Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 07:32:57 -0700 (MST) From: Karen Gloria Subject: 3.5-m nightlog 981027 TUESDAY OCTOBER 27, 1998 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY OBSERVING LOG ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH Tomaney Tomaney DIS 10/27 18:40 01:10 Rizza Rizza SPIcam 10/28 INST SCHEDULED OBS WEATH EQUIP DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B UW09/R 18:40 00:10 0.1 1.0 0.8 3.0 0 0 0 0 0 NM02/S 00:10 04:54 0 - 1.0 - 2.7 - 0 0 - (note: times listed include instrument change time) ACTIVITY LOG (* means a trouble report has been issued or appended to) 1st half observing specialist: Russet McMillan I opened at 17:45 to mostly clear skies and moderately high humidity (70% -- i.e, very low humidity by recent standards). Around 19:00, the humidity climbed to over 80% and began flirting with the limit of 2-degree dewpoint depression. I closed at 19:15 when the fence rails outside were getting noticeably moist. The humidity remained around 80% for a while. When the air temperature climbed a bit, I re-opened at 22:40, but that didn't last long before clouds move in and Karen advised closing again at 23:20. Before mounting SPIcam, I blew off the condensation on the window with a heat gun on low. Fat streaks on the window indicated that at some point during the day, there had been enough condensation to run down to the bottom of the window. Once the droplets had been evaporated, I turned on the nitrogen flow and left the shutter open while I mounted the instrument. Austin Tomaney was the observer during first half, and I advised him to leave the shutter open if there were any long periods where he wasn't doing anything. While we were closed for the humidity, Karen demonstrated how to re-zero the rotator. The cloud camera is non-operational until the extent of possible water damage has been assessed. 2nd half observing specialist: Karen Gloria The telescope was opened at 02:10 MST, after the humidity went down a bit. *Unfortunately, the star images were jerking and oscillating most of the time, often as much as 5 arcminutes or more! I haven't discovered the source of this large image motion, but we will be investigating today and hope to have the answer before tonight. Elizabeth Rizza lost all of her on sky time to this. OBSERVER COMMENTS UW09 (Tomaney) - "My only comments of note are that for about 15-30 minutes around 7pm PST i completely lost the connection to APO. Presumably this was the just an internet congestion problem (i should have used traceroute to find where the bottleneck was)." FOCUS LOG OCTOBER 27 1998 Time Inst Focus Az El #Temp Dir MPH filt FWHM " 18:40 SPIcam 125(6087) 213 58 3.8/4.4 265 17 I 1.0 22:45 SPIcam -55(6078) -45 77 4.1/3.7 250 20 I 1.0 02:20 SPIcam -100(6135) 221 45 3.2/3.2 269 13 R 1.0 WEATHER OCTOBER 26 1998 Wind Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip. 16:01 38 37 25 259 (W) cloudy rain 17:01 39 32 17 262 (W) mstly cldy none 18:01 39 28 16 271 (W) clear none 19:01 39 34 18 265 (W) clear none 20:01 39 33 17 268 (W) mstly clr none 21:01 39 34 19 254 (WSW) mstly clr none 22:01 39 34 16 263 (W) mstly clr none 23:01 40 34 12 263 (W) ptly cldy none 00:01 39 35 15 257 (WSW) ptly cldy none 01:01 39 34 18 263 (W) ptly cldy none 02:01 38 33 15 270 (W) clear none 03:01 38 32 8 269 (W) clear none 04:01 37 29 11 268 (W) clear none 05:01 37 29 13 283 (WNW) clear none 06:01 36 26 12 274 (W) clear none 07:01 36 27 13 291 (WNW) clear 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: 2.42a. Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv3.0b15. -Russet McMillan, Karen Gloria