### OBSDATE ###
20111201

### LOGDATE ###
111201

### OBSERVERS ###
BAW (at home)

### WEATHER ###
Clear. Humidity ~67%.

### LOCATION ###
REMOTE

### PROGRAM ###
SUSI system test

### SIDEROSTATS ###
n1   s1   

### TARGETS ###
hr 8425 (cal)
hr 8675 (cal)
hr 8636 (M giant)

### QUALITY ###
  Quite bad (no/almost no useful data

### PROBLEMS ###
First, the good news. SUSI is working as well as it ever does. After putting in an initial pointing offset for N1 of 300", 0", star was acquired straight away and fringes were found at about -920um. Queuing up the next star in taskmaster also worked (almost) flawlessly with the star acquired and fringes found with minimal interference.

Among other problems at the last system check, the S1 periscopes were believed to be bad (and they sort of are), but it seems they will work once after each reset of the AV68K.

The fringes appeared very strong when they were present, but they would inexplicably disappear for long periods. I have heard of this anecdotally, but I had not seen it, personally, on such bright stars. I am tempted to blame seeing especially as the fringes seemed to appear at random over a 50um window. Of course, we want the system to be able handle fast moving fringes, so hopefully, the pending OPLC upgrade will help as it will reduce the lag in the servo loop (and speed it up considerably). It is also worth noting that I was attempting to observe away from transit which means somewhat higher PLC tracking speeds than I have perhaps witnessed in the past.

When the fringes disappeared, it seemed to me that the search speed may be too fast. Slowing it down might help reacquire the wayward fringes.

When queuing up stars in taskmaster, pavo was stopped just before attempting to acquire the next star. This required manual intervention to start it again. I will file a fault in the ticket tracking system to remind myself to look at it, but I don't expect to do anything about it right away, so other observers be warned.

Also, saving on pavo is turned off in between stars. This was done intentionally some months ago to avoid saving on spurious fringes, so it could be regarded as a feature rather than a bug, but potential observers should also be aware of this.

After a very long time on target, very near the end of my attempted science observation, pavo decided the flux was dangerously high, and aborted. So, I have no shutter sequence for that.

Pointing offsets were roughly:
N1 400,60
S1 100,-35
The offset on N1 is large enough that a manual "setoff 300 0" before starting is a good idea. I will try to run a new pointing model in the not too distant future.

And just before I intended to stop, I was stopped by a full data disk on argus. I will remedy this, tomorrow.

So, all in all, it seems SUSI is open for business.