Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 06:11:40 -0600 From: "s. a. snedden" Subject: 2.5m obslog 20000501 (MJD 51666) APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY SDSS 2.5M OBSERVING LOG Monday May 01 2000 (MJD 51666) Observers of the World Unite! (In commemoration of May Day) OBSERVING TEAM: =============== Ellyne Kinney (APO) Shift 1 Jeffrey Hayes (APO) Shift 1 Steph Snedden (APO) Shift 2 Dan Long (APO) Shift 2 Bing Chen (JHU) PT Visitors: --------------------- Scott Burles (FNAL) Dave Schlegel (PU) Mamoru Doi (JPG) THE PLAN: ========= Spectroscopy unless weather improves enough to do imaging, in which case a scan along stripe 10. SYNOPSIS: ========= First half cloudy till 20:00. We opened at about 21:00 and got on the sky with cartridge 4 as it does not have angle measures for the fibres. Cartridges 8 and 3 were also completed. We attempted to observe cartridge 6, but had problems (see main comments section). GENERAL COMMENTS (see Problems below for details): ================================================== The telescope was fiducialized and ready to go by twilight. Cartridge 4/plate 324 was loaded on the telescope at sundown. Clouds kept us from doing much initially, but we opened by 21:00. Five 900s exposures were taken, as seeing and cloud cover warranted an additional exposure. Cartridge 8, plate 300 was mounted next.Four 900s exposures were made. Skies had cleared and seeing was about 2 arcsec. We had no problems. Next was Cartridge 3, plate 309. It was necessary to go to an FK5 star first. There was a problem with preCalib 1 2 (see problems section). Four exposures were made under approx. 2 arcsec seeing. We tried loading the previously measured fiber angles, and were able to guide with them (hence no starPattern was done). About 10 minutes into the third exposure, we lost the TCC connection, so the last 1/3 of that exposure had no guiding (see the problems section). We then decided to put cartridge 6, plate 345 on and take exposures up to 12 degree twilight, to see how far into twilight we can safely work. We immediately ran into problems acquiring any stars at all down the fibers. Even a spiralPattern on an FK5 star showed nothing. We tried going to a 3rd magnitude star and still could see only sky. Long exposures brought up the background levels, so we do believe the guide fiber itself was in place, and yes, the flat field screens were open. We are at something of a loss to explain what is going on. The plate number for this cartridge is correct. The map file for the plate is plPlugMapM-0345-51664-01.par. Is there a problem with this file? We finally decided that all of tonight's problems are due to the fact that today's MJD ends in "666". Since there were no other cartridges plugged for pre-twilght, we stowed the telescope. DATA ACQUISITION (see IOP/SOP output below): =========================================== IMAGING: -------- Run Flavor Frames Notes --- ------ ------ ----- SkyGang: -------- SPECTROSCOPY: ------------- Frame flavor Notes ----- ------ ----- 3613 initial bias Cart 4/plate 324 ---------------- NOTE: guider fiber 3 is dead (i.e. transmits no light). Pre-guiding angles using starPatt: sp1> parray gFiber *rot* gFiber(gprobe,1,rot) = -15.471584452561066 gFiber(gprobe,10,rot) = 42.094972692746175 gFiber(gprobe,11,rot) = 24.92368037088206 gFiber(gprobe,2,rot) = 28.766514336440668 gFiber(gprobe,3,rot) = -720 gFiber(gprobe,4,rot) = -720 gFiber(gprobe,5,rot) = -720 gFiber(gprobe,6,rot) = -108.96453074690449 gFiber(gprobe,7,rot) = -99.041874856269715 gFiber(gprobe,8,rot) = -157.29443165915072 gFiber(gprobe,9,rot) = 1.5163979826761929 3614 flat pre 3615 arc pre 3616 arc pre 3617 science 900s 3618 science 900s 3619 science 900s 3620 science 900s 3621 science 900s 3622 diamondPt1 az 60s 3623 diamondPt2 az 60s 3624 diamondPt1 alt 60s 3625 diamondPt2 alt 60s 3626 flat post 3627 arc post 3628 arc post Post-guiding angles for fibres: sp1> parray gFiber *rot* gFiber(gprobe,1,rot) = -15.471584452561066 gFiber(gprobe,10,rot) = 42.094972692746175 gFiber(gprobe,11,rot) = 24.92368037088206 gFiber(gprobe,2,rot) = 28.766514336440668 gFiber(gprobe,3,rot) = -720 gFiber(gprobe,4,rot) = -720 gFiber(gprobe,5,rot) = -720 gFiber(gprobe,6,rot) = -108.96453074690449 gFiber(gprobe,7,rot) = -99.041874856269715 gFiber(gprobe,8,rot) = -157.29443165915072 gFiber(gprobe,9,rot) = 1.5163979826761929 Cart 8/plate 300 ---------------- 3629 ff pre 3630 arc pre 3631 arc pre 3632 science 900s 3633 science 900s 3634 science 900s 3635 science 900s 3636 Diamond offset in Az +1.5 ALT +0 3637 Diamond offset in Az +1.5 ALT +0 3638 Diamond offset in Az +0 ALT +1.5 3639 Diamond offset in Az +0 ALT +1.5 3640 post-flat 3641 post-arc 3642 post-arc Cartridge 3, plate 309 ---------------------- Offsets needed: 236.1909 -20.464582431715279 55.355081703884423 -20.468247729952168 55.352406938164002 -0.003665298236889214, -0.002674765720421135, 0 TCC offsets: CalibOff = -0.003665, -0.002675, 0.000000 3643 bias (shift change necessitated a new SOP, hence new bias -init) 3644 post-flat(Really a pre-flat, but guiderFlat failed, so we did a "post" sequence) 3645 post-arc (Really a pre-arc) 3646 post-arc (Really a pre-arc) 3647 science 900s 3648 science 900s 3649 science 900s 3650 science 900s 3651 Diamond offset in Az +1.5 ALT +0 3652 Diamond offset in Az +1.5 ALT +0 3653 Diamond offset in Az +0 ALT +1.5 3654 Diamond offset in Az +0 ALT +1.5 3655 post-flat 3656 post-arc 3657 post-arc TAPES ===== JL 2658 to be shipped. MIRROR NUMBERS ============== Primary: (scale = 0.99990) setmir( cmd ): -9600., -18600., -15700., 4200., 7350., 7050. galil( act ): -9600., -18600., -15700., 4200., 7350., 7050. linear gauges Tonight Nominal 1 = Axial A = 1.9284 1.9285 2 = Axial B = 0.5589 0.5595 3 = Axial C = 0.5579 0.5580 4 = Transverse = 0.3734 0.3745 5 = East Lateral = 1.9065 1.9065 6 = West Lateral = 0.4074 0.4075 The linear gauge values were nominal at scale=1.0 Secondary: (inst=spectro focus=-60 alt= 52.9 deg T=6.9C) scale= 0.99990 setmir( act ): 1917.36, 5.00, -4.97, 50.12, -30.79 galil ( act ): 2427577., 2414771., 2404428., -1900., -6450. linear gauges 1 = Axial A = -1.1749 2 = Axial B = -1.1450 3 = Axial C = -1.1459 4 = Transverse = 0.0149 FOCUS LOG: ========== M1 Piston M2 Piston Temp Wind Time Inst setmir TCC setmir Az Alt C Dir MPH filt FWHM " 02:15 Spec 0.20 -130 1025.85 -25.95 54.42 5.9 262 2.9 2.0 03:15 Spec 493.58 -80 1523.09 -52.85 43.23 5.6 265 4.3 1.7 WEATHER SYNOPSIS ================ Cloudy initially (till 20:00). Then clear with light winds out of the west. WEATHER DATA: ============= Wind Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust DIMM Sky 16:01 48 27 10 301 (WNW) 978 mcl 17:01 54 25 8 278 (W) 1227 mcl 18:01 47 24 9 324 (NW) 1212 mcl 19:01 46 25 6 349 (NNW) 1123 mcl 20:01 44 26 2 305 (NW) 1072 pcl 21:01 45 27 5 269 (W) 1133 2'' mclr 22:01 44 27 7 304 (NW) 1129 1.2'' pcl 23:01 41 27 5 28 (NNE) 854 3'' mclr 00:01 44 27 6 346 (NNW) 1090 1.5'' clr 01:01 43 28 6 344 (NNW) 1034 1,5'' clr 02:01 43 27 4 273 (W) 1153 1.8'' clr 03:01 42 26 5 267 (W) 1103 2'' clr 04:01 43 25 4 276 (W) 1222 clr 05:01 43 26 6 332 (NNW) 1164 clr pcl == party cloudy, mcl==mostly cloudy, mclr==mostly clear LN2 SCHEDULE: ============= Spectrographs were filled at 19:30 and 05:15. Dewar changed at 05:15. Weight=265 lb. Imager dewar was replaced at about 21:00 today with a partially full dewar. It was changed again at 05:15. Weight=278 lb. TELESCOPE STATUS: ================= Telescope in building at altitude=30 deg with cartridge 7, plate 285 mounted. INTERLOCKS: ----------- None bypassed. SOFTWARE USED: -------------- IOP/SOP: v3_13_1branch_1 Watcher: v2_8_2 MCP: v4_2_4 TPM: v1_0_8 AstroDa: 14_24 TCC: 2.2.5 PROBLEMS IN DETAIL: =================== SOP --- 1) While doing a preCalib 1 2 for cartridge 3, guiderFlat crashed with this message: Error: shSubRegNew: ending row/col out of bounds. According to Scott, the frame around one of the guiderFlat images goes out of the CCD boundary, causing this error. Until this is fixed, a workaround is to do a "postCalib" instead of a "preCalib", so that the guiderFlat step is omitted. A PR was filed. 2) 2/3 of the way through the third of 4 exposures on cartridge 3, guiding stopped. We got this message: Error: error writing "file7": Broken pipe The connection to the TCC was lost. We had to do a tccClose and a startDa -tcc in order to continue guiding again. The lost connection appeared to be spontaneous...the only thing that had been done with the TCC at the time the connection was lost was to adjust the focus slightly. A PR was filed. DATA LOGS FROM IOP/SOP: =======================