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Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope
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1. Science/Technical Highlight (Anyone)
2. Photos (Anyone)
3. Directorate (Thomas and Dave)
3.1 Activities
NSF CA/CSA renewal
Following the August meetings with NSF regarding the renewal of the Cooperative Agreement (CA) and Cooperative Support Agreement (CSA), T. Rimmele and D. Boboltz consulted with the NSO Director on the impacts of the various plans and timelines for required NSF reports, proposals and reviews including:
The NSO Annual Progress Report (APR) for FY23, due November 2023 and the NSO Annual Program Plan for FY24, due January 2024.
A 1 (or possibly 2) year extension of the current CA/CSA for management of NSO.
Preparation of a Concept of Operations (ConOps) document and subsequent NSF external review.
Preparation of a 5-year proposal for the renewal of the CA/CSA for management of NSO.
DKIST Cycle 3 call for proposals
D. Boboltz prepared a release for Solar News notifying the community of the delayed timeline for Cycle 3 and the move to a new annual schedule for DKIST that includes an extended winter engineering and maintenance period. This release is being reviewed internally.
SOLARNET meeting
T. Rimmele attended the SOLARNET Congress “Sun in Science and Society”, September 11-15, 2023 in Venice/Mestre (Italy) and presented an overview of the status of DKIST.
Boulder Solar Day
T. Rimmele and D. Boboltz along with other DKIST staff members attended Boulder Solar Day, September 29 at the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder. T. Schad and D. Kuridze presented recent results from DKIST.
AURA Solar Observatory Council (SOC) meeting preparations
T. Rimmele prepared a DKIST overview talk for the SOC meeting and D. Boboltz prepared a talk on the DKIST Data Center with input from B. Tawa and A. Davey.
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DKIST operations carried forward approximately $28.16M in unencumbered funds into FY 2023 from previous years. A total of $11.9M in new funding has been obligated by NSF thus far in FY 2023 for a total funding amount of $40.06M.
Financial status of
DKIST operational expenditures for August 2023 were $3.05M
Total YTD expenditures for DKIST operations are $26.30M.
The average DKIST spending for FY 2023 (burn rate; BR) is $2.39M / month.
4. Science Operations (Ali and Andres)
4.1 Status of Observing
The fourth observing window (OCP2.4) closed on .
The fifth observing window (OCP2.5) opened on (and will close on ).
was spent on ViSP external focus verification (on-sun activity, Instrumentation Group) and a Cryo-NIRSP straylight mitigation improvement (on-sun activity, Instrumentation Group).
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DDT proposals for the co-observing with Solar Orbiter in October 2023 were finalized, approved, and submitted. These proposals were prepared and developed by DKIST scientists in collaboration with the Solar Orbiter team. It should be mentioned that for this October campaign also the IRIS team was included. The respective Note that DDT data are made available to the community immediately without a proprietary period.
The respective experiments were created and end-to-end tested on the simulator by DKIST scientists.
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4.4 Science Operations Specialists
Use The SOS team used the DKIST simulator to practice pointing and instrument alignment for some of the FIDO 1b and Cryo-NIRSP experiments in preparation for OCP2.5
- Discussion
The SOS team held a debriefing discussion about OCP2.4 activities, problems, and lessons learned. After the discussion, new documentation was created or updated. New procedures (or new versions) were reviewed and now are available official for operations:
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4.8 Science Operations Tools
OpsTools (Proposal Architect work, Experiment Architect work, OPMT work, Loki work) updates/activities should be included here(?) (this is actually Bret or JohnH/HLS and Bob Tawa/OpsTools).
4.8.1 Management
Hiring process for new OpsTool software engineer, interviews scheduled. (Bob to fill in details).
DKIST Data Center staff interviewed two candidates the week of October 2-6 for a new software engineer to work on operations tools.
5 Technical Operations (Heather and Paul)
5.1 Site & Facility Status
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6 Instrumentation Operations (Bret, Friedrich, and Dave H.)
6.1 Optics
6.1.1 System Optics
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Additional vibration data was collected by the WFS in support of the Instrument System vibration program.
A plan has been devised to mitigate the 100Hz vibration of the HOAO fans. Implementation will occur in November.
Additional data has been collected and the results implemented to improve the pointing of the light beam to the ininstruments, especially to the Cryo-NIRSP.
6.2.3 Visible Spectro-Polarimeter (ViSP)
Spectral throughput spatial mapping data was collected in the DSSC labs using our custom metrology tools. The vendor data package was collected for all new spare filters as well as the original filter set. Analysis of this large data package is ongoing as it informed the low throughput detected in 486nm measurements some months ago.
The gearbox issue for arm 3 has been resolved during the September engineering period.
Additional light baffling has been installed on the instrument to reduce stray light.
6.2.4 Diffraction Limited Near-Infrared Spectro-Polarimeter (DL-NIRSP)
Some cold filters and samples have been sent for long wave IR throughput measurements to an outside vendor. Analysis of the DSSC data package on filter spatial transmission and blocking is ongoing.
A diffused, F/24 three-laser-wavelength alignment setup for MISI-36 has been prototyped, and laser safety procedure discussions begun.
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MISI-36 lab acceptance testing results have been reviewed and approved. Final plans and procedures have been created for the installation of MISI-36 into the instrument in November.
6.2.5 Cryogenic Near-Infrared Spectro-Polarimeter (Cryo-NIRSP)NIRSP)
Cryo-NIRSP synchronization between the modulator and camera has been improved.
A final design for an improved warm filter wheel has been approved.
6.2.6 Visible Broadband Imager
Improved out-of-band blocking for VBI is required when the upgraded FIDO grey beamsplitters are used. The final production dichroic bandpass blocking filters for VBI-Red were received at the DSSC. Initial measurements of optical density, filter spatial variation, and part-to-part performance variation have begun.
A set of prototype dichroic blocking filters for VBI-Blue were received. DSSC lab metrology was performed and adjustments to the coating design suggested to the vendor. Given possible coating throughput limitations, a SPEC document was developed and distributed to other vendors for quote.
The decision was made to temporarily transfer raw VBI data to Boulder for speckle reconstruction.
6.7 Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO)Optics (MCAO)
The electronics for the 4 km Deformable Mirror have been completed. Polishing of the mirror surface is ongoing.
Initial test reports for the high-speed PCO cameras have been delivered.
6.8 High Level Software (HLS)
Pono-3 release was deployed.
Remote HLS support for on-sun campaigns has been a success.
Interface with the Data Center for the speckle reconstruction data has been defined.
6.9 Infrared Cameras
First short wave infra-red detectors have completed fabrication and
7 Data Center Operations (Bob and Alisdair)
7.1 Hardware Infrastructure
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Updated Processing workers with expanded memory to allow the Cryo-NIRSP pipeline to run to completion. Previous memory allocations were insufficient and caused the peipeline pipeline to error out due to running out of memory
started working with the HLS group to design a data packaging method that would be used to transport Wavefront correction data to the DC and to the VBI processing team for use with the VBI and VTF data pipelines. Once the packaging and transport method are agreed to, the the ICD between the HLS and DC will be updated to reflect the additional data to be transmitted/received.
continued working on creating data reprocessing policies and processes. Policies decided upon so far include the number of past (superseded) data sets to be kept, how the reprocessed datasets should be linked to previous versions, and how changes should be publicized. Currently the process is in the design phase, meaning scoping out the software changes required to implement the policies.
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