2016A schedule, programs, and run summaries

List of 2016A programs for: MegaCam, WIRCam, ESPaDOnS, SITELLE.

QrunID Instrument HST Dates Number of Nights Status Run Summary
16AQ01 MegaCam Feb 1 - 15 15 Done This first MegaCam run of the semester was excellent. Only 7h were lost to weather (high winds), and about 1h was lost to a couple of jukebox errors. The Image Quality was under 1 arcsec most of the time. We were able to validate 7.5h of observations per night on average.
16AQ02 ESPaDOnS Feb 16 - Mar 2 16 Done The first ESPaDOnS run of the semester went very well, with only 12 hours of time lost to high winds. Only one night was affected by thin cirrus, and these did not stop observing. The Image Quality was under one arcsec most of the time, with a few hours at 0.45 arcsec, and a few peaks at 1.0-1.5 arcsec. On average, we validated 9.3h of observations per night (open shutter time + readout time). Overall, 35% of the hours in A+B programs have been validated.
16AQ03 Sitelle Mar 3 - 7 5 Done This short run was relatively successful. About 5 hours of sky time were used for engineering; a couple of hours were lost to technical issues. No time was lost to bad weather, although some observations were not validated due to higher than acceptable extinction. Otherwise, the sky was photometric during 4 of the 5 nights!
16AQ04 MegaCam Mar 8 - 16 9 Done This relatively short MegaCam run was challenged by some bad weather (20h lost to high winds or clouds) and technical issues (10h lost to general computers/communications issues).
16AQ05 WIRCam Mar 17 - 21 5 Done An excellent short WIRCam run, with a few hours of cirrus or overcast skies (at the end of the very last night), a few hours of high sky background, excellent seeing, no technical issue. Almost 23% of the A+B hours have been validated, while we have only used 16% of the scheduled WIRCam nights so far.
16AQ06 ESPaDOnS Mar 22 - 28 7 Done This short run was relatively successful, despite 25h lost to bad weather and half a night used for f8 engineering.
16AQ07 MegaCam Mar 29 - Apr 13 16 Done This was a very productive MegaCam run, with only 14h lost to weather (one full night and about 4 hours). The Image Quality was excellent most of the time, and as good as 0.55" in the u filter. A little over 6h were lost technical issues though, mostly because of a power issue for the dome and some subsystems.
16AQ08 WIRCam Apr 14 - 15 1 Done The original 13 night run was cut short after a vacuum leak was found. The first and only night was lost to this technical issue.
16AQ09 ESPaDOnS Apr 15 - 21 7 Done An emergency exchange to ESPaDOnS was performed April 15 after WIRCam suffered a small vacuum leak. This short run was productive.
16AQ10 WIRCam Apr 22 - 26 5 Done This short WIRCam run was very successful, without any time lost to weather nor technical issues. The sky conditions were excellent, with photometric skies and excellent Image Quality (well below 1").
16AQ11 MegaCam Apr 27 - May 7 16 Done This was a pretty good long MegaCam run, with 11h lost to weather (clouds) and 2.5h lost to technical issues. The pressure in the second part of the night is still very high, however we were able to make good progress.
16AQ12 ESPaDOnS May 13 - 18 6 Done A successful run despite some periods of heavy extinction.
Engineering Sitelle May 19 1 Done Excellent results were obtained during this bright Moon night.
16AQ14 WIRCam May 20 - 26 7 Done This run was very productive, with no time lost to technical issues, and only the equivalent of about one night lost to weather (fog or high humidity mostly).
16AQ15 MegaCam Mar 27 - Jun 7 12 Done The two main causes for time lost on the sky were weather (8h), and a technical issue with the focus stage assembly for MegaCam (6h). Despite this, the run was very successful, with an Image Quality well below most of the time (sometimes as low as 0.5" in r and 0.6" in u).
16AQ16 ESPaDOnS Jun 8 - 23 16 Done Despite 23h lost to high humidity on 6 separate nights, this last ESPaDOnS run of the semester was very successful. The polarization crosstalk was measured and found once again to be below 1% and compatible with previous yearly measurements. All but one of the A programs are essentially 100% complete, and all B programs are completed at 90% or more. Overall, we have obtained, on average, 6.5h of validated data per night.
16AQ17 MegaCam Jun 24 - Jul 7 14 Done Poor weather affected this MegaCam run, with over 30h lost to clouds and high humidity.
16AQ18 Sitelle Jul 8 - 12 5 Done This short run saw 3 nights of perfect weather, while the other 2 nights had a few thin cirrus. This allowed the QSO Team to perform a lot of observations. About 1h was used for engineering tests, and another hour was lost to technical issues with the instrument.
16AQ19 WIRCam Jul 13 - 25 13 Done The QSO team was able to make a lot of progress up until Tropical Storm Darby entered the scene, ruining 3 nights. All A-ranked programs except one were completed at 100%; B-ranked programs are complete at about 80%.
16AQ20 MegaCam Jul 26 1 Done The first night was lost to weather. However, MegaCam also suffered a technical failure (electronics) early in the night. Given the assessment made by the technical staff, it was decided to switch to WIRCam.
16AQ21 WIRCam Jul 27 - Aug 1 6 Done Following a technical failure on MegaCam, we performed an emergency exchange to WIRCam. The first night saw a power outage in Waimea that ran long enough to exhaust the headquarters' UPS. Observing was resumed from the summit around midnight. A few technical glitches affected the following nights, but the excellent weather allowed for great progress on 16A and 16B programs.