One week ago, all of LCO's 1-meter telescopes are equipped with Sinistro cameras. Today, all of the Sinistros are available for science observations, and the raw images are getting processed through the BANZAI reduction pipeline.
The last two Sinistros to complete the commissioning process were fl15 (in Dome A in Chile) and fl16 (in Dome A in South Africa). fl15 began acquiring science images last night (2016-10-26). fl16 began acquiring science images last weekend (2016-10-22 and 10-23). The release of fl16 comes with a warning: some of the raw images from this camera show peculiar horizontal streaks, especially in the lower-right quadrant. The streaks are not removed by flat-fielding. We are trying to determine the cause of the streaks, but the intermittency of their appearance makes the investigation difficult. We have decided to release the fl16 Sinistro for science observations because most images are streak-free, and because overall, the camera performs better than the SBIG camera that it replaced. We will continue to monitor the images produced by fl16, and if the frequency of the "streak problem" increases, we will take the camera offline. We ask you to alert us if you see streaks in fl16 images acquired for your science projects.
