Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 05:21:08 -0700 (MST) From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 981209 Wