Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 07:07:24 -0600 From: "Eric H. Neilsen, Jr." Subject: 2.5m obslog 20010212 (MJD 51953) APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY SDSS 2.5M OBSERVING LOG Mondar February 12, 2001 (MJD 51953) OBSERVING TEAM: =============== Jurek Krzesinski (APO) Eric Neilsen (FNAL) Steph Snedden (APO) PT VISITORS: ========= Alan Uomoto (JHU) PT THE PLAN: ========= Science. SYNOPSIS: ========= We fight thick clouds in the beginning of the night to get a few possibly useful exposures on cartridge 7, plate 541. As we are doing catridge 7, the flat field petals start closing of their own volition. At around the same time, the clouds come in in sufficient force that we should close anyway. Later we reopen to attempt cartridge 3, but we cannot get the flat field petals to stay open, and close shortly after 5:00. GENERAL COMMENTS (see Problems below for details): ================================================== At 4:45, Open East door fully, west door 1 foot, turn exhaust fan on. French and Jon B. are busy plugging a plate which just arrived. At 6:30, we have cartridge 7, plate 541 on the telescope, and open. It is, however, very cloudy. At 7:30, we close due to very thick clouds an nearby rain on the radar map. We leave the doors a few feet open to help ventalation. We then move on to taking spectro darks. On completion of the first set of darks, the MCP display shows that the slit head is not extended. We are not sure whether to believe it: I think I did extended them, but am not completely certain. As it is still too cloudy for science, we take 3 more darks (with slit heads extended) just to be sure. At 12:10, the clouds have cleared enough to reopen. We replace the imager dewar, and (after opening) force a refill of the spectrographs. We note that spectrograph 2 took a lot longer (factor of 3?) to fill than spec 1. We also broke the latch control box door in opening. We acquire cartridge 7 at 12:15. We manage to get all fibers nicely in the centers of their fibers except for fiber 5, which is near the edge. It does not appear to be in a special place on the plate, such that a rotation might affect it more than the others. The watcher interlocks display shows alt, az, and rot all red, but hitting them for details shows everything as green. Forcing an update does not change anything. Asking watcher for the root of the problem, I am told that I don't have any problems. The MCP window and tccMon indicate everything is working fine, and we continue to guide correctly based on the guider image. I assume watcher is confused. After several exposures (successful enough to be certain that they were open, the last one of which was 8671) the doNextScience complained that it could not open the flat field screens. Shortly before Tue Feb 13 08:53:51 UTC 2001, we try to open the screen with the MCP, we see them open on the camera, and then they immediately close again! Once again, we open them, watch them open, and then close immediately. We end the exposure (8672), as it will certainly be worthless as most of the exposure is of the flat field screen. We repeat this procedure at the telescope, watching the flat field screens directly. Still, they close themselves immediately after opening. Bringing the telescope down to 25 degrees alt, 121 az, they seem stay open (other pointings close themselves). The flat field petal at 3:00 flops about some in the wind at all orientations. We suspect the wind; we have gusts up to 30 mph, and 131,25 is slightly more shielded than other pointings. Using the ladder to push it by hand, it does not automatically reopen itself (like the others do) when pushed. At this point, the sky is very cloudy. We do not put a new plate on, and are ready to close quickly if necessary. Eventually, the sky clear off, and we change to cartridge 3. On returning to the control room, we realize that, in the distraction of the float field petal problem and the unpleasant weather, we had forgotten to do a postCalib on cartridge 7. We therefore return to the telescope, take cartridge 3 off, and put cartridge 7 back on. The first postCalib we try on cartridge 7 is still pointed at instrument change. The second postCalib is taken pointed at the field, which at this point is at an elevation of 22.7 degrees! Jurek goes down to the telescope to watch in person to ensure that it does not hit the rail. We are skeptical about whether either postCalib is valid. After putting cartridge 3 back on, we have the same problem as before with getting the flat field screens to stay open. It is clear that we cannot take data. It is already 4:00, so calling anyone to help fix the problem tonight is pointless. We go down to the telescope, and try opening the flat field screens there using the MCP. They close right