Subject: 2.5m obslog 19990908 (MJD 51430)
Date: Thu,  9 Sep 1999 04:14:50 -0600 (MDT)
From: hayes@apo.nmsu.edu
			Wednesday September 08, 1999
		              (MJD 51430)
                   Apache Point Observatory SDSS 2.5m
                           Observing Log
Tonight's Observing Team:
                Francisco Castander (UC)
		Ellyne Kinney (APO)
                Jeffrey Hayes (APO)
                David Schegel (PU)
		Connie Rockosi (UC)
		Bill Boroski (FNAL)
                Bob Nichol (CMU) -- PIC
                Robert Lupton (PU)
Scheduled for this night: spectroscopy.  If we can, we will get spectra
(depending on weather, etc.), but if not, we will get sky spectra and
calibrations.  Cartridge 1 and plate 190 are to be used for the first
part of the night; cartridge 2 and plate 214 for the remainer of the night.
The imaging camera was taken off at 18:30 and cartridge 1 and plate 190
installed.  The counterweights were set to 275V.
Ellyne noted that there was a lot less water in the primary mirror support
plumbing than there was last night when it was discovered.  (Note that
this problem was reported to French et al, and is still being addressed
as the system seems to have been quite saturated over the last few weeks.
We think that this may have been the source of at least some of the problems
reported by Dan previously.)
The TPM log file was started at 17:00.  We experienced some unexpected
problems in getting "sop" to setup and work correctly.  It appears that the
fixes that were done to fix the "endNight" problems we saw last night in
"iop" seemed to break "sop".  Robert Lupton, who just arrived, managed
to fix some of these bugs.
At 21:00, the humidity rose to over 80% -- rather unexpected for this time
of year, and as the trend was a rise over the last 3 hours, it was
decided that we should try and wait it out.  The spectroscopy folks
spent the night getting calibrations and trying to talk to the spectrographs
through "sop".  By 01:30, we decided that if we could open, we would swap
cartridges, as plate 190 will be well past its optimal hour-angle.  We noted
at this time there was still condensation on the cars outside, even though the
humidity was down to about 70% at this point.  We continued to wait, in the
hope of getting on the sky.  At 03:30 we noted that there was still a lot
of condensation on the cars, the dumpsters, and the like.
At 02:45 I noticed that my session to the TPM was closed out.  I restarted.
The error message was:
Using version 7 of shared data located at 0x2800002
TPM>start 19990908.tpm
[TPM,tShell,0,I] Opening log file '/mcptpm/19990908.tpm'.
TPM>Connection closed by foreign host.
The log file after the restart was named /mcptpm/19990908_2.tpm.
At 03:50, I had to reboot the MCP as it froze up while exercising the
rotator to get the various line and flat field integrations for the
spectrographs.  We would like to inquire if the lamps at the upper left
(from the front-end of the telescope) are supposed to be better aligned?
Also, we are curious about the number of Ne lamps that were available
tonight? -- we had 2 for a while, then 1, and then a power cycle caused
2 to come on again.  Any comments from the engineering folks would be
welcome.
We replenished the LN2 in: SP1 at 21:30
                         ; SP2 at 21:20
			 ; Imager new dewar at 20:00
    Note that we will have no new full dewars until Norm can get them in
Alamagordo tomorrow (09 Sept).
We gave up at 04:20, with the hope for an on-sky night tomorrow.
Jeffrey.