From: ank@apo.nmsu.edu Subject: 2.5m obslogs 20001116 (MJD 51864) Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 06:23:30 -0700 (MST) [mail to: obs-report-25m@apo.nmsu.edu include MJD in subject] Wednesday Nov 15 2000 Apache Point Observatory SDSS 2.5m Observing Log (MJD 51864) OBSERVING TEAM: =============== Mike Harvanek (APO) Atsuko Nitta Kleinman (APO) Scot Kleinman (APO) Steph Snedden (APO) -- via phone VISITORS: ========= Larry Carey (UW) Connie Rockosi (UC) - via phone THE PLAN: ========= Science if possible. Finish off the collimation. SYNOPSIS FOR NIGHT: =================== Worked on collimation with the imager. High winds early. Lots of clouds in the middle of the night. Cleared towards the end. Did some biases for Connie. TELESCOPE STATUS: ================= Opened:18:00 2:30 Closed:20:00 5:30 DIMM: ===== INTERLOCKS: =========== none bypassed SOFTWARE USED: ============== IOP/SOP: v3_19_1 Watcher: v2_8_6 MCP: v4_3_9 TPM: v2_1_3 AstroDa: 14_34 TCC: 2.4.1 WEATHER SYNOPSIS (see below for hourly data): ============================================= The sky was clearing at the beginning of the night. But this meant strong wind. Once the wind became calmer, clouds were coming and going very fast overhead. GENERAL COMMENTS (see Problems below for details): ================================================== The afternoon checkout went fine. Connie contacted us and asked to do "cc setvddnom". When the camera is cold and in operation, the vdd volts are suppose to be 24V. The camera rebooted itself yesterday morning and vdd volts were left at 15V --the default value. Connie said she will send out email on this to all of us to clarify. At the beginning of the night, we had "no communication" to the camera in watcher and when we sent commands (such as cc camcheck, vcheck) from iop to the camera, we got ftelnet failure messages. Luckily Craig was on site today, and we asked him where to telnet and which port to logout to communicate to the camera. We logout port 18 on t-g-sdss-2.apo.nmsu.edu 2000 and were able to talk to the camera happily again. After opening, we started imaging (86,N). The wind gust was about 30-33m/h. The sky was not photometric. But this should be ok for collimation if the seeing is reasonable (1.5 or smaller). 3.5m observer nor DIMM could tell us the seeing. When we looked at out-of-focus donuts, they looked not even. But since we did not know if this is because of the telescope is not in thermal equillibirum or collimation. We decided to try focusing to see what we get with the current mirror position. If the FWHM of the images are within survey spec, then we can start taking science data as soon as the thin cirrus goes away. We could tell from the focus loop plot that the focus was changing fast and we were getting about 2.0 and larger FWHM. We decided to wait for a while in hopes that it might get better as the telescope reaches thermal equilibrium. We also noted that the interlock system showed one of the flat field screen being "open bit" being "bad". The wind seems to be sometimes moving the petal enough to make the interlock thinks that it was not fully open. As we waited, we ran skippy to align the rotator. After moving the rotator, but before we could confirm that the rotator was now aligned, the wind gust exceed 35m/h. So we ran to close the enclosure. While we waited for the wind to calm down, we took yet another bias tests for Connie. The biases were taken with the imager on the telescope and the scope at inst change position (121, 90, 0). Connie sent us email saying she pulled over the data. By the time wind calmed down, the clouds started to come and go very fast overhead. They seem to be forming around us. We patiently waited for the sky to be clear so that we can open and finish checking the collimation. Around 2:30, the clouds started to go away, and we opened. This time we went to 11,N with the imager. After focusing and setting up the rotator (offset for -0.05), we took out of focus (+-500) images. (BTW, 3.5m was getting 1.0" seeing while we got around 