SINFONI P2PP Tutorial

Goal of the run

In this tutorial we will prepare OBs for a simple example observing run, with the goal of obtaining integral field spectroscopy data for an elliptical galaxy. The aim is to extract spatially resolved dynamics in the central arcseconds, to search for black holes. Additionally, we need observations of a velocity template giant star. The sample OBs will illustrate the use of a variety of features of P2PP and the kind of decisions to be taken at the time of preparing an observing run, as well as some aspects that are specific to the preparation of OBs for SINFONI.

1- Getting started

The Phase 2 process begins when you receive an email from the ESO Visiting Astronomers Section communicating to you that the allocation of time for the coming period has been finalized and that the results can be consulted in the corresponding Web page. The receipt of this email shows that you have successfully activated your User Portal account, and the combination of ID and password you are using to log into the portal is also what you require for the use of P2PP. You follow the instructions given by ESO and find that time was allocated to your run with SINFONI. Therefore, you decide to start preparing your Phase 2 material.

• The SINFONI User Manual
• The Service Mode instructions for VLT and ESO-MPI 2.2m telescope.
• The P2PP Documentation referred to above.
• The SINFONI specific P2PP instructions

• P2PP ID: 52052
• password: tutorial

This is a special account that ESO has set up so that users who do now have their own P2PP login data can still use P2PP and prepare example OBs. You cannot use it to prepare actual OBs intended to be executed.

After logging in using the tutorial account, the P2PP main GUI will appear as follows:

Runs for a number of instruments appear in the Folders area, since the same tutorial account is used for all of them. Similarly, if you log in with your own P2PP ID, you will get the list of all the runs for which you are PI.

Select the folder corresponding to the SINFONI Tutorial run, 60.A-9253(H). In this tutorial we assume that time was allocated in Service Mode. This is indicated by the SM letters that appear next to the Run ID of the SINFONI run.

You can now start defining your OBs.

2- Creating the first OB

First, click on the New icon on the upper left side of the P2PP main GUI. This creates an entry under the Summaries area. The red dot next to the OB name means that the OB fails to pass some fundamental verification criteria, as may be expected from the fact that no template has been attached to the OB yet.

Click on the View icon. The View OB window appears:

Setting the target information

The CO bandheads longward of around 2.3 micron will be used to obtain the dynamical information, and the spectral resolution is supposed to be as high as possible. Therefore we will use the K-band setting, and in order to sample a reasonably large region around the centre of the galaxy, we use the 0.1 arcsec pixel scale. Our target is NGC 1399, and even though this is not compulsary, you could choose a descriptive name like OB 'NGC 1399 - K - 0.1'. Type this name in the Name entry near the top of the View window.

• In the Name field under the Target tab at the bottom, type the target name (NGC 1399)
• In the Right Ascension, Declination fields, type the coordinates of the target in the following format: 03:38:29.03, -35:27:02.62.
• Since the coordinates are given for both epoch and equinox J2000, leave these fields with their default values
• You can give also the Class to which this object belongs, for archival purposes. In this case, choose EllipticalGal .
• The proper motion of this target is negligible for the purposes of this example, and differential tracking of the telescope is not needed since this is not a moving Solar System target. Therefore, you can leave the last four fields in the Target tab set to their default values of zero.

Setting the constraint set

As stated in Section 1, we assume for the purposes of this tutorial that the program has been allocated time in Service Mode. You thus need to specify a constraint set for your OBs. You can do this by clicking on the Constraint Set tab and filling the entries under it:

• First, give a descriptive name to the constraint set about to be defined. Since you have decided that this constraint set will be applied to all galaxy observations (those for the star will be less stringent on seeing), you type Galaxy constraints in the Name field.
• You are not interested in accurate photometry for the galaxy, only need to get approximately the flux that you anticipated. Therefore, you should enter Clear conditions in the Sky Transparency entry.
• Since you need moderately good quality in your images, you specify 0.8 as the value of the Seeing field.
• The Strehl ratio was predicted by the Exposure Time Calculator (ETC) for your selected set of conditions, and you need to specify it in the Strehl field (this would not be required if you intended to perform seeing limited observations). Your (imagined) star has a B-R colour of -0.2, an R-magnitude of 11.5 mag, and it is 15.6 arcsec away from the nucleus of NGC 1399. You enter these values into the corresponding fields in the ETC, together with the seeing and the airmass. The Strehl ratio which needs to be inserted into p2pp is the on-axis value. For our example, the predicted value we enter is 39.5.

