Date: Sun, 17 Aug 1997 07:34:46 -0600 (MDT) From: Karen Gloria Subject: 3.5-m obslog 970816 SATURDAY AUGUST 16, 1997 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY OBSERVING LOG ACTUAL ASTRONOMER INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH Szkody DIS 8/16 21:16 22:16 Kron GRIM2 8/16-17 22:16 Johnson GRIM2 8/17 INST SCHEDULED OBS WEATH EQUIP DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B UW01/R 21:16 22:16 - 1.0 - 0 - 0 0 - 0 UC02/R 22:16 02:48 - 4.5 - 0 - 0 0 - 0 NM03/R 02:48 04:59 - 2.0 - 0 - 0.2 0 - 0 (note: times listed include instrument change time) ACTIVITY LOG (* means a trouble report has been issued or appended to) The telescope was opened at 20:15 MDT. The sky was photometric all night Mark Klaene and Craig Loomis came in today and worked on the azimuth axis overshoot problem reported last night. Extensive tests were done. They were able to eliminate the overshoots by changing a motor controller parameter. An axis remap was also done. There were no azimuth overshoots or runaways during the night. Paula Szkody was the observer for UW01. She obtained good spectra of two of her targets. Marianne Takamiya was the observer for UC02. Her run went very well. Joni Johnson gave her NM03 time to Tom Harrison to observe GRB 970815. From last night's observations he identified a possible candidate for the optical counterpart. Tonight's observations will help confirm or refute it. The observers were Tom, Joni, and Bernie MacNamara. They had a nearly flawless run, loosing a little time to a Remark crash that may be a bug (I'll try to reproduce it - during the daytime, and will send a note to Bob Loewenstein). Tom noted the image quality was very good. We have been getting some sub-arcsecond seeing for the past few days. After the NMSU observers were done, I did some guider tests. I ran a 15 point pointing model grid (evenly spaced around the sky). It found 12 of 15 stars. I also tried guiding, which failed. FOCUS LOG AUGUST 16 1997 Best Telescope Wind Seeing Time Inst Focus Az El #Temp Dir MPH filter FWHM " 20:30 guider 54000(6776) 183 70 16.5/20.0 261 5 R+ND2 0.9 21:00 DIS 0(6851) 77 38 16.4/19.2 228 7 r 2.0 22:35 GRIM2 -50(6721) 205 59 16.1/16.8 200 6 K-short 0.9 01:55 GRIM2 -25(6675) 121 62 15.2/15.4 170 5 K-short 1.0 #The first temp is air, the second is truss, both in degrees Celsius WEATHER AUGUST 16 1997 Wind Time Temp F Dewp. F MPH. Dir. Dust Sky Precip. 16:01 71 43 7 267 (W) 560 clear none 17:01 67 42 13 301 (WNW) 554 clear none 18:01 69 42 7 271 (W) 615 clear none 19:01 66 42 5 267 (W) 572 clear none 20:01 61 41 3 266 (W) 627 clear none 21:01 60 41 3 242 (WSW) 630 clear none 22:01 60 42 5 181 (S) 676 clear none 23:01 59 42 5 264 (W) 806 clear none 00:01 59 39 3 184 (S) 687 clear none 01:01 58 40 5 183 (S) 762 clear none 02:01 60 38 2 184 (S) 743 clear none 03:01 60 38 1 206 (SSW) 794 clear none 04:01 61 38 1 231 (SW) 845 clear none 05:01 61 38 0 237 (WSW) 763 clear none 06:01 61 39 0 291 (WNW) 752 clear none 07:01 60 39 0 32 (NNE) 834 ptly cldy none 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: GImCtrlv3.0b10. -Karen