last MegaCam run was rather average, with again a very significant fraction lost to weather and some technical problems with the focus unit. Good progress was made on several programs and the agency balance is not too bad. The good news is that the i filter was delivered and installed during the last night of the run, although it could not really be used on the sky due to weather! We expect to dedicate a lot of time on programs requesting the i filter during the last run. So, let's hope for decent weather!

(09/25/07) Not a great WIRCam run. Weather was really so-so. We made progress on certain programs but it was not as great as we would have liked. Oh well.

(09/19/07) Despite some bad weather (almost 4 nights were lost to clouds or high humidity), some telescope problems (a hydraulics leak, then a blown 30-year-old 250-lb power supply), and some Focus Stage Assembly stubborn hiccups, this 15-night run managed to harvest good data, about the same amount as the previous run. The Image Quality was in general good, with nightly averages often around 0.8". The agencies are still not balanced very well, so we will continue to work on that during the next runs, and hope for better weather, less technical problems, and more data.

(09/04/07) An excellent second run for WIRCam! The weather was quite good and we were able to make progress on a lot of programs.We have some technical issues with the QSO databases (hardware failures) but that did not affect much the observations at all. At this time, the balance of the Agency time is not very good but it will get better during the semester.

(08/20/07) Not a very good first run of MegaCam for 2007B... The camera worked really well but weather during the second week of the run was really not cooperating. The first week was quite good but then hurricane Flossie stopped by and left lots of fog and very bad seeing. The balance of the Agencies is also quite off but this is not too worrisome at this point. Let's hope for better luck during the next run!

(08/06/07) The first run of WIRCam for the semester 2007B went well, although 2.5 nights over 7 were lost to bad weather and heavy cirrus. We made some good progress on several programs and the camera worked really well.

2007A QSO Run Summaries:

(07/30/07) Pffft. After tremendous efforts to put back MegaCam on the sky, we were able to observe for several nights at the end of July. The Moon was a big fator but we gathered quite a good amount of data. After several issues, MegaCam worked perfectly for the rest of the run and we hope that these major failures are all behind us! It is expected that the new i filter should be delivered sometime in October. The statistics for 2007A are still quite excellent, despite all of our trouble in the last couple of months. A full report will be available shortly.

(07/20/07) WIRCam was on the telescope for 13 nights, during the MegaCam repairs. It was an excellent run. We finished all the 07A programs and started and even finished several 07B programs as well! WIRCam worked really well. Modifications to the electronics resulted in the dissapearance of the infamous negative crosstalk! So, looking forward for the next semester!

(05/30/07) Pffft, what a run! Due to the problem with MegaCam (now fixed), WIRCam was mounted earlier than planned and used for 13 nights. It was an outstanding run with excellent weather and the instrument behaving perfectly. We have almost completed all programs we've had for 07A, including lots of dats even for C programs. Statistics are superb and we still have a short run left at the end of July!

(05/18/07) Well, the MegaCam run ended abruptly due to a serious problem with the camera shutter. For a reason not understood yet, the limit switches failed and the shutter hit the jukebox, resulting in severe damage on the shutter. MegaCam was removed from the telescope and replaced by WIRCam for the time being. This run was also really bad since clouds affected the observations. Let's hope the camera can be fixed soon and put back on the sky as soon as possible.

(05/11/07) The third run for WIRCam was very good. Despite some cirrus at the end of the run and some bouts of variable IQ, we continued to make excellent progress on all programs, especially the A programs. Agency balance is looking good as well.

(04/24/07) Another MegaCam run done. It went really well. The main issue was seeing in the second part of the run but we still made progress on a lot of programs. The stats are looking quite good. Agency time is balanced nicely. So far, a good "A" semester...

(04/06/07) The second run for WIRCam was pretty good! Weather was ok, even if seeing was so-so from time to time and we had a bit of cirrus. We made good progress over several programs and the instrument worked really well. Balance of the agency time is not great but we will correct it during the next runs...

(03/27/07) The second run for MegaCam for 2007A went well, despite again a good fraction lost to bad weather and bad seeing. We made good progress on several programs. Agency time is now balanced relatively well. Not bad compared to last year when we had lost the entire March run...

