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Table of Contents > Overview > The Telescope > Performance

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Observing Status

HET Users Committee

HET Acknowledgments

HET Performance Characteristics

Pointing
Tracking

Acquisition
Auto-guiding

Focus
Observing Statistics

Image Quality
Sky Brightness

The HET meets its specifications and points to better than 7 arcseconds rms.

At the present time the HET has a tracking error of roughly an arcsecond per minute. This error is azimuth dependent and variable in magnitude. For most targets this drift is completely compensated by the guider corrections.

For moving targets no tracking compensation is currently implemented.

Acquisition

LRS2: LRS2-B and LRS2-R setups are achieved by use of the acquisition camera (ACAM), which uses a fold mirror to intercept the telescope beam. For bright (V <19) point-source like targets the object is placed directly on the appropriate pixel on the ACAM in order to achieve good centering on the IFU.
For optically faint targets or extended sources, the setup is achieved using other bright (V<19) point-source like targets in the ACAM field of view. This is called a blind setup and if needed the PI can request this in their Phase II submission.
HPF: Accurate setup on the HPF science fiber is achieved with a small well-determined offset from the HPF Acquisition Camera (HPFACAM), which has very fine pixels and is suitable for accurate setups on very bright stars
VIRUS: Virus targets may be set up with high-precision using a blind setup with the acquisition camera. They may also simply require the pre-computed guide stars to be centered in their field-of-view, giving a faster but less precise setup.

Auto-Guiding

Auto guiding is done on either the Guide camera 1 (gc1) or Guide camera 2 (gc2). These guide cameras have several selectable filters (B,g',r',i',clear) and a field of view of about 15". Unless there is a compelling science case the guide stars will be selected automatically to match the wavelength of the science instrument in use (g' for LRS2-B and VIRUS, r' for LRS2-R, i' for HPF).

The absolute limiting magnitude for guiding is 20.0 Under 1.7 arcsec FWHM seeing for a dark sky. At this magnitude the guide star is just a small detection above the background.

It is standard operating procedure to save images from the guide camera during all science trajectories. These can be used to determine the image quality and transparency during a trajectory.

Focus is maintained by two Wave Front Sensor probes (WFS) which are placed on point sources brighter than about 15th mag. These are generally centered up and their focus loops closed in the first few minutes of any given observation. For short observations there may not be enough time to acquire a WFS star and focus will be maintained by visual assessment of the FWHM of the guide star.

The WFS can achieve constant focus of less than 0.02 mm for a full trajectory unless the temperature is changing rapidly in which case the WFS tends to lag behind the changes in focus by up to 0.06 mm. When the Telescope Operator is required to keep focus manually (for short observations or if no WFS stars can be obtained) then the focus is generally kept to 0.05 mm.

Global radius of curvature of the primary mirror array is maintained by looking that the DMI during a trajectory when the telescope is in good focus. If this distance deviates by more than 200 um from the "ideal" distance then a GROC correction is applied at the end of the current trajectory. This GROC correction takes less than 4 minutes to apply and thus can be done while setting up on the next target.

Old Observing Statistics

The observing statistics below were compiled before the Wide Field Upgrade was started. As new statistics are compiled we will remove these older stats.

We have found that the image quality for all setups is similar or slightly better than the old HRS FWHM image quality.

Old Image Quality

Starting in the first period of 2001 we began collecting HET fhwm, ee50 and ee80 image quality data with the LRS "pre" images as reported in the night reports. Beginning in 2002 we started also measuring the FWHM in the LRS "pre" images. Site seeing data are gathered using the Differential Image Motion Monitor (DIMM). DIMM data are reported in the night report for every science object when the DIMM is operational since the first period of 2002. The entire DIMM data set is archived and will be made accessible on the web. In the third period of 2003 we began measuring the FWHM for HRS observations from the FIF bent prime guider. Thus as of the first period of 2004 FWHM data now comes from two source LRS "pre" images and the FIF guider while ee50 data comes exclusively from LRS "pre" images. The link below will give you the most up-to-date statistics.

HET FWHM and DIMM IQ Data

HET EE50 and DIMM IQ Data

Old Sky Brightness

HET sky brightness data are derived from g1 and g2 spectra and entered in the night reports. During dark time an observer can expect the sky brightness per square arcsecond to be between 21.1 and 21.4 mag.

HET Sky brightness Data

Last updated: Wed, 12 Aug 2020 06:55:57 -0500 stevenj

The Telescope

Technical Overview

Object Observability

Instruments

LRS2 Fiber Layout and Position Angle

LRS2 Throughput

LRS2 Observing details

VIRUS - Summary

VIRUS - Setting up on targets

VIRUS - Misc details

VIRUS - Throughput and sensitivity

VIRUS - IFU Layout and Target Placement

Habitable Zone Planet Finder (HPF)

HPF Setting up on targets

HPF Throughput and Exposure Meter

HPF Data Reductions

HRS-2 (in development)

HRS-2 configurations

HRS-2 exposure meter

HRS-2 Position Angle and Fiber layout

HRS-2 Throughput

Old Instruments

Program Preparation

Web Management System

Table of Contents > Overview > The Telescope > Performance

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