MASS Campaign - March 2003

The central thumbnail is a hardcopy of the user configurable real-time MASS display showing, from top to bottom: the average flux in aperture D, the scintillation indices in apertures A, D, and differential A-B, the 0.5-25km seeing, tau0, teta0 and a false colour representation of Cn2 vertical distribution as a function of time.
The post-processing graphs are obtained using scripts developped by A. Tokovinin:
-The floating layer reconstruction assumes 3 layers of unknown altitude and intensity.
-The fixed layer reconstruction assumes 6 layers of known altitude (0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 km) but of unknown intensity.
-The integrated seeing of the Paranal DIMM is compared to the sum of the turbulence detected by MASS in the layers 0.5-25km and 2-25km
-The coherence time computed from the Paranal DIMM (using local and ECMWF high altitude wind speed) is compared to the MASS tau0. The floating and fixed layer representations include cloudy sky periods while the boundary layer and free-atm. seeing plots are built only from data filtered along:
i) relative background < 3% ii) Chi2 < 50 and iii) seeing error < 0.1.

Night beginning	Graphic data	Operations log Report by Brice-Olivier Demory (See also a comparison of MASS profiles to the height of the critical inversions forecasted by a global meteorological model)
2003-03-10	N/A	N/A
2003-03-11	N/A	All the measurements in 030311.mass.mad are irrelevant due to wrong airmass factor and are not included in the final processing (see below).
2003-03-12	Floating Layers, Fixed Layers, Seeing, Tau0	As above, all the measurements in 030312.mass.mad are irrelevant due to wrong airmass factor and are not included in the final processing. This was produced by a misconfiguration between the PC clock and the turbina's time zone settings. The problem is solved by synchronize the PC clock in UT time rather than introducing local TZ. This should be the default operation mode.
2003-03-13	Floating Layers, Fixed Layers, Seeing, Tau0	Very poor sky transparency conditions until 500 UT. Cloudiness : broken. From 500 UT, good sky transparency. DIMM woke up at 700 UT. First target : Beta Cruxis Second target : Alpha Trianguli Australe according to DIMM. Note that normalized flux values are slightly above 6000. The target has been checked twice ! Points whose fluxes are '0' mean that a pointing error occured.
2003-03-14	Floating Layers, Fixed Layers, Seeing, Tau0	000 UT : DIMM is not working. First target for MASS : Alpha Carinae. Strong wind conditions, up to 18 m/s. 345 UT : MASS changed to Beta Cruxis 500 UT : All operation aborted. Winds up to 25 m/s. MASS stored in the shelter.
2003-03-15	Floating Layers, Fixed Layers, Seeing, Tau0	2345UT : Beginning of observations with Alpha Carinae. DIMM still out of service. 0335UT : Now pointing Beta Crucis 0837UT : Dramatic Moonset over the Pacific Ocean ! 0955UT : End of operations : nautical twilight starts.
2003-03-16	Floating Layers, Fixed Layers, Seeing, Tau0	DIMM is working again ! 000UT : beginning of operations, pointing Alpha Carinae. 048UT : turbina returned a segmentation fault. All the data have been automatically stored in the data file but the graph window has restarted from the beginning. 345UT : changed to Beta Crucis. 640UT : changed to Alpha TrA according to DIMM's wishes. 1000UT : end of operations ! Nota : At the end of the night (1000UT), one can see an increase in the normalized flux window. It is due to the sunrise process (no Background measurements have been made so far in the last 20 min.)
2003-03-17	Floating Layers, Fixed Layers, Seeing, Tau0	007UT : beginning of operations. DIMM is pointing Delta Velae. Since this star doesn't appear in the list of MASS, we aim the telescope to Beta Carinae, quite luminous and closer enough to Del Vel. 500UT : Cirro-stratus are coming. MASS continues operation. In the meantime, we've followed DIMM to Beta Crucis. 617UT : DIMM stopped all operations. Apparition of alto-stratus. They are completely covering the sky. MASS manages to keep a good signal to noise ratio. Discontinuities are dues to pauses (when the star has been hidden) 800UT : S/N to low. stopping measurements. Star disappeared.
2003-03-18	Floating Layers, Fixed Layers, Seeing, Tau0	020UT : Beginning of operation. Sky still cloudy above Paranal, DIMM doesn't work so MASS is aimed to Alpha Carinae. Its negative magnitude make it visible even in cloudy conditions. 117UT : Skies clear, DIMM is working. Switching to Beta Crucis 200UT : A segmentation fault occured. Graph automatically reinitialized. 600UT : clouds... 700UT : completely overcast. Forced to stop all operations. All UTs are closed as well as DIMM is. 751UT : Sky almost clear ! Measurements can continue, DIMM still sleeping. 915UT : Beginning of astronomical twilight. End of operations.
2003-03-19	Floating Layers, Fixed Layers, Seeing, Tau0	030UT: Beginning of operations : Kappa Velae Then Bet Cru. Lot of clouds all night long, DIMM has been stopped several times. 700UT:segmentation fault, graphic profile lost. 724UT:switched to Alpha TrA. Surprinsigly this star shows a normalized flux above 6000. The target has been checked twice... However the MASS's output is strongly correlated with DIMM's one. 910UT : end of operations.
2003-03-20	Floating Layers, Fixed Layers, Seeing, Tau0	010UT : Beginning of operations N.B.: Wind is especially strong tonight from south. Telescope is perturbated. 230UT changed to Bet Cru. Two points on the graph are wrong due to vignetting and star designation error. 930UT : End of operations.
2003-03-21	Floating Layers, Fixed Layers, Seeing, Tau0	010UT : Beginning of operations N.B.: Wind is strong tonight from south. Telescope is perturbated. 515UT : mid-altitude clouds approaching from the north-west.... 600UT : Forced to stop due to the clouds. 945UT : End of operations.
2003-03-22	Floating Layers, Fixed Layers, Seeing, Tau0	001UT : Beginning of operations N.B.: Wind is strong tonight from south (10m/s). Telescope is perturbated. 100UT : changed to Bet Cru 130UT : Clouds... 600UT : Still overcast (8/8). Cloud type (if it is of any interest) : Strato-cumulus. 726UT : Sky almost clear, operations can continue. DIMM is not working yet. Pointing Bet Cru. 802UT : pointing Lambda Scorpii, according to DIMM wishes. 955UT : End of operations.
2003-03-23	Floating Layers, Fixed Layers, Seeing, Tau0	000UT : Beginning of operations N.B.: Wind is strong tonight from south (10m/s). Telescope is perturbated. 000UT : Pointing Beta Carinae 045UT : changed to Beta Crucis 510UT : DIMM is pointing Gam Lup. MASS is pointed towards Alp Lup, then to Lam Sco. 900UT : End of operation, end of campaign ! ===================================== MASS stored in the shelter, computer turned off.

MASS

1.-Campaign Summary