  

• Set the Airmass to 2.0, to ensure that your observations are not carried out at too low an elevation.
• Since you are doing medium resolution spectroscopy observations in the near-infrared, and the AO reference star (which is sensed in the optical) is quite bright, the lunar illumination has hardly any influence. You can thus leave the default values of 1.0 and 30 degrees for the Lunar Illumination and Moon Angular Distance fields.

Note that in your Phase 1 proposal you already specified some of these constraints (lunar illumination, seeing, transparency). You must make sure that none of the constraints specified in Phase 2 is more stringent than the corresponding one specified at Phase 1.

Setting the time intervals

Observations of the galaxy can be carried out at any time during the semester when the target is above the specified airmass. Therefore you can leave the Time Intervals field unchanged.

If your observation could be executed in other, non-contiguous time windows, you could define up to five intervals in the same way as described.

The User Comments (in top section) and Calibration Requirements fields are free text fields whose contents are self-explanatory. We will leave them blank in this example, but generally it is useful to mention in the User Comments any peculiarities concerning the execution of an OB. If this is lengthy or complicated, add a reference to the README file, where you should explain it in detail.

Defining the acquisition template

The first template that must be part of any OB that requires a definite pointing is the acquisition template, so let us define it next. In the Template Type list, make sure that the acquisition entry is highlighted. This will list all the acquisition templates available for SINFONI in the Template list next to it.

After reading the description of the templates in the SINFONI User Manual, you have determined that the SINFONI_ifs_acq_NGS template is the most suitable one for this particular observation. You thus click on this template in the Template list, and then on the Add button next to it.

You need to decide now on the acquisition parameters. This acquisition template sets a filter and takes an OFF frame at an offset of Alpha offset to sky and Delta offset to sky arcseconds from the target position for sky subtraction purposes. Then it takes exposures in open loop presenting on the Real Time Display at the telescope console the image obtained after DET.NDIT integrations of DET.DIT seconds each, minus the OFF frame. This allows the identification of the reference star.

Using the ETC, you found out that a DIT of 2s is far from saturating the detector, but the SNR is high enough to allow a centering of the target. For this bright target, NDIT is best set to 1. The acquisition is done on the natural guide star (NGS), not on the target, therefore the DITs in the first and 3rd row can differ. As the label suggests, the "Integration time" is for the target, and the "NGS integration time" is for the reference star. We de-select the option. "Target = AO Guide Star".

We imagine that our selected elliptical galaxy has a foreground star bright enough to be used as an AO reference target near the galaxy nucleus. We enter its coordinates in the fields RA of AO Guide star and Dec of AO Guide star. Our natural guide star has a B-R colour of -0.2 mag, which we enter in the field: "NGS B-R colour". It is point-like, so we leave the FWHM of AO Guide Star at 0. We don't care about the Position angle on the sky and leave it at 0.

There is no necessity for us to specify the telescope guide star ourselves, and by leaving the next three fields at the default value, the selection is up to the telescope operator.

We are acquiring quite a bright target, therefore we will be able to identify it even without going to sky first. We can set Alpha/Delta offset to sky to "0", which will save time (not only in "real" exeution time at the telescope, but also in the estimated execution time: you can try this out once you have added the science template and filled it in, see below).

The SkySpider position refers to an observing mode which is not yet offered, and the default value of "ref" shold not be modified.

SPAXEL size (arcsec) refers to the size of a "spatial pixel" in your data cube, and you have the choice between three scales. We want to perform AO assisted observations, for which the two smaller size scales are most sensible, and since we want to cover a reasonably large field ("reasonably large" being 3 arcseconds on a side), we select the 0.1 arcseconds SPAXEL size. The acquisition is automatically done on the largest scale first (with the exception of the "fast acquisition" template), in order to allow for coordinate or pointing uncertainties, but here you should always specify your intended scale for the science observations.

Instrument setup name gives us the chance to select the wavelength range, we use the pull-down menu to select K-band. Unless there is a very strong reason to do otherwise, acquisition should always be done in the same band as the science observation, because moving the grating takes very long with SINFONI.

The set of parameters that you choose in your acquisition template is thus:

• Integration time (DIT): 2
• Number of Integrations (NDIT): 1
• NGS integration time (DIT): 2
• Target = AO Guide Star:
• RA of AO Guide Star: 03:38:29.156
• Dec of AO Guide Star: -35:26:45.118
• R mag of AO Guide Star: 11.3
• NGS B-R Color: -0.5
• FWHM of AO Guide Star (arcsec): 0
• Position angel on the sky: 0
• Telescope guide star selection: CATALOGUE
• RA of telescope guide star: 0
• DEC of telescope guide star: 0
• Alpha offset to sky: 0
• Delta offset to sky: 0
• SkySpider position: ref
• SPAXEL size (arcsec): 0.1
• Instrument setup name: K

If you specify one of the parameters outside the allowed range, it turns red. The OB is not considered valid (and you will not be allowed to check it in (see Section 6) unless all parameters are defined within allowed ranges.