(02/22/07) The first MegaCam run for 2007A was rather average. Significant time was lost due to bad weather, high winds, and bad seeing. But, we started and completed some programs so it is not so bad for this time of the year. Let's hope for a good run in a few weeks. At the moment, the Agency time is not well balanced but we will correct that.

(02/08/07) The first WIRCam run for 07A is over and it went rather well, although we lost maybe 40% of the run to bad weather and mediocre seeing. When weather was good, observing efficiency was excellent at close to 90%! This is greatly due to the implementation of an automated focus model which saves us a lot of time. Agency balance is no so bad already. A good start!

2006B QSO Run Summaries:

(01/24/07) It was a surprisingly good run to finish the semester with MegaCam! The sky was clear but seeing was very variable at times.Nevertheless, we made a lot of progress and the stats at the end of this semester are spectacular for Megacam! Our completion level of A + B + C programs reaches 94%!!!! This is the best semester ever for QSO with a given instrument. Wow! We hope that these data will result in a lot of publications....Have fun!

(01/09/07) The last run with WIRCam was not too good.... We lost the last 6 nights to weather and experienced very bad seeing periods in the first part of the run. The statistics are not so bad, a couple of good nights would have made such a big difference... Oh well. The instrument behaved very well during that run and is becoming more and more efficient. It's good news for 2007A....

(12/27/06) Another run done.... It was a productive run but also very difficult on the QSO team. The sky was clear but the seeing was all over the place; we had several nights in the row when seeing was in the 1.2" range. We made lots of progress on several programs and used the bad seeing periods to do some engineering on calibrations issues with MegaCam. The stats look pretty good at the moment and if the weather somewhat cooperates for the last run, it should be our best semester yet with Megacam...

(11/28/06) The last MegaCam run went really well! The weather was surprisingly good (!) and we were able to get a lot of data for many programs. The stats and the balance of the Agencies look good right now, with more than 30 nights left in the semester. Let's hope our luck continues.....

(11/13/06) The WIRCam run went quite well. The first part of the run was badly hit by bad weather but the second half was excellent (better than forecasted). We were able to make very good progress and the agency time is well balanced. Hopefuly, the last run starting in December will allow us to finish lots of programs. WIRCam worked really well now and on good nights, we reach efficiency of 85%.

(10/31/06) Pffew, what an adventure. We just finished a long 20 nights run with MegaCam. The run started 2 days earlier than planned because of a technical issue with WIRCam. All kind of things happened during this run. Lots of clouds, humidity, and of course, earthquakes!! The telescope was out of commission for a few nights following the earthquake but we did not miss that much because the weather was not good anyway. All in all, more than 50% of the run was lost to bad weather again. MegaCam behaved quite well during the run and we were able to make good progress on several programs when the weather cooperated. It's kind of frustrating to see bad weather like this in a period when it's supposed to be good. Oh well. Let's hope for better luck in November....

(10/04/06) Bad news. During the setup of WIRCam for the run Q04, we experienced vibration issues of the instrument cryo-head of unknown origin. Several solutions were attempted but the problem remained. It was judged too risky for the detectors, vacuum and optics, to continue the run under those conditions. WIRCam has been dismounted and the run has been canceled out for now. We will try to reshuffle other queue nights later on during the semester to try to somewhat compensate for the lost of those nights. Espadons and Gecko will be used for now and MegaPrime might go up earlier than planned. Stay tuned.

(09/29/06) The second MegaCam run was quite good, except for the end when we lost almost completely the last 5 nights to bad weather (it's back... :( ). We made good progress on several programs, in particular on a complex program with time critical observations spread across the entire run. Because of this program, the Agency time right now is not well distributed but we will remediate to the situation during the semester.

(09/13/06) The first WIRCam run for the semester went really well. We got more than 10000 slices done during the run, even if several nights were lost to weather and engineering. The camera is now very efficient on the sky. We were able to make good progress on a lot of programs and we finished severals. the balance of the Agencies is off but it's normal for the beginning of the semester. A good start for WIRCam too!

(09/01/06) The first MegaCam run for 2006B was quite good! We lost a few nights to weather but most of the time, the weather was great. We were able to make good progress on several programs, finishing a few already. The Agency balance is not good because of the different distribution of targets between the Agencies; we will fix that during the semester. A good start!