2" seeing.) The donuts looked squashed a bit and a hint brighter on the left upper side. We therefore decided to step through Dan's notes on how to fine tune the collimation. As the notes recommends, we re-homed and re-relaxed the primary again(5th time in 3 day). The MIGS after relaxing is A=0.0309, B=-0.0450, C=-0.0030, D=0.2310, E=1.8999, F=0.4000 which are similar to what we had before. We then went back to scanning and focusing (FWHM ~1.6"), rotator tweaking (offset of -0.04 -- the previous offset wasn't sticky). After the rotator tweak, the FWHM in i chips were around 1.4 when 3.5m was getting 1.25" -- their FWHM became worse than when we reopened and ours has improved. We thought that maybe our telescope is still in the process of cooling. We sat and watched the FWHM for a while, and it was getting better all the time. It seemed like the telescope was still not in equilibrium and that is why the FWHM was getting better as we sat and watched. We noticed then the humidity was on the rise and reached over 80% around 4:45. We did not feel like we could achieve the fine tuning before twilight or the humidity to rise above closure condition. We did take out-of-focus donuts and saved two frames in /usrdevel/ank/donuts. Frame 76 was taken +500 out-of-focus and 86 was taken -500 out-of-focus. The +500 donuts look as if the top and bottom parts are brighter where -500 donuts look like the right and left parts are brighter. I thought Jim would like to take a look. Sorry that I could not get all the frames, but there is only limited amount of disk space and we filled it up when we did getAllFrames. When we were closing, both the first and the second time, the telescope did not stop when we sent it from Alt=30 to Alt=6 degrees from the MCP. We hit the stop button to stop the telescope. We are not sure why this happened, and a PR was filed. This did not happen when we sent the telescope down to 6 degrees when we were opening the enclosure. The PMSS alarm is still active but defeated. DATA ACQUISITION (see IOP/SOP output below): =========================================== IMAGING: -------- Run Type --- ---- 1846 bias 1847 engineering to check collimation and focus etc. 1848 bias 1849 bias --- Connie's test biases. They are in the pool. frame 8-19 t-bar at telescope operation position frame 20 switching the t-bar frame 21-32 t-bar at doghouse maintenance position 1850 eng checking the collimation 1851 eng checking collimation SPECTROSCOPY: ------------- Exposure Type -------- ---- 7010 bias MIRRORS: inside enclosure ======== PRIMARY: -------- MIGS from last dark run Axial A=0.0309 0.0160 Axial B=-0.0439 -0.0109 Axial C=-0.0030 0.0270 Transverse D=0.2300 0.2269 Lateral E=1.8990 1.8984 Lateral F=0.3989 0.4054 GALILS Commanded:4900., -2500., 200., -6650., -100., -350. Actual: 4900., -2500., 200., -6650., -100., -350. SETMIR VALUES primDesOrient: primOrient:0.00, -4.56, 6.14, 325.99, 240.03 SECONDARY: ---------- Focus:192.6 Temp:-3.5 Altitude:90 -- inside the enclosure MIGS Axial A=-0.1819 Axial B=-0.1129 Axial C=-0.1499 Transverse D=0.0179 GALILS Commanded:62700., 62700., 62700., 2800., 4000. Actual: 130141., 123376., 143181., 2800., 4000. SETMIR VALUES secDesOrient: secOrient:104.78, -6.07, -0.89, -0.59, -171.01 FOCUS LOG: ========== M1 Piston M2 Piston Temp Wind Time Inst setmir TCC setmir Az Alt C Dir MPH filt FWHM " (rel) (abs) LN2 SCHEDULE: ============= Spectro filled at 5:30. Spectro=20lb, Imager=73lb. PROBLEMS: ========= WEATHER DATA: ============= Wind Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust DIMM Sky Precip. 17:01 31 11 16 284 (WNW) 442 pcl 18:01 31 10 17 273 (W) 421 pcl 19:01 31 10 14 283 (WNW) 528 pcl 20:01 30 12 20 251 (WSW) 526 pcl 21:01 28 12 20 275 (W) 594 mcl 22:01 29 15 19 279 (W) 546 mcl 23:01 27 15 16 272 (W) 604 mcl 00:01 26 13 14 267 (W) 559 mcl 01:01 26 14 11 265 (W) 524 mcl 02:01 25 15 14 269 (W) 561 mcl 03:01 23 16 12 267 (W) 591 clr 04:01 23 17 12 277 (W) 610 clr 05:01 22 18 8 307 (NW) 624 clr [pmt]cl = partly, mostly, totally cloudy DATA LOGS FROM IOP/SOP: =======================