away. We then move the telescope to stow (121,30), and open them there, and they stay open. We slowly move the telescope back to the rough direction of the field (with the screens open), and they stay open, even after we get there. We return to the control room, and issue a gotoField -gflat. The screens close for the flat, open, and then immediately close again. We then bring the telescope back to 121,30, and then gotoField (without the gflat option). The screen stays open a few minutes. We then to a gotoField -gflat. The screens close themselves immediately after opening after the flats. Returning to an Az of 121, but keeping the altitude fairly high, we try and open the petals. They close immediateily. We lower the telescope back to 121,30. We open the flat field petals, and they stay open. Finally, we raise the altitude (with the petals still open), and they stay open. We then try closing and then opening them. They close themselves immediately. Apparently, the flat flield screens will only stay open if they are opened with the telescope pointed near stow! At this point, it is after 5:00. We close the telescope. DATA ACQUISITION (see IOP/SOP output below): =========================================== IMAGING: -------- Run Stripe Strip Flavor Lambda Last Frame # Begin End ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2107 100 O ignore -147.15 -141.64 46 SPECTROSCOPY: ------------- UT Exp Time flavor comment =============================================== ------ sequence 8659, plate -9999 ------- 00:05 8659 0.0 bias {{}} ------ sequence 8660, plate 541 ------- 03:57 8660 0.0 dark dark, possibly w/o slitheads extended 04:15 8661 0.0 dark dark, possibly w/o slitheads extended 04:32 8662 0.0 dark dark, possibly w/o slitheads extended 05:07 8663 0.0 dark {{dark with slitheads extended}} 05:29 8664 0.0 dark {{dark with slidheads extended}} 05:46 8665 0.0 dark {{dark with slitheads extended}} 07:32 8666 10.0 flat pre-flat 07:34 8667 2.0 arc pre-arc 07:52 8668 900.0 target science 08:09 8669 900.0 target science 08:28 8670 900.0 target science 08:45 8671 900.0 target science 08:56 8672 0.0 target science aborted exposure 10:32 8673 10.0 flat post-flat taken at instChange 10:34 8674 2.0 arc post-arc taken at instChange 10:39 8675 10.0 flat post-flat taken near 22 degress alt 10:41 8676 2.0 arc post-arc taken near 22 degrees alt OFFSETS: Time Cart Plate getclock Az Alt Rot Scale 00:16 7 541 982048595 -0.002837 -0.001231 -0.031925 1.000040 01:12 7 541 982051977 -0.002837 -0.001231 -0.031925 1.000190 TAPES: Goes to FNAL: JL3622 Stays at APO: JL3623 MIRROR NUMBERS ============== PRIMARY: -------- Scale: 1.000000 MIGS TONIGHT NOMINAL Axial A: 0.0390 0.0150 Axial B: -0.0370 -0.0510 Axial C: 0.0399 0.0300 Trans D: 3.7500 3.7560 Lateral E: 1.9049 1.9100 Lateral F: 0.4054 0.4095 GALILS Commanded: 4900. -2750. 450. -6650. 8750. 8300. Actual: 4900. -2750. 450. -6650. 8750. 8300. SETMIR VALUES primDesOrient: 0.00 -4.40 10.70 586.50 240.70 primOrient: 0.00 -4.56 10.53 586.58 240.03 SECONDARY: ---------- Focus: 0.0 Air temp: 5.2 C Altitude: 30.00 MIGS TONIGHT Axial A: -1.2669 Axial B: -1.2669 Axial C: -1.2699 Trans D: 0.1889 GALILS Commanded: 1583850. 1583850. 1583850. 2600. 3800. Actual: 1583869. 1583876. 1583838. 2600. 3800. SETMIR VALUES secDesOrient: 1257.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 -175.00 secOrient: 1257.02 0.01 0.00 0.00 -175.13 FOCUS LOG: ========== setmir piston Temp Wind Time Inst scale M1 M2 Foc Az Alt (C) MPH Dir filt fwhm 00:43 7 541 1.00019 -1876 -395 0 259 57.4 3.5 16 187 2.5 01:13 7 541 1.00019 -1876 -376 0 257 51.3 3.3 18 182 2.7 WEATHER SYNOPSIS ================ Clouds of varying thickness all night. Winds are also high, but never reach closing conditions. WEATHER DATA: ============= Wind Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust 16:01 45 8 9 226 (SW) 548 cloudy 17:01 43 12 16 219 (SW) 586 cloudy 18:01 40 11 14 183 (S) 685 partly cloudy 19:01 40 12 15 211 (SSW) 1178 cloudy 20:01 40 13 17 197 (SSW) 919 cloudy 21:01 39 18 15 173 (S) 593 cloudy 22:01 39 20 18 185 (S) 514 partly cloudy 23:01 39 23 18 181 (S) 489 partly cloudy 00:01 39 25 15 181 (S) 348 partly cloudy 01:01 38 25 18 182 (S) 315 cloudy 02:01 38 26 22 190 (S) 363 cloudy 03:01 36 29 19 195 (SSW) 370 mostly clear 04:01 35 27 20 186 (S) 377 clear 05:01 35 27 18 186 (S) 498 clear LN2 SCHEDULE: ============= Spectro dewar weight 230 lb at 05:36. Imager dewar weight 235 lb at 05:36. TELESCOPE STATUS: ================= Stowed at 30 deg alt, Cartridge 3 on telescope. Spectro auto-fill connected. INTERLOCKS: =========== none bypassed SOFTWARE USED: ============== IOP/SOP: v3_29_2 Watcher: v2_8_14 MCP: v4_5_0, v4_5_1 TPM: v2_2_2 AstroDa: v14_34 TCC: v2.5.0b2 PROBLEMS IN DETAIL: =================== DATA LOGS FROM IOP/SOP: =======================