2006A QSO Run Summaries:

(08/01/31) The last run of 2006B for MegaCam was average. Again, significant time was lost to the weather - mostly clouds, fog and very bad seeing. The camera bahaved quite well. This run completes what has been a very bad semester for QSO since a very large fraction of the time was completely lost to weather. This was very dissapointing for us since we always try hard to get data for everybody. Maybe next time? The complete report of QSO for 2006A should appear in these pages soon.

(07/18/06) The last run for WIRCam for 2006A was pretty good. Seeing was really bad during a few nights but we were able to make good progress on several programs. The agency balance is a little bit off (difficult to do better when we lose so much time to weather during a given semester) but at the end the A programs were completed at about 85%. Not bad! WIRCam is working well and we are constantly making progress on optimizing the observations. It's looking good for 2006B....

(07/05/06) The June MegaCam run was very dissapointing. We lost again a very large fraction of the run to bad weather, essentially thick clouds. As a result, we are no where close to what we wanted to do on the programs. The balance of the Agencies is also so-so, not a big surprise. When is this bad weather going to stop???

(06/07/06) The last Megacam run was quite good. We finally had some good weather. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of time lost due to technical problems (guiders, filter jukebox). We were able to make significant progress on several programs. Of course, with all of the time lost this semester ,we will not be able to catch up on everything but we are trying...

(05/19/06) The WIRCam run was a decent one, although we lost again several nights to weather. The camera is behaving well and we are getting more and more efficient on the sky. A good amount of data was acquired during this run!

(05/05/06) A rather so-so run for MegaCam. We got some good nights but the first half of the run was severely affected by bad weather (thick clouds). We made some good progress on A programs but the statistics look real poor for this time in the semester due to all this time lost. Let's hope for excellent weather for the last 3 runs of the semester...

(04/21/06) Another very mediocre run for WIRCam. We made good progress on some programs but we lost a very large fraction of the run due to bad weather again. The good news is that the instrument performed really well, with an obseving efficiency at 80% during the good weather night. Overheads have been minimized and the system is reliable and efficent. We only need clear skies! Maybe next time......

(04/04/06) Unbelievable. We completely lost the entire 13 nights run with Megacam. This is the worse weather even seen on Mauna Kea. We now have lost 56/63 of the last queue nights. So far, only 50 hours have been validated this semester in 36 nights... :(

(03/22/2006) Catastrophic. This is the word to describe the first run of WIRCam for 2006A. We had 15 nights: we could observe for about half a night!!! The rest was lost to terrible weather persisting on Mauna Kea. Nobody can recall such a long stretch of bad weather at the summit; since January we have lost 43/50 of our queue nights, that is 86%!!!! We are now starting a 12 nights run with Megacam... with snow in the forecasts...Catastrophic.

(03/07/2006) The second run for MegaCam for 2006A was rather disastrous. We lost 15 complete nights to weather!! No need to say that progress made on the observations was quite bad. Hopefully, weather will be better from now on...

(02/06/2006) The first short run (5 nights) for 2006A for MegaCam was difficult with two nights essentially lost to bad seeing (1.5"). We started several programs but we will need better weather next time...

2005B QSO Run Summaries:

(02/01/06) The last run of 2005B for Megacam was not a good one. We lost 10 nights over 12 due to a winter strom and icy dome. The last 2 nights were very good and we could get some urgent data. The final stats for the semester are still quite good and the time is well balanced between the Agencies. Another semester gone!

(01/20/06) The last run for WIRCam for 2005B is over. It was tough one; a lot of time was used for engineering but mostly we had bad seeing periods stopping us from making progress on the programs. We are still having some technical issues with WIRCam and the efficiency on the sky is not what it should be yet. But, it was a successful first semester for the camera and we are looking forward to start taking excellent data at a very good rate in 2006A.

(01/08/06) What a run!! The December run was extremely good, maybe the best ever for QSO! The sky was good except for several nights when the seeing was mediocre. We were able to finish a lot of programs and make good progress in several others. We have finished all A programs for PIs and B programs are done to close to 80%! Agencies are almost perfectly balanced. We have 12 nights to go for this semester!

