Subject: 2.5m obslog 19990913 (MJD 51435)
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 05:42:52 -0600 (MDT)
From: hayes@apo.nmsu.edu
			Monday September 13, 1999
                   Apache Point Observatory SDSS 2.5m
                           Observing Log
                           (MJD 51435)
Observing Team:
		Jeffrey Hayes (APO)
		Ellyne Kinney (APO)
                Connie Rockosi (UC)
		Scott Burles (UC)
                David Schegel (PU)
                Robert Lupton (PU)
                Steve Kent (FNAL)
"So Foule and faire a day I have not seene" -- The "Scottish Play"
                                                       aka "Macbeth" I:3
On for tonight, spectroscopy.  We have cartridge 5 and plate 187 on from
last night.  The counterweights are set to 290V.  We completed the pre-flight
checkout of the telescope by 18:00 and were ready to go.  At 18:00, humidity
stood at 84% and ominous clouds to the NW.
We started the TPM log at about 18:30.  No apparent problems with the NFS
deamon tonight.
At 20:30, it started to rain, with lightening.
At 01:00 it cleared out and humidity dropped to under 60% so that we could
start the all-sky camera in the anticipation of opening up.  However we
had to wait due to a great deal of moisture all over everything.  At 01:30
the humidity shot up to 70% with no real trend (i.e. it bounced all over).
Given the amount of water everywhere still, we had to wait some more.
At 03:10 the humidity finally(!) dropped to the point where we could open
and get on the sky.  We swapped to cartridge 4 and plate 202.  All was done
in 40 minutes.  Robert can now open the petals from "sop", so no need to
go down.  The counterweights were set to 290V.  There was a confusion with
the correct version astroDa -- it was rolled back to v13_1 via the
command "dscSwitchSystem -f v13_1"
We obtained an FK5 star down a fiber at 04:10, and slewed to the field by
04:20.
The TCC was rather glacial but a "telstop" seemed to cure things.  Next was
to obtain the focus in the fibers.  Because the telescope was warm (we
couldn't run the blower for fear of having the vapour condense on the mirror),
getting the focus was a struggle.  At 04:25 focus was set to 2850, but it
wandered severely.  While we were slewing between the FK5 star and the
centre of the field, we had an AZ axis run away.  It hit the limit and
had to be pushed off from that limit by Scott and Jeffrey.  At about this
same time 05:00, the humidity shot-up to 88%, and so we closed up.
We left cartridge 4 on, and will change back to cartridge 5 if we get the
chance tomorrow.
LN2 schedule:  SP1:  17:30: 04:15
               SP2:  17:15; 03:20
               Imager dewar:
We finished up at 05:10.
Jeffrey and Ellyne