From: "S. A. Snedden"
Subject: 2.5m Obslog 990819 (MJD 51410)
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 03:25:19 -0600
                                 Thursday August 19, 1999
                                            (MJD 51410)
                       Apache Point Observatory SDSS 2.5m
                                           Observing Log
Tonight's Observing Team:
 Ellyne Kinney (APO)
 Jeffrey Hayes (APO)
 Stephanie Snedden (APO)
 Connie Rockosi(UC)
Jon Brinkmann (APO)
 Scott Bureles (UC)
 Matt Newcomb (APO/CMU)
 Bob Nichol (CMU)
 Bill Boroski (FNAL)
 Jim Gunn (PU)
Connie and Jon got both spectrographs cooling by the beginning of twilight,
and
brought the 4 CCDs to life. Jim Gunn and Mike Carr worked on the arc and
flat field lamps.
We tried to opened at 8:30 pm MDT as we had fair skies and moderate 50%)
humidity, but by the time we had the building half off, lightning
from the N (around Alamogordo), SE and W made its presence known.  at that
point we bravely ran away, after closing up the building.
Like last night, the wind was quite gusty (25 mph) from the East.
The 2 spectrographs, cartridge 1 and the corrector, along with the
petals gives a counterweight voltage of 500.
On tap for tonight, if possible, get data for a focus vs altitute model and
use the calibration lamps on the telescope to obtain the first calibrations
of the spectrographs.  Scott took the lead on getting the focus from the
Ne and Hg+Cd line lamps.  This work was started at about 9:45 pm, and we
had images displayed on the sp1 and sp2 monitors, although the blue spectro2
CCD was too warm to give good images.  We also generated flat
fields using the tungsten lamps. Exposure times of 30 seconds seemed to be
about right.  All these calibrations were done inside the building
reflecting the
light from the petals.
We checked the weather at 1 am and noted a tremendous amount of lightning
to the N and E.  The humidity also got to 70% at this time.
JEG and Connie were working down at the telescope and reported that for the
better part of 30 minutes the rotator amplifier would not reset (i.e. they
pushed the reset button numerous times), and then at the end of trying
for 30 minutes, it magically did.  This is the second night in a row where
we have had a spontaneous problem with the amps, and so we advise a
check-up on this.
We called it a night at 03:15 am MDT.
Steph, Jeff & Ellyne reporting for all