(12/13/05)The second scientific run for WIRCam for this semester went relatively well although we had some technical issues and the weather was not always very cooperative. We made good progress for several programs and hope to be able to complete several ones during the last run of the semester, in about one month.

(12/07/05) The fifth run for MegaCam is now over. It was a decent run despite significant time lost to technical problems and bad weather again (about 35% in total). We made good progress on a lot of programs. During the good nights, our observing efficiency was very high (>90%). With 30 nights left in the semester, most A programs are well advanced or completed. Hopefully, the Hawaiian winter reserves some good nights for us for the end of the semester...

We just finished our first WIRCam run for which science data were taken! The run went rather well and already good progress has been made for a lot of programs. The main issues remain the guiding (works well but still need some tweaking) and the operational overheads. Queue performed really well and we are now going to work really hard on analyzing those data. We do not know yet when we will be able to distribute them so please be patient! A very good start for WIRCam! But, we are all exhausted. No time to rest, MegaCam starts tonight!
Mediocre weather summarizes the fourth run of 2005B. The camera worked really well and we are very efficient on the sky. The problem remains the weather. We lost 3 entire nights to weather but we were also plagued by thick cirrus for about 8 nights in the row. At least 30% of the run was lost. Despite all of that, we made good progress on several programs. The winter is coming so who knows what will happen....

The third MegaCam run for 2005B is over. The good news: MegaCam bahave quite well during this run. In fact, new adjustements made to the wife field corrector alignment resulted in the best IQ distribution of image quality ever seen across the mosaic. We probably have now an optimal instrument regarding the image quality. The bad news: The weather was really so-so during the run. We had periods of fog and periods of really bad seeing. Good progress made on several programs and balance of the Agencies getting better but for this time of the year, this was an average run....

The second run is now over and it was a tough one. We got a lot of data but significant time was lost due to technical problems with MegaCam. We had to dismount it from the telescope to fix some issue with the cooling system. We also had problems with electronic boards. The weather was generally nice so we made good progress on several programs. But, it was a rough run for the technical staff who had to spend lot of time at the summit fixing things...

The first run of the semester 05B is over It was a good one, although again weather was not always very cooperative. We were able to start and make good progress on several programs. At the beginning of the run (05A), the wide field corrector for MegaCam was mvoed in order to improve the global image quality and ananalysis shows that it worked! With the autofocus model, we are now much more efficient on the sky as well. Let's hope for a good semester!

2005A QSO Run Summaries:

The last, short run of 2005B is finished. It was again a very difficult one due to periods of horrible seeing. Most nights had > 1" seeing, sometimes more in the 2" domain. As a result, some programs we had intended to observe did not get much data but there is nothing we can do to control the weather. On the positive side, the Wide Field Corrector was moved to improve image quality and it worked! IQ now is really good almost all across the field. This concludes a very difficult semester, due to the pathetic weather. A complete report will be available here in a near future.

Run #6 is now over. It was a tough one: we had several technical issues in the first week with MegaCam which resulted in some precious time lost. The second part of the run was strongly affected by weather; we had periods of very bad seeing and high humidity. We were still able to gather good data for several programs, including the impact event on Comet Tempel 1. The balance between the Agencies right now is not bad and should be fine-tuned by the end of the semester. The next and last run for 2005A (7 nights) starts on July 25.

The fifth run of semester 2005 was quite good. A good fraction was lost to weather and bad seeing at the beginning but skies were usually photometric and more stable later one. At the end of the run, we had a autofocus system based on the temperature of the telescope truss and airmass; focus is changed automatically when appropriate between exposures. This makes a huge difference in the observing efficiency and improves image quality as well (no focus drift). We were able to gather quite a bit of data during this run and completed several programs. We still have 25 nights to go for this semester; we are confident that the statistics will be quite good at the end. Balance between the different Agencies is nice right now and will be fine tuned during the last 2 runs.

The fourth run was excellent. Not much time was lost to weather, skies were usually photometric or had a little bit of clouds. The Image Quality was in general very good (around 0.8") and we did not have long periods of bad IQ. A few hours were lost to technical problems, but overall, this was an excellent run.

