TITLE: 01/11 Owl Shift: 08:00-16:00 UTC (00:00-08:00 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Wind
INCOMING OPERATOR: Ed
SHIFT SUMMARY:
The tumbleweeds were a rollin' (& setting off the motion sensor lights all night!). In other words: LOTS OF WIND!! (Attached are photos of the X-arm...which is partially buried for a couple of sections!)
No real method to the madness, but for SEI_CONF I tried different states for on the order of an hour and then tried something else since I've been desperate.
Finally made it to OBSERVING during the last hour of the shift, but the microseism is high and the winds are sort of low...but have had some gusts.
H1 is fairly glitchy with DMT Omega showing lots of "shelf noise" from 20-50Hz. I'm wondering if changing SEI_CONF or SEI_DIFF could remove some of this noise...but I'm hesitant to touch anything since we are teetering on a very noisy Earth. I went up to NLN & am currently at these settings:
- SEI_CONF: USEISM_WINDY-----> Would it be worth it to take this to WINDY?
- SEI_DIFF: FULL_DIFF_CPS------> Would it be worth it to take this to DOWN or CORNER?
OVERALL, What made it possible to get to OBSERVING during the last hour was the winds finally starting to die down. Let's hope they stay manageable!!
LOG:
- Starting States:
- SEI_CONF: USEISM_WINDY
- SEI_DIFF: FULL_DIFF_CPS
- OBSERVATORY MODE: WIND
- Locking: Check mich fringes for BS....
- 8:26 Low temperature alarm for MX.
- 8:45 SEI_CONF to WINDY; this was after a few locklosses
- made it furthest of the night so far, but winds dropped slightly...for a little while.
- 9:25 SEI_DIFF to DOWN.
- Had a few early locklosses, but definitely heard/felt loud gusts outside during these locklosses. :-/
- 9:35 back to FULL
- 10:00-10:53 Paused at LOCKING ARMS GREEN
- 10:01 subGRB alert received. Notified other Control Rooms.
- 11:06 BRS Y is actively DAMPING. So went to WINDY NO BRSY, but gave up briefly to instead try an alignment.
- 11:19-11:37 Initial Alignment run
- 11:54 went to MORE WINDY state
- But Green Arms wouldn't lock
- 11:59 went to USEISM_WINDY
- 13:02 EQ Alert: 6.0 from Puerto Rico (transitioned to EARTHQUAKE as I'm holding at OFFLOAD DRMI).
- 13:13 Winds drop to about 15mph!! (but also incoming PR EQ)
- 13:20 PR EQ rolls in.
- Switched back to EARTHQUAKE!
- Then switched to USEISM_WINDY at some point (it's all a blur
- 15:12 sub-grb, but ignored since we were not in OBSERVING. let Virgo know via chat window.
- 15:15 OBSERVING!
Additional Notes:
- One can clearly see microseismic oscillations on the Cavity Build-Up ndscope on the front wall monitors.
- SEI_CONF guidance technically says we should probably still be in the WINDY state.
- I remember a few weeks ago it being mentioned if one can clearly see microseismic shelving in DARM at 20-50Hz, it might be better to take the SEI_DIFF to the DOWN state (but more recently Jim has said with high microseism & winds the current FULL state might be better.
Just trying to think of a knob we can turn to make H1 less-glitchy and prevent it from losing lock (because locking is definitely tougher if we have any winds over 25mph AND high microseism. So we want to stay in the more stable NLN by any means possible.