Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 06:40:56 -0700 (MST)
From: Charles Corson
Subject: 3.5m obslog 971119
                         WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 19 1997
                         APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY
                              OBSERVING  LOG
                                    ACTUAL
ASTRONOMER   INSTRUMENT   DATE   START FINISH
Corson		DIS	  11/19  18:00 19:06
Hoopes		DIS	  11/19  19:06 23:50
 INST        SCHEDULED      OBS      WEATH     EQUIP   DAY   NOTUSED
I/RS/DN    START FINISH   D    B    D    B    D    B   USE   D    B
PU01/O     18:26 19:06    0.7  0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0
NM01/O     19:06 23:50    3.0  1.7  0    0    0    0    0    0    0
UW05/R     23:50 05:12    0    4.7  0    0    0    0.7  0    0    0
(note: times listed include instrument change time)
                               ACTIVITY LOG
(* means a trouble report has been issued or appended to)
The dome was opened early with clear skies, some cirrus.  The seeing was
good, but degraded during the second half as an upper level disturbance
moved through bringing uniform cirrus.
I observed for the Turner Lens project, data sets for two lens.
Charles Hoopes and David Thilker observed using DIS, Narrow Band blocking
filters, and multiple slits (interesting technique) to fully map a
H-alpha region in M33. The program went very well, though their object
tracked right through zenith.
Bernadette Rodgers used Dis as well, good efficiency but we were plaqued
with the cirrus and with galileo crashing.  *Galileo crashed for no known
reason, drives still good.  This stopped observing as McNode needed access
to a partition on galileo.  Craig heroically bailed me out, and Bernadette
only lost 40min of her time.
I include comments from both Charles Hoopes and Bernadette Rodgers.
Charles Hoopes:
"Overall a very good night. Observing went smoothly with very few
problems. We were testing a new method of using a multi-slit mask with
a filter on DIS. Charles was very helpful in setting up and using this
configuration. We got most (80%) of the data we wanted. We lost some
when the guider lost its guide star as we tracked through the
zenith. It took some time before we noticed this, because we were
watching the centroid position, which didn't change even when the star
was lost, and didn't notice the error message. This leads us to
suggest having an alarm to let the observer know that the guide star
has been lost. It would also be nice if the the last image before the
guide star was lost could be saved, or the first image the guider
takes when it begins guiding, so that maybe we could recover the
pointing position. Other than at the zenith the guiding was quite
good. Another suggestion is for a way to hold narrow-band filters
without the tilt. Based on the data we acquired, this new technique
seems promising."
Bernadette Rodgers:
"I had a productive run tonight, despite incredibly murky skies.  We did
have one  computer  failure which cost me the better part of an hour.
Despite that, and the  weather, I was able to obtain hires spectra for my
complete list of targets.  Charles' expert  and  tireless assistance in
managing the slitcam and lining up over 40 targets was  invaluable
and greatly increased the efficiency of my run!
The incredibly long process of taking hi-res spectral flats with the
current  quartz lamps ends my run on a sad note, however.  I look forward
to the day (soon!) when we have more reasonable lamps for this task."
                                FOCUS LOG
                             NOVEMBER 19 1997
                  Best   Telescope           Wind            Seeing
Time   Inst      Focus    Az  El    #Temp   Dir MPH  filter  FWHM "
18:00  DIS   +95(6442)   342  60   5.9/6.1  311 13    r      1.1
18:40  DIS   +40(6396)   150  54   4.6/5.8  297 14    r      1.1
19:20  DIS   -70(    )   357  60   5.0/5.4  290 18    6570   1.0
23:51  DIS   +50(   )    293  67   4.8/5.1  289 8     -      1.2
#The first temp is air, the second is truss, both in degrees Celsius
                                 WEATHER
                              NOVEMBER 19 1997
                                   Wind
    Time  Temp F  Dewp. F  MPH.   Dir.       Dust    Sky          Precip.
     16:01    43     6      5   352  (N)      215    clear        none
     17:01    43     8     20   303  (WNW)    175    clear        none
     18:01    43     8     10   292  (WNW)    213    clear        none
     19:01    40     4     16   283  (WNW)    285    clear        none
     20:01    41    15     10   274  (W)      371    clear        none
     21:01    40    15     14   272  (W)      436    clear        none
     22:01    40    14     17   298  (WNW)    335    clear        none
     23:01    41    17     20   285  (WNW)    219    cirrus       none
     00:01    41    17     10   312  (NW)     250    cirrus       none
     01:01    40    17      9   300  (WNW)    228    cirrus       none
     02:01    40     8     19   299  (WNW)    203    cirrus       none
     03:01    40     9     13   285  (WNW)    201    cirrus       none
     04:01    40     7     13   285  (WNW)    224    cirrus       none
     05:01    40     8     13   285  (WNW)    167    cirrus       noneA
note: the wind was coming from the azimuth listed.  The convention
used is north=0 degrees, east=90 degrees. The dust count is particles
> 1 micron per 0.1 cu. ft.
                             TELESCOPE STATUS
Primary, secondary, and tertiary mirrors in place and collimated.
Primary support system operational.  Mirror ventilation system in
place.  Telescope drives operational.  Current Remark version: 2.36.
Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv3.0b11.
Charles