The third run is over. It was a bit more successful than the previous ones despite that we lost a large fraction of the run due to weather again (fog/clouds), and some technical issues with MegaCam. The good news is that the guide probe motions have been accelerated by a large factor making the observing much more efficient. Progress has been made also on auto-focus. Because of the hours lost to weather, we did not make as much progress on programs as we would have liked (in particular, B programs) but we have been trying really hard. The Agency time right now is well balanced. Hopefully, good weather is in the cards for the next runs... We need it!!!!

Another desastrous run.... The second run for 2005A is now over; we've lost 8 full nights over 11 to weather and for one of the clear night, the seeing was 1.5". So far this semester, we have completely lost ~75% of the 29 QSO nights scheduled, and only 50% of the clear nights had a seeing below 1".... This is a very bad situation. We are really aware that some high priority programs have not gotten data yet but there is nothing we can do! Hopefully, the rest of the semester will be better...

The first run of 2005A is now completed. It was not a good one at all, with about 60% of the time lost to bad weather. We essentially had only 2 good nights during the entire 18 nights run; when it was clear seeing was most of the time horrible (1.2" - 2"). As a result, the statistics on the programs are really poor. This is going to be very challening for the later runs, since we already have lost 10% of the semester... Let's hope for the best!

2004B QSO Run Summaries:

The last run of the semester 04B is now completed. Unfortunately, it was not a very productive run since the weather was really bad: snow, high winds, clouds, humidity, terrible seeing.... We were not able to finish certain programs we had planned to but there is not much we can do when weather does not cooperate. However, 2004B was still a very productive semester, by far our best one with MegaCam, and the balance of time for the Agencies is excellent, not a small feat considering that we had a very complex set of programs to execute these past 6 months.....

Run Q05 for 2004B is now over. It was a good run although we had periods of very bad or very unstable seeing during certain nights which limited our options. So far, we have been able to finish a lot of programs for this semester, our best by far with MegaCam. The camera worked quite well during this run. Before the run, lens L3 of the wide-field corrector was flipped and we again see much better IQ across the mosaic field. The balancing of the Agencies is a little bit off right now (we tried but conditions did nothing to help us) so it will be a big priority for us to improve this for the last run of the semester. In the meantime, Merry Christmas to all!

The fourth run of 21 nights just finished! It was a decent run although the second half of it was difficult due to unstable weather and seeing. In total, about 25-30% of the run was lost. The run started on a strange note when we discovered that a lens had been flipped by mistake in the wide field corrector. As a result, the global image quality for Megacam got better (we do not know why) but we could not focus all the filters. The lens was flipped back again for the rest of the run. Since the image quality across the field was so much better, we are reversing it again for the next run and are modifying the focus stage unit to be able to focus all of the filters. We were able to make significant progress for a lot of programs during this run despite the time lost.

We have just completed the third run for this semester. It was a good one but nowhere as good as the last run. Weather became very unstable and unpredictable in the second part of the run, with some periods of very bad seeing, high humidity, and clouds. We also lost 1.5 night due to a cryogeny problem with MegaCam. Despite all of that, quite a bit of data were gathered, several programs were completed, and the balance of time between the Agencies is quite good right now. Let's hope for a good one in November!

The second QSO run for this semester was excellent. The weather was very nice and the seeing was generally stable except for some brief periods, and the camera worked really well. We had a scare at the beginning of the run when we had to operate MegaCam with only the northern portion of the mosaic for two nights but this was fixed. We were able to gather a lot of data during this run, something like 1.5 Terabytes. Since CFHTLS takes more than 50% of the queue time, PI programs progress slower than usual but we'll get there... At this point, after only 2 runs, we have already validated 80% of the time accumulated for the entire last semester! That's what the doctor ordered... Let's hope that the October run is also that good...

