Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 08:03:33 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Corson Subject: 3.5m obslog 971214 SUNDAY DECEMBER 14, 1997 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m OBSERVING LOG ACTUAL ASTRONOMER INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH Chanover AOTF 12/14 15:30 19:25 Chanover AOTF 12/14 Ledlow Grim 12/14 19:20 23:50 Wyse Grim 12/14 23:50 3:40 Turner Spi 12/14 3:40 6:20 INST SCHEDULED OBS WEATH EQUIP DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B NM10/O 16:58 18:26 1.0 0.5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NM10/0 18:26 19:23 0 1.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NM12/R 19:23 23:50 0 4.4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 JH01/O 23:50 05:30 0 3.4 0 0 0 0.3 0 0 0 UW02/O 03:30 05:30 0 2.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ACTIVITY/FAILURE LOG Despite some tenatious ice, the dome was opened this afternoon. The seeing was outstanding for the majority of the night. I suspect that we were obtaining 0.7 arc-sec seeing based on much of the image data obtained and that the guider was indicating 0.9arc-sec. Nancy Chanover et al., observed with AOTF. High cirrus prevailed so, no useful data was obtained on Venus. However, a good instrument block was obtained and the functionality of the AOTF system was well tested. Mike Ledlow observed with Grim in spectral mode for the first half of the evening. Mike did succeed in obtaining some spectra, but I could not repeat a previous position using the guider as a reference which impacted his efficiency. Nancy Wyse and Gerard Gilmore imaged with grim in search of eclipsing binaries of open clusters. The seeing rarely strayed above 0.85arc-sec. Grim did hang once, and in the recovery, my obs1 mac crashed..when it rains, it pours. We were not efficient using the dither.tcl as it would stop at the start of an exposure. We went to 'manual' mode and found that we were losing a fair number of exposures due to grim not completing an exposure, shortly after giving the message, "starting exposure" in Remark. Communication with grim was not lost during these occurances. Are we seeing an increased occurance of communication/read problems with grim? A Gamma Ray burst was detected with a 3.9arc-min error box so, Ed Turner called with the request that the final 2hrs of the night be used to observe with Spicam. Before switching to Spicam, we obtained about 12min of J-band images of of the position. Spicam was mounted, seeing quickly degraded, and 20-5min integrations were obtained. The data can be found on Tycho: /export/images/grb971214/. Images grb.0013-00* are the J-Band images from grim. Images grb971214.0002-25 are the R-Band images, the last six being sky flats. I have written logs and will be glad to fax them upon request. USER COMMENTS: Nancy Chanover: A new instrument block was made for the Goddard AOTF camera, due to the numerous changes to the telescope that were made over the past 7 months. Charles and Karen worked together to do the new instrument block, and this made the process VERY efficient (it only took about half an hour). Our observations of the Venus night side were hampered by soupy clouds to the west, but we did get some data on the Venus crescent before we had to get off the telescope. We're hoping for better weather tomorrow evening! Rosie Wyse: the (half) night passed rather smoothly, modulo GRIIM hangups during dither scripts, and the occasional hangup during single exposures. These hangups were more irritating than time-consuming. TO support excellent. FOCUS LOG DECEMBER 14, 1997 Time Inst Focus Az El Temp Wind Filter FWHM deg C dir mph arc-sec 19:35 grim +50(6392) 354 59 4.3/3.3 250 1 K' 0.76 00:00 grim 25(6350) 211 82 3.2/3.2 255 6 K' 0.75 04:00 spi -130*5989) 22 51 1.9/1.6 210 12 R 1.15 05:00 spi -120(5960) 14 15 1.9/1.2 280 12 R 1.2 WEATHER LOG DECEMBER 14, 1997 Time Temp Dewpt Windspeed Dir Dust Sky Precip. 16:01 38 -6 5 323 (NW) 137 17:01 34 -3 12 34 (NE) 160 18:01 38 -3 6 2 (N) 148 19:01 39 0 1 189 (S) 137 20:01 38 -2 4 251 (WSW) 128 21:01 38 -2 3 257 (WSW) 70 22:01 39 -4 4 267 (W) 72 23:01 38 -4 4 220 (SW) 88 00:01 38 -6 6 241 (WSW) 83 01:01 36 -7 7 222 (SW) 82 02:01 36 -8 7 194 (SSW) 96 03:01 37 -8 13 225 (SW) 108 04:01 36 -4 9 198 (SSW) 68 05:01 36 4 12 202 (SSW) 49 06:01 36 2 9 186 (S) 56 TELESCOPE STATUS Operational: Configured for normal left Nasmyth operation. Current Software: GRIM ICC: grimII.coma(2.5), Remark: 2.36, TCC: 2.0 Guider: GIm Ctrlv3.0b11 Charles