This page is meant as a brief guide to a planner's responsibilities; if you have an impending shift, you should be in contact with the current planner to ensure a smooth transition.

Tour of Duty

Preparing for a Planning Shift

• Get lots of sleep. Your life may be more hectic in the four weeks to come.

Planning Guidelines

Daily (before daily meeting):

• Enter instrument temperatures from the gavroche temperatures window in the EIT log book, preferably starting a new page.

• Check the data acquisition (acq) program on gavroche, the planner's workstation in the EOF (also used for level-zero reformatting and a host of other tasks). The acq program can be checked by opening the acq window on gavroche. If it has stopped, try to restart it by opening a new acq window. Check with the SOCs to ensure that gavroche is connected.

• Check the batch, realtime reformatter program (REFORMAT_BATCH) on gavroche in the EOF: make sure it's still running.

  The reformatter can be checked by checking all batch jobs on gavroche:

  $ sh[ow] sys[tem] /b[atch]

  (where characters in brackets are optional).

  If the reformatter is not running, restart it by first finding a raw telemetry record number just before the crash by opening the reformatting window,

  $ tail /46 reformat_batch.log

  The reformatter can be restarted by either typing

  $ subm[it] /queue = realtime$batch [eit.reform.sci]reformat_batch /par = (record number, -1) 

  at the OpenVMS $ prompt. (A shortcut for this is to hit the

  F19

  key, which types all of the above except the record numbers in the parentheses at the end.)

• Check recent images (the fun part, hopefully): make sure they're present and not severely corrupted. If we are missing an image or a large portion of one, check for station handovers, FOT anomalies, and with operations people to see what may have happened. If the data exist, try reformatting it by restarting the reformatter (see above) with a record number corresponding to a time just prior to the image. The batch reformatting job will reformat (re-reformat?) all EIT images it finds in the LASCO/EIT science telemetry packets acquired after that record number.

• Make movies, using MOVIE_MAKER or MOVIE_MAKER_RTV whenever a CME watch is being run (which is just about always) to examine recent data.

• Record solar phenomena of interest (CME's, Moreton waves, flares, filament eruptions, whatever you think is noteworthy) in the log book so that you can report on the activity since the last planning meeting at today's meeting. This is the only way the daily meeting has of knowing what occurred on the visible hemisphere of the Sun in the last 24 hours, except for sketchy, ground-based reports. You will be expected to make this report at every daily planning meeting.

• Status of the sun: monitoring the most recent activity, and knowing the times of recent images are very helpful in daily meetings. Knowing the approximate time of the last 304 and 195 Å images is particularly helpful.

Daily (after daily meeting):

• Check reformatter, acq, temperatures.

• Make more movies.

• Record phenomena of interest in the log book.

• Confirm observing schedule with operators. Run eit_subfield in IDL and get exact pixel range of the study.

• Discuss with operations specialists the images to be taken during load. Often a full-field image taken at the time of the load helps in determining the pointing of later studies. Sequences are tested during loads too; check with operators to see which sequences require testing, how much time is required for testing, and which dates are available.

• If the operators take a "sample" image during load, check the first image from sequence to make sure it's the correct region, and that gavroche reformats it properly.

Daily (last thing you do):

• Check reformatter, acq, temperatures.

• On weekends and evenings, log in periodically and check status of instrument. This is not a joke: if you do not have a laptop or home machine plus an Internet service provider, please make your way to the EOF at least in the morning and evening to insure the continued health and safety of the instrument, and the proper execution of the daily science plan.

Planning of observing sequences:

• The LASCO/EIT Operations Team (E. Einfalt, C. St. Cyr, S. Stezelberger) has provided a science planning document which describes current guidelines for EIT science planners... Highly recommended reading!
• Similarly, Jim Lemen and Tom Metcalf have a few notes from their experiences as well, including some very useful advice and information.
• A planner should check the SOHO monthly schedule and the SPWG (Solar Physics Working Group) meeting minutes to determine the upcoming observations. A list of JOP descriptions is available. Once the upcoming JOPs are determined, the EIT JOP contacts list assigns an EIT team member to most of the JOPs. The associated team member should be contacted to determine whether EIT will participate in the JOP. Sometimes the turnaround time between EIT team members, planners, and JOP leaders can be a couple of weeks, so it is best to begin discussing the JOP a few weeks in advance.

  If the observing sequence is in collaboration with another instrument or observatory, find their observing times so that our observing slot coincides with theirs. It may be necessary to request a staggered load time to ensure simultaneous images. Planners for various instruments can be found in the SOHO monthly schedule.

• Many sequences have to be tested. The planner should coordinate the observing schedule and confirm it with the operations team before the date of the observation, in case the sequence requires several days to be tested.

• Check the exposure tables for both the full-field and the partial field studies. Because activity levels on the sun and the response of the CCD can vary, it is necessary to vary exposure tables.

• Always: Keep in mind movies and images which are good examples of various phenomena. People are always coming in and would like to see an example of macrospicules or polar plumes, so it's a good idea to keep a few movie titles in mind.

Weekly:

• Produce and distribute EIT news to EIT team mailing list (twice a week would be even better).

• Attend weekly planning meetings on Friday, just after the daily meeting. Make certain that IAP's have been submitted by Thursday afternoon, in preparation for the Friday meeting. Note that the planner needs to prepare for an upcoming shift the week before the schedule observing shift.

• Tuesdays are currently EIT's day to take the minutes at the daily meeting. The typed minutes are to be e-mailed to soc@soc.nascom.nasa.gov.

Engineering Sequence:
Below is a preliminary list of observations and procedures that should be regularly obtained in order to evaluate the health and safety of the instrument.
1) Dark exposures - weekly: 1 20 second, quarterly: series from 1 sec to 1000 sec in steps of 2
2) Exposure time sequence - quarterly, series from 1/32 sec - 20 sec, one wavelength?
3) Calibration lamp exposure - weekly
4) Light leak test - strip across the top image with 284::clear, monitor level - weekly
5) Deep exposure - 6 minutes 195 Ang, monthly, look for 1 arcmin circles, other features
6) Photon transfer curve - need procedure from Russ and Scott, all wavelengths, after bakeout
7) Extended pixel edge response (Charge Transfer Efficiency -CTE) - use cal-lamp, use virtual pixels (1 block) off edge, monthly
8) CCD Bakeout - times are variable, but usually every four months
9) Intercal JOPS - SOHO runs several intercalibration exercises on a monthly basis. Elaine Einfalt has the descriptions of the sequences usually run - the planner should check with the other instrument teams to ensure that the sequence EIT is running is commensurate with the other observations.

Science Planning Working Group (SPWG) meetings

EIT User's Guide Index | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 |

Return to the EIT User's Guide

Return to the EIT Home Page

The SDAC home page

The SOHO home page

EIT JOP Contacts

Inter-Cal Programs
01 Defise
02 Defise
03 Defise
04 Gurman
05
06 Defise
07
08
09
10 Moses