Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 05:42:27 -0600 (MDT) From: Pete Newman Subject: 2.5m obslog 20010525 (MJD 52055) Apache Point Observatory - SDSS 2.5m Observing Log 2001 May 25 - MJD 52055 PEOPLE ====== 2.5m Observers: Steph Snedden (APO), Pete Newman (APO) Support: Jon Brinkman (APO), R.H. Lupton KCMG (Princeton, by phone) Visitors: Tourists from Dallas (with hyperactive children) - it's Memorial Day weekend on the mountain (see Safety Issues). OBSERVING PLAN ============== Science. Imaging as priority once the moon has set, then spectroscopy. OBSERVING SUMMARY ================= Variable cloud all night, so spectroscopy. 4 plates finished. Excellent seeing, so we would have been imaging if not for the clouds. New azimuth fiducial table built, installed and used successfully. OBSERVERS' LOG ============== Before opening, we implemented the new fiducial tables built by JB following engineering work today (literal de-bugging) on the azimuth fiducial reader. Although not a really a problem, see Problems section #1 for details. We ran watcher on sdss-commish after RHL updated the version there (thanks!) so reducing the cpu load on sdsshost. We had the recurrent m4l problem in iop at the start of night. See Problems section #2 for details. The cartridge identifications in TPM and the watcher functioned correctly all night with cartridges 1/5/6/7/8/9. Plate 583, cartridge 5. Done in 3 exposures. Required fk5InFiber. During the second exposure the saoImage died on Steph's terminal (she was driving) and the guider stopped. See Problems section #3. We endStare'd the exposure (exp 10046) which had run for 613 seconds, sufficient to to get useful S/N. Five minutes lost, but no data. The first smear was taken with guider running so we took another. Plate 589, cartridge 9. Done in 3 exposures. Required fk5InFiber. Plate 611, cartridge 6. Done in 3 exposures. No fk5InFiber required. This was the plate we had problems with finding guide stars on two previous nights. Today, we had it unplugged, removed from the cartridge (we think - we are checking with Jean, who worked on it), replaced, replugged and remapped. Tonight, we found guide stars on the first gotoField! Note that the previous plates tonight required fk5InFiber commands to get stars. Again, the first smear was taken with guider running so we took another. Oops. So, do we have a problem with that cartridge or the plate? With the plate seating on the cartridge? Or what? We are confused, but happy to have photons! We suggest some checks for plate motion in the cartridge are made and compared with other plate/cartridge combinations. We have raised a high-priority PR on this (cartridge-hardware/2381) as a good couple of hours of observing were lost. Plate 621, cartridge 1. Done in 3 expsoures. No fk5InFiber required. We had a short time before morning twilight aftter we knew this plate would be done but too short to start exposures on another plate, so we obtained higher S/N for this plate ending at twilight. IMAGING DATA ============ Run Stripe Strip Flavor Lambda Last Frame # Begin End ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2338 100 O bias -7.18 -1.32 53 doghouse bias SPECTROSCOPY DATA ================= UT Exp Time flavor comment =============================================== ------ sequence 10041, plate -9999 ------- 00:41 10041 0.0 bias {{}} 03:05 10042 0.0 bias {{}} ------ sequence 10043, plate 583 ------- 04:15 10043 10.0 flat pre-flat 04:17 10044 2.0 arc pre-arc 04:39 10045 900.0 target science 04:53 10046 613.0 target science Stopped early, but good S/N 05:16 10047 901.0 target science 05:22 10048 240.0 smear {{Smear Pattern}} Guider running - ignore 05:29 10049 240.0 smear {{Smear Pattern}} ------ sequence 10050, plate 589 ------- 05:49 10050 10.0 flat pre-flat 05:51 10051 2.0 arc pre-arc 06:11 10052 901.0 target science 06:29 10053 901.0 target science 06:47 10054 901.0 target science 06:54 10055 240.0 smear {{Smear Pattern}} ------ sequence 10056, plate 611 ------- 07:19 10056 10.0 flat pre-flat 07:21 10057 2.0 arc pre-arc 07:42 10058 901.0 target science 08:14 10059 1201.0 target science 08:42 10060 1201.0 target science 08:49 10061 240.0 smear {{Smear Pattern}} Guider running - ignore 08:55 10062 240.0 smear {{Smear Pattern}} ------ sequence 10063, plate 621 ------- 09:11 10063 10.0 flat pre-flat 09:13 10064 2.0 arc pre-arc 09:37 10065 1201.0 target science 09:52 10066 721.0 target science 10:07 10067 721.0 target science 10:13 10068 240.0 smear {{Smear Pattern}} 10:18 10069 10.0 flat post-flat 10:20 10070 2.0 arc post-arc Plate 583 was observed in sequence(s) 10043 for a total of 2414 seconds Plate 589 was observed in sequence(s) 10050 for a total of 2703 seconds Plate 611 was observed in sequence(s) 10056 for a total of 3303 seconds Plate 621 was observed in sequence(s) 10063 for a total of 2643 seconds TAPES ===== To FNAL: JL4095 At APO: JL4096 PROBLEMS ======== 1) With some help from RHL, we built the new azimuth fiducial table and checked it in with a corrsponding new computed axis scale on the MCP main line, tagged it v5_0_1, then cut and declared the new version, switchMCP'ed and rebooted the MCP. The new fiducials led to errors of several arcseconds on all axes (why all axes?), so the automatic fiducial correction was rejected. Accepting fiducials via mcpMenu proceeded ok, and then normal corrections during trakcing worked fine. We had az offsets of i4l SPECTROSCOPY DATA: iop> sc4l, then s4l CARTRIDGE OFFSETS: telrun> convert 0,0 inst fk5 MIRROR POSITIONS: iop> m4l, start of run, track 121,30, focus=0, scale=1 FOCUS LOG: iop> f4l AXIS OFFSETS: iop> o4l LN2 180-LITER DEWARS: from TPM display at time noted. WEATHER DATA: from 'wlf Weather-yyyymmdd' on wx@marmot:~/data SOFTWARE VERSIONS: iop> iopVersion; watcherVersion; mcpVersion; astrodaVer tccmon> show version; others from their windows TIMES: All times APO local (MST/MDT) unless specified. MAIL TO: obs-report-25m@apo.nmsu.edu SUBJECT: 2.5m obslog yyyymmdd (MJD xxxxx)