The first QSO for 2004B is now over. It was a good run on the weather side but a difficult one on the technical side, with several problems with Megacam and the telescope. The run started with problems on 8 amplifiers for chips in the northern side of the mosaic.The origin of the problem is not known. Six of the amplifiers came back later on. We also has a strong light leak contamination at the beginning of the run which was due to a new vacuum gauge. We also lost some time to an airflow problem resulting in moisture and ice on the mosaic window. We've lost about half a night too to a hydraulics problem with the telescope! Ouf! Despite all of that, it was a rather successful run and we made some good progress on several programs. However, at this time, the balance between the Agencies is not very good. This is always expected during the first run of a semester and more so for this one, since there are clear difference on the pressure in RA among the Agencies. This semester is extremely complex for scheduling since we have a lot of programs with time contraints. We'll try our best to get high quality data for as many as possible!

2004A QSO Run Summaries:

The last QSO run for semester 2004A was excellent. The weather was remarquably good, with about 18 photometric nights and a little less than 2 nights with cirrus clouds. The last 2 nights were lost to a technical problem (air pressure for the primary mirror supports). The Image Quality was excellent (0.5-0.65" in r) on quite a few occasions, with very good IQ (0.5-0.8" in r) seen on about half of the nights for at least part of the time. The IQ was also variable at times, going up to and above 1.2". Very good progress was made for highly ranked programs, especially those requesting excellent IQ below 0.75". Some B programs have progressed significantly. We used some hours too to run some tests for the image quality investigation during the run.

The sixth run of the semester is now over and it was a good one. We've lost some time to weather and technical problems with MegaCam (guiders and cryogenics) but we were able to gather good data for a lot of programs. The Agency time is also now quite well balanced. Let's hope that the last run is also successful!

The fifth QSO run (8 nights only) for 2004A is now over and it was a good one, even if we lost 2 nights to weather. However, at the beginning of the run, we found out that there was a leak in the MegaCam dewar again but we managed to keep the run alive by pumping the camera 3 or 4 times per day (so we lost about 1 hour each night of the run for this operation). We were able to get good data for several programs and the balance between the Agencies is now much better.

The run 04AQ04 was a short one with only 8 nights, 6 of those planned for science. The first 2 nights were mostly used for engineering. The Wide Field Corrector was tested in a new configuration but the image quality was worse and the WFC had to be put back in its initial configuration. Unexpectedly, however, the IQ now seems a little bit better than before. Other engineering tests included: autofocus, image quality tests, and sky background levels with a bright Moon and the new baffle.

On the science side, it was a good run but not great. There were 2 good photometric nights with good Image Quality (0.7-0.9" average), followed by one night with high winds and degraded IQ. The last 3 nights were mostly cloudy and humid but some science was still done; during those 3 nights, the equivalent of 2 nights was lost to weather (clouds or high humidity).

The agencies are not balanced: Canada and UH are behind, France and Korea are ahead. Balancing agencies is harder to do during a short run, and we will correct that during the coming QSO run.

The third run of 2004A went much better than the previous two. Although the first half of the run was almost completely lost to bad weather again, the second half was quite good with stable seeing and photometric conditions. We concentrated our efforts on A programs. The balance between the different agencies is not too bad right now and we hope to improve it for the reminder of the semester. Hopefully, weather will finally cooperates from now on...

Horrible. No other words to describe the weather during run #2. We have lost 13 full nights to weather (70% of the entire run) and when we opened, we usually had bad seeing (up to 2"!) or very strong winds inducing telescope windshake. The two best nights had a Moon illuminated at 50% and more. So far, this semester, we have lost 35 full nights over 41 nights (85%) due to technical problems and very bad weather. What else can we say? Not much we can do, unfortunately...

The first run of 2004A is now over. Unfortunately, no science data were taken during those nights. During the MegaCam setup, we experienced several problems with the camera cryostat. After several days of investigations, the problem was found to be a leak in the epoxy of the flange. A first repair was attempted but was unsuccessful. The flange was replaced but there was also a leak in that spare. Finally, another spare was installed, the vacuum remained ok and the camera was ready on February 26. During the installation, however, we had another problem this time with the upper end of the telescope and the camera could only be installed on February 27. Unfortunately, the last 7 nights were lost to bad weather. There is no denying about it: this will have a huge impact for the rest of the semester. This is very unfortunate but things like that happen... Let's hope for the best for the next run, starting in one week from now... The good news, however, is that the CCD03 repair done before the run has been a success and that modifications to the filter jukebox done during that time as well should improve its reliability.