The acquisition template is now complete.

Defining the Observation Description

Once the acquisition is completed, the science observation begins. The science observation is defined in a set of one or more templates that form the Observation Description, or OD for short.

It may be useful in many cases to have an easy way of identifying an OD, like when having observations in a number of instrument setups performed for the same target. The Name field in the View OB window allows you to define names for the ODs. The OD name appears in turn in the Summaries area of the P2PP main GUI, thus allowing the identification at a glance of all OBs having ODs with the same name, or seeing the differences in OBs for the same target.

In this example OB, the OD will simply be an object/sky sequence using a fixed sky position. We can thus appropriately name it K - 0.1 - FixedSkyOffset. We enter this name in the OD Name field.

Next, the templates need to be attached. When reading the manual and considering the scientific requirements of your program, you noticed that you will need a large sky throw in order to really end up in a sky field which is outside your galaxy. We are using the template FixedSkyOffset :

In the top-right windows, you select Template Type science, then highlight SINFONI_ifs_obs_FixedSkyOffset and click on Add. The template will be attached to the grid below, next to the acquisition template selected and filled in previously.

The template has to be filled in with the specifications for integration on your science target, ie the galaxy. The ETC tells you that within reasonable limits for DIT (up to 900s), there is no risk of saturation. So your only constraints are to get a reasonable number of positions on target and on sky in order to efficiently remove bad pixels, to get the highest number of counts within one frame, and to stay within the 1h exposure time limit imposed by the scheduling requirements of Service mode observations. Weighing these constraints against each other, you decide to go for DIT=600s, with two AB cycles.

The Jitter Box width specifies the full width of the box around the nominal position in which the pointings (both for Object and for Sky) are shifted around. A size of 0.5 arcsec is sufficient for our purpose to get rid of bad pixels.

You spend equal amounts of time on sky and on object, and therefore set both, NDIT for the OBJECT positions and NDIT for the SKY positions to 1. To set Number of exposures per offset position to something other than 1 makes sense only for bright targets or time series, so we leave it at the default value. Alpha/Delta offset to sky give us the chance to specify a location where the sky is to be taken, and an offset of 100 arcsec north (+100 in Delta) moves the telescope to a clear field.

The Spectral Dithering flag can only be used in Visitor mode, so we leave it untouched.

Then, you select again the SPAXEL size and the Instrument Mode, like in the acquisition.

Your science template now has the following parameters:

• Integration time (DIT): 600
• Jitter box width: 0.5
• Number of AB or BA cycles: 2
• NDIT for the OBJECT positions: 1
• NDIT for the SKY positions: 1
• Number of exposures per offset: 1
• Alpha offset to sky: 0
• Delta offset to sky: 100
• Spectral dithering:
• SPAXEL size (arcsec): 0.1
• Instrument setup name: K

and your OB should look as follows:

3- Defining the standard star OB

In order to determine the velocity dispersion of the stars in the galaxy, a velocity template star spectrum is required. You selected a giant star (M0III star) for this purpose. The science template to use (not only for telluric standards, but also for velocity standards) is SINFONI_ifs_cal_StandardStar.

Create a New OB like you have done before, Add the acquisition template (the star is so bright, and we care only about spectral resolution, not about image quality, therefore we use the noAO mode), fill it in in much the same way like for the science OB. A few parameters less need to be specified, but some are new: For example you should request to flatten the Deformable Mirror to get at least a somewhat reasonable image quality, and you could in principle add a blind offset to the "real" target, but we leave it at zero, since we want to observe the star itself.

One other difference to science OBs is that you are restricted in the selection of DIT, NDIT and Sky Throw (for the acquisition only, for the real SINFONI_ifs_cal_StandardStar template you can choose any values): Since standard stars are typically very bright, DIT has to be lower or equal 1s, NDIT=1 and both Sky Throw values are supposed to be zero (if you happen to have a standard star which is so faint that for the acquisition you need other parameters, you need to submit a waiver request, but for our example, that is not the case).

Display the calib list of templates, and Add the SINONIF_ifs_cal_StandardStar template.

Some of the parameters are the same like in the SINFONI_ifs_obs_FixedSkyOffset template, but the following paramters are slightly different:

List of number of integrations allows to specify different values for the number of DITs for the different positions, for example to have different NDITs for the Object and the Sky positions. We want again equal amounts of time spent on Object and on Sky, therefore it is sufficient to fill in only one number, we set it to 10 (multiplied by a DIT of 3s, this gives the required time per position of 30s). The Number of offset positions parameter indicates through how many of the positions in the List of offsets in RA or X and List of offsets in DEC or Y the template is supposed to cycle. We set it to 2, for one Object and one Sky.

The List of observation types pops up an interactive window, where you have to specify for each position in your offset list, for as many frames as you have Number of offset positions, whether the position is on Object or on Sky. In the popup window, you have to sequentially select O or S, then click on Add, and when you have completed the list, you click on OK, which will update the field in the p2pp window. This information is used by the pipeline, for example. We set this to the sequence O S.

The Offset coordinate type allows the selection between Detector and Sky. Note that this selects only the frame of reference. The offsets are always given in arcseconds, (never in pixels, not even for "Detector"), and they are relative! For our List of offsets we select 0 0 in RA, and 0 30 in DEC. This means that the first image will be taken on source, the second on a sky field 30 arcseconds to the north.

Your standard star template now has the following parameters:

• Integration time (DIT): 3
• List of number of integrations 10
• Number of offset positions: 2
• List of observation types: O S
• Offset coordinate type: Sky
• List of offsets in RA or X: 0 0
• List of offsets in Dec or Y: 0 30
• Spectral dithering:
• SPAXEL size (arcsec): 0.1
• Instrument setup name: K

After doing this, the contents of your OB should look as follows:

and we will assume that this completes your run.

6- Finishing the preparation and submitting the OBs

With the completion of the standard star OB, we consider the examples developed in this tutorial to be finished. Now it is time to run the Verification Module, to see if there are any obvious mistakes: In the main window, we highlight both OBs (none of them have red dots any more), and then we click on the "Verify" icon with the magnifying glass on it. The pop-up window informs us that everything is fine (except for a WARNING that we spend too little time per position on the standard star, which will reduce image quality and not have an impact on our science goals).

The Execution time of the OB is calculated when pressing Recalc ExecTime. The field on the left of the window will be updated with an estimate of the execution time. Make sure that it is shorter than 1h05 (for our example, it gives 00:58:25 for the science OB, and 00:14:08 for the velocity template OB, which also fits into our allocated time of 1.25 hours). You can also, as mentioned above, see how much impact a sky offset during the acquisition of the reference star during the galaxy OB has (it costs 1.5 minutes!).

You could alternatively have selected ReportsExecution Timeall from the top bar pulldown menu. Make sure the total execution time stays within the time allocated by the OPC.

You have the possibility to influence the order in which your OBs are executed by assigning "User Priorites". Of course, your template star data are useless if you do not get the galaxy data. The default for the User Priority (in the top left section of the View window) is 1, the highest priority, and we leave it at the default value. For the standard star, we decrease the priority by setting it to 2.

We have prepared two finding charts, one for each target. No details are visible on any of them on small scales, therefore we simply created the 1'x1' finding charts from the 2MASS survey in K-band. We have the jpg-files on our local disk, and attach them one by one to the OBs by highlighting the OB, clicking on the "Finding Charts" bottom on the top, and selecting "Attach Finding Charts" from the pull-down menu. This gives us a browser window, in which we navigate to the correct directory and select the files, NGC1399.jpg and M0III.jpg, respectively. The P2PP Finding Chart Tutorial gives more advice on how to attach Finding Charts within P2PP.

The way the README file is submitted changes starting in P75. While in previous semesters, it had to be edited and then submitted via ftp, it is now created directly within P2PP. See the README Tutorial for instructions.

We will now submit these OBs to the ESO Database: select (highlight) all of them in the Summaries list, click on the File button in the P2PP main GUI, and select the Check-in option. A dialog box will appear asking for confirmation and, if you click on OK, they will be saved in the ESO Database, which is indicated in your local cache by a little "lock" symbol that appears next to your OB:

As a courtesy to the next user who follows this tutorial, we would like to ask you to finish these exercises by removing the OBs form the ESO Database. The P2PP User Manual gives you detailed indications on how to do this. In short,

• Select Check Out from the File menu in P2PP
• In the Database Browser window that opens, type 60.A-9253(H) in the Prog ID selection criterion
• Click on the Query button on the lower left
• Select all the OBs that appear in the display area after the query. Normally there should be your two submitted OBs only, but if another user has submitted other OBs from this same account without removing them afterwards you will see them as well.
• Under the File menu in the View OB window, select Check-out

In this way the OBs will be removed from the ESO Database and will be left in your Local Cache only (the little lock vanishes). From there you can delete them if you like by selecting them and choosing the Delete option under the File menu in the P2PP main GUI.