Tip Tilt Corrections

The tip tilt stage’s X axis has extremely limited range. This changes with time and is either completely crippling, or completely unnoticeable. This can negatively impact the tip tilt performance in 1 dimension and thus RV precision. As of Nov 30, 2023, the X stage has effectively no range.

Ca HK Detector

Currently non-functional.

Double Star Observations

The tip tilt algorithms have not been optimized for double stars. Observers are welcome to try to observe double stars, but should assume things will not work. Remember that this is not the same as the MAGIQ guiding system, so your intuition there does not transfer to KPF.

Etalon

The etalon is providing substantially less than the expected flux. Simultaneous calibrations are not recommended, but are possible. Slew cals should be taken every hour. We have reasonable flux, but still much less than planned, the problem appears to be a damaged fiber in the etalon. Planning for a long term solution is ongoing.

LFC

Is operating normally. Standard exposure parameters are now ExpTime: 60, CalND1: OD 2.0, and CalND2: OD 0.1.

Detector Systems

The red and green detectors suffer from occasional “start state errors” in which the affected detector remains in the start phase and does not produce a useful exposure. The observing scripts now detect this occurrence, abort the current exposure (with read out) and start a fresh exposure on both cameras. No action is necessary on the part of the observer. This costs about a minute of time for this to happen, but the resulting data should be normal (unless another error occurs). The occurrence rate for these problems is 0.34% on the green detector and 0.22% on the red, so around one in every 180 exposures is affected by one of the two detectors experiencing this error.