Non-sidereal guiding tests on HET

This is a webpage sharing the progress so far on non-sidereal guiding.


Testing on the night of Dec 27 2023 (2023-12-28 UT)

We observed an asteroid (354 Eleonora) for about 20 minutes, taking a series of 90s exposures with LRS2-B. This was the procedure:

1. Set up on asteroid with an LRS2-B DirectACAM setup (using coordinates from ephemerides close to the current time).
2. Run script "nst.py" to offset fiducial on active guider to compensate for target's motion
     This requires giving as an input the JPL HORIZONS ephemerides for that night, with timestamps and RA/Dec coordinates:
                354_eleonora_20231228_simple.txt
     Tonight we ran the script with 1 minute updates, and a simple interpolation scheme was used to determine each differential offset.

After the exposure sequence was complete we took another ACQ camera image to verify the target was still in (roughly) the same place. Below are the before and after ACQ camera images:





Below are animations of all of the guider frames taken during the observation. Guider 1 was active, and its fiducial was offset throughout:


Guider 1
Guider 2







Below are the reconstructed LRS2-B images taken during this observation. Nine exposures of 90s each were taken:






The centroids in the LRS2-B IFU coordinates (0,0 is center) were:
[INFO - 2023-12-28 18:36:22,962] multi_20231228_0000008_exp01_orange.fits Centroid: -0.26 1.15
[INFO - 2023-12-28 18:36:35,501] multi_20231228_0000008_exp02_orange.fits Centroid: -0.23 1.00
[INFO - 2023-12-28 18:36:48,038] multi_20231228_0000008_exp03_orange.fits Centroid: -0.17 1.06
[INFO - 2023-12-28 18:37:00,570] multi_20231228_0000008_exp04_orange.fits Centroid: -0.17 1.01
[INFO - 2023-12-28 18:37:13,127] multi_20231228_0000008_exp05_orange.fits Centroid: -0.01 1.14
[INFO - 2023-12-28 18:37:25,681] multi_20231228_0000008_exp06_orange.fits Centroid: 0.03 1.12
[INFO - 2023-12-28 18:37:38,230] multi_20231228_0000008_exp07_orange.fits Centroid: 0.09 1.18
[INFO - 2023-12-28 18:37:50,786] multi_20231228_0000008_exp08_orange.fits Centroid: 0.11 1.17
[INFO - 2023-12-28 18:38:03,345] multi_20231228_0000008_exp09_orange.fits Centroid: 0.05 0.59


So there was a small systematic drift in X of ~0.3", and no obvious drift in Y.






Testing on the night of Dec 28 2023 (2023-12-29 UT)

We observed Ganymede satellite of Jupiter) for about 45 minutes, taking a series of 60 exposures with HPF; first we used Guider 1 and second we used Guider 2. This was the procedure:

1. Set up on Ganymede with an HPFACAM setup, using coordinates from ephemerides close to the current time.
2. Run script "nst.py" to offset fiducial on active guider to compensate for target's motion
     This requires giving as an input the JPL HORIZONS ephemerides for that night, with timestamps and RA/Dec coordinates:
                ganymede_20231229_simple.txt
     Tonight we ran the script with 1 minute updates, and a simple interpolation scheme was used to determine each differential offset.

We did this once using Guider 1 and immediately again using Guider 2, to see if there were any differences. The delivered SNR on HPF appears to be consistent with a well-centered target throughout the exposures.


guiding (and offsetting) with GC1:
Start    Estart   End      IQ      Dimm    SkySBrt  Trans    pIllum  C.E.    SNR    Guide Corr
04:18    04:25    04:26    1.37    0.79    16.68    0.82     0.42    0.34    571    0.25+/-0.11
04:26    04:27    04:28    1.27    0.76    16.72    0.86     0.45    0.39    581    0.27+/-0.06
04:28    04:29    04:30    1.32    0.91    16.59    0.85     0.47    0.40    579    0.24+/-0.08
04:30    04:30    04:31    1.31    0.86    16.59    0.84     0.49    0.41    574    0.25+/-0.10
04:31    04:32    04:33    1.36    0.91    16.61    0.87     0.51    0.45    586    0.27+/-0.11
04:33    04:34    04:35    1.44    1.07    16.69    0.89     0.55    0.48    591    0.27+/-0.12
04:35    04:35    04:36    1.46    0.97    16.71    0.91     0.56    0.51    598    0.29+/-0.12
04:36    04:37    04:38    1.51    0.93    16.71    0.92     0.60    0.55    612    0.25+/-0.12
04:38    04:39    04:40    1.55    1.40    16.68    0.91     0.64    0.58    613    0.32+/-0.15
04:40    04:40    04:41    1.50    0.94    16.67    0.91     0.66    0.60    638    0.31+/-0.13

guiding (and offsetting) with GC2:
Start    Estart   End      IQ      Dimm    SkySBrt  Trans    pIllum  C.E.    SNR    Guide Corr
04:41    04:47    04:48    1.47    0.94    17.53    0.78     0.84    0.65    621    0.30+/-0.12
04:48    04:49    04:50    1.63    1.10    17.56    0.77     0.88    0.68    578    0.34+/-0.18
04:50    04:50    04:51    1.61    1.02    17.59    0.77     0.88    0.68    603    0.34+/-0.21
04:51    04:52    04:53    1.44    0.99    17.59    0.76     0.84    0.64    612    0.26+/-0.13
04:53    04:53    04:55    1.53    1.00    17.57    0.76     0.80    0.61    582    0.27+/-0.14
04:55    04:55    04:56    1.57    1.30    17.55    0.76     0.75    0.57    572    0.27+/-0.13
04:56    04:57    04:58    1.50    1.11    17.54    0.75     0.68    0.51    576    0.29+/-0.10
04:58    04:58    04:59    1.52    1.25    17.54    0.75     0.65    0.49    549    0.31+/-0.10
04:59    05:00    05:01    1.65    1.50    17.50    0.75     0.59    0.44    542    0.29+/-0.13
05:01    05:01    05:03    1.65    1.26    17.54    0.73     0.54    0.39    522    0.28+/-0.11