2018A schedule, programs, and run summaries

List of 2018A programs for: MegaCam, WIRCam, ESPaDOnS, SITELLE.

QrunID Instrument HST Dates # Nights Status Run Summary
17BQ18/
18AQ01		 ESPaDOnS Jan 29-31 &
Feb 1 - 6		 9 Done This was a poor run for ESPaDOnS: about 56 hours were lost to high humidity, high winds, clouds, or precipitation. We only obtained about 30 hours of validated observations; a significant fraction of those were affected by unusually poor Image Quality, above 1.5 arcsec.
18AQ02 MegaCam Feb 7 - 22 16 Done The run started with photometric skies, but the Image Quality has quite poor and well over 1.2" for the first 3 nights or so. Then the weather degraded, and almost 95 hours were lost to bad weather (high humidity, fog, ice, snow, overcast skies).
18AQ03 WIRCam Feb 23 - Mar 4 10 Done Due to bad weather, the exchange to WIRCam was postponed to Feb 26. The bad weather extended well into the run. Fewer than 4.5h of open shutter time were obtained and validated for the whole run. None of the 17B programs we were planning to observe were executed.
ENG SPIRou Mar 5 Done The first SPIRou on-sky tests concentrated on acquisition and guiding. The night was very productive, and the results of the tests very positive.
18AQ04 MegaCam Mar 6 - 22 17 Done The data taken Mar 6/7 were contaminated by high levels of electronic noise; the issue was solved in time for the Mar 7/8 night. A miserable run: 128 hours were lost to weather, and we only validated 30 hours of data (this number includes the readout time).
18AQ05 WIRCam Mar 23 - Apr 3 12 Done We have obtained about 18h of validated observations. A little over 93h were lost to bad weather (high humidity, fog, precipitation, clouds, or high winds.)
ENG SPIRou Apr 4 Done The whole night was lost to high humidity. The plan had been to continue testing the Cassegrain unit (the fibers have not yet been routed between the Cass unit and the spectrograph, and the spectrograph itself is not quite cold enough yet). On-sky tests are scheduled for a few nights starting on April 24.
18AQ06 MegaCam Apr 5 - 23 19 Done The bad weather continues... 145 hours were lost to weather, and we were able to obtain and validated 20 hours of observations. The best night was the last one.
18AQ07 SPIRou Apr 24 - May 2 8 Done CFHT is pleased to report that SPIRou saw its first light on April 24, using AD Leo. This run was for engineering tests of the whole intrument, including guiding, focus, test of the ADC, throughput, and RV stability under various conditions. A total of 470 on-sky spectra have been obtained, some taken under photometric conditions.
18AQ08 SITELLE May 3 - 13 11 Done About 33h were lost to bad weather, and 1h was lost to the Telescope Control System and its focus mechanism. The exceptionnaly long stretch of bad weather that afflicted semester 2018A from its beginning started to dissipate, and the last 2 nights of the SITELLE run were for the most part photometric.
18AQ09 MegaCam May 14 - 22 9 Done The improved weather continued during the MegaCam run: only 7h were lost to weather. The MegaCam guider had a minor issue which cost 30min of observing time. The QSO Team is focussing on the Large Programs and highly ranked programs, as much as possible. The completion rate of all programs is not expected to be great even by the end of the semestre.
18AQ10 SPIRou May 23 - 29 7 Done A mix of sky conditions allowed the use and test of SPIRou under various conditions. Out of the 7 nights, 2.5 were lost to thick clouds and humidity. Four hours were lost to a technical issue with the guider (faulty connector and loose cable), and we are happy that there were very few software issues. Data were obtained to test or characterize the spectral resolution, polarization sensitivity in lines, radial velocity stability, impact of focus on RV stability, telluric standard stars, M star mask, focus model, thermal sky background, Atmospheric Disperson Corrector, and the cold stop alignment.
18AQ11 WIRCam May 30 - June 4 6 Done Sky conditions were quite variable during this run, but only 8h were lost to weather (thick clouds). There were no technical issues. This was the last WIRCam run of the semester. The improved weather did not bring enough of a miracle: only 40% of A programs hours and 17% of B programs hours have been validated.
18AQ12 MegaCam Jun 5 - 19 15 Done From a technical point of view, this was a very smooth MegaCam run, with no issue. The weather has been improving, and 54 hours were lost to high humidity and fog, or, less often, clouds.
18AQ13 ESPaDOnS Jun 20 - Jul 4 15 Done We had 8 solid nights with photometric skies, especially at the beginning of the run. Clouds and high humidity affected the latter part of the run (18h lost to weather). Note that before the start of the run, we encountered a technical issue with the spectrograph focusing stage, which would sometimes refuse to move. To ensure a smooth run and not risk damaging the stage, we decided to set the spectrograph focus at the optimal value for the Star + Sky observing mode and leave it there for the whole run; the focus was therefore not optimal for Star Only and Polarimetric observations, however we were only 6-7 microns out of focus for these 2 modes, or 3-4 microns on the detector.
18AQ14 MegaCam Jul 5 1 Done The jukebox had a mechanical failure at the end of the first night. An emergency exchange to WIRCam has been scheduled.
18AQ15 WIRCam Jul 6 - 16 10 Done The relatively good weather (32h lost to clouds or high humidity) has allowed the QSO Team to catch up and make significant progress for A-ranked and B-ranked programs. About 59% of the hours in A-ranked programs have been validated (up from 40%) , and 34% for B-ranked hours (up from about 17%).
18AQ16 MegaCam Jul 17 - 19 3 Done The weather was not perfect during this short MegaCam run, with about 13h lost to weather. Despite the challenging conditions, we were able to obtain a few observations for PI programs and LP.
18AQ17 ESPaDOnS Jul 20 - 23 4 Done This very short run allowed us to wrap up observations for a few programs. For A and B-ranked programs, about 70% of the hours have been validated for this semester
18AQ18 SPIRou Jul 24 - Aug 5 12 Done