Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1998 07:24:36 -0700 (MST) From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 981225 Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM Friday, December 25th, 1998 3.5-meter Night Observing Log Actual ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ----------------------------------------------------------------------- H.Ford H.Ford,Z.Tsvetanov DIS 12/25-26 18:32 00:10 J.Holtzman J.Holtzman SPIcam 12/26 00:10 05:36 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ----------------------------------------------------------------------- JH03/R 18:32 00:10 0 0 0 0 0.3 5.3 0 0 0 NM11/R 00:10 05:36 0 - 0 - 5.4 - 0 0 - -------------- Activity Log -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: Camron Hastings I did not open the telescope until 19:20 MST for cooling underneath clear skies and wind from the north. There was a delay in setting up due to JH03's mistake regarding their proposal text which evidently contains the wrong setup for DIS, or an outdated one at least. I had to calibrate new gratings after we found this out. I would like to STRESS here, again, to all observers the following: Please send us, via email, your requested setup for the evening's observing no later than 3pm so that we can set up the telescope and instruments for you. If you do not send us your setup requests we must rely on the proposals, which seem to change regularly it seems. All instrumentation seemed to perform fine during the first half of the night once we got rolling and we had no problems to speak of. The seeing was very turbulent as was expected with 20 mph winds from the north all night and seeing averaged 2.7" for the first half. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: Russet McMillan Second half was clear and gusty. The first half observers elected to stop taking spectra 20 minutes early and switch to SPIcam so they could get some images of their field. In practice, this meant that the second half observer started a little late, but most of the delay was taken up by focusing SPIcam, which would have been necessary anyway. We discovered that it was still apparently impossible for spicam to write images to /export/images, as reported a week ago. I did not spend much time exploring the problem, since the second half observer was planning to write images to dryrot anyway. But it would be good to get this problem solved. OBSERVER COMMENTS J. Holtzman (NM11): Telescope/SPICAM performed as it did last night. Unfortunately, seeing was relatively poor preventing prime science from being done. FOCUS LOG December 25th 1998 Best Telescope Temp Wind Seeing Time Instrmnt Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 19:25 DIS -150(5950) -56 84 1.2/1.4 000 20 none 1.99" 00:20 SPIcam -200(5847) -32 64 1.0/0.9 12 28 V 1.3 WEATHER LOG December 25th 1998 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 36 0 19 21 (NNE) clear none 17:01 34 -1 17 10 (N) clear none 18:01 35 -2 10 352 (N) clear none 19:01 35 0 15 39 (NE) clear none 20:01 35 -1 25 28 (NNE) clear none 21:01 35 1 22 16 (NNE) clear none 22:01 35 1 24 22 (NNE) clear none 23:01 34 4 8 352 (N) clear none 00:01 34 5 18 7 (N) clear none 01:01 35 4 17 20 (NNE) clear none 02:01 34 5 15 13 (NNE) clear none 03:01 38 1 13 7 (N) clear none 04:01 39 -1 13 353 (N) clear none 05:01 34 6 10 5 (N) clear none 06:01 32 7 16 346 (NNW) clear none 07:01 37 3 13 313 (NW) 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 for the 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 Ctrl v3.0b 15.out - NCH, RM