Calibration check monitor

The Calibration Check Monitor ("calChecker") is a tool to check the proper execution of the calibration plan. If missing or outdated calibrations are found, it indicates required actions.

The process is setup as follows:

• Day by day in the configured time range, all science setups are selected. This is done based on header information which is replicated from the mountain to Garching.
• The calChecker is intended to follow the calibration queue builder tool (calOBbuilder) which is used on the mountain to create daytime calibrations.
• Based on that, calChecker analyzes science setups (not single files or OBs). All science files taken in a setup of a night are consolidated.
• A setup is defined as a combination of science raw file type (e.g. imaging), instrument keys (e.g. filter, grism), and detector keys (e.g. binning, read mode). All science files taken with the same setup are treated the same, like in calOBbuilder.
• calChecker uses OCA technology (like the DataOrganizer DO) to find file types, and based on those, associations with calibrations. The OCA configuration includes file types, number of files, validity ranges, and association rules (like "find next"; "find closest in time"; "find on same date"). The list of required calibrations is then searched for in the existing header list.
• The tool analyzes, per setup, if the set of required calibrations is
• complete (flag OK)
• complete but at least one calibration outdated (NOK)
• at least one calibration is missing (MISS)

The tool is designed to check

• daytime calibrations which are triggered by science observations.

It can also handle

• twilight calibrations (twilight flats) and
• nighttime calibrations (standard stars).

It cannot handle:

• calibrations with a validity shorter than a day (e.g. telluric standards to be taken within two hours)
• attached calibrations (to be taken within the science OB)
• maintenance or technical calibrations which are not triggered by science data

The main purpose of the tool is to

• auto-monitor the completeness of calibrations
• provide early feedback about incompleteness so that missing calibrations do not jeopardize science observations already taken.

The tool only monitors formal completeness, it cannot assess the quality of calibrations. This is the task of the Health Check monitor.

The tool is running in cronjob mode once every hour. It is executed by QC Garching. A litte java application checks that calChecker is up and running (turns red if the page is outdated):

0d 00h:02m ago

1d 13h:02m ago