UKIRT shift log comments “Dos and Don’ts”

(Guidelines written in italics are for TSS, rather than observer, reference).

Do:

Include a brief comment about weather conditions on arrival, i.e., while it is still light enough to see cirrus etc., e.g., “On arrival: weather good, sky clear, CSO tau 0.05, wind light from the north and humidity 20%”.
Write a brief comment on the results of the instruments’ array tests, e.g., “All instruments’ read noise and dark currents nominal, UIST needed a few extra flushes to bring down the dark current”.
Include a brief comment on any unusual circumstances for the night, e.g., “CGS4 is broken and not available tonight”.
TSS requirement: if the DVS is not opened please mention this in the log and the reason why it is shut.

Please make a shift comment every time a project is started stating the reason why this project is being done, e.g., “Seeing 0.5, project X appears at the top of the queue so switching to X”, “Project Y is at top of the queue but summit observer’s programme Z is also appearing so starting project Z”.
If you’re observing a project or MSBs that are long, please enter a shift comment every hour or so, e.g., “Conditions unchanged, continuing with project X”.
Please do mention if the queue is empty and you are doing your own backup. Make sure the TSS is aware of this as well.
If there is a significant time-losing fault, please write a very brief note on what is happening, e.g., “Observations stopped as dome is not moving, we’re on the phone with John Doe in Hilo”.
Similarly, if the weather deteriorates to the point of having to close the dome, please mention this in the log.
TSS requirement: please mention any brief engineering that gets done, e.g., hexapod resets or pointing runs.

If you end up doing end of night measurements please mention this briefly in the log, e.g., “Ending the night with twilight flats in ? band”.
If you are scheduled to end the night with a calibration measurement such as emissivity or twilight flats, but the weather prevents this, please make sure this is entered as a shift comment.
TSS requirement: If either the UIST or WFCAM arrays fail to disable and they are disabled manually, please mention this in the log.

Please do not cut-and-paste the output from the array tests results into the shift comments.
There is no need to give detailed numbers for array tests as these are all logged. Just mention if things are OK or not.

Please don’t forget to make comments – at least one an hour or so or whenever a decision is made to change projects.
TSS and support scientist requirement: Do not use shift comments for filing or responding to faults. It’s fine to mention that a fault occurred or is occurring but details of the fault should go in the fault system and not in the night log.
We monitor the seeing through either Cass focus measurements or WFCAM images, so there is no need to pepper the log with seeing measurements. The occasional seeing report is useful, especially when changing projects, but excessive seeing reports distract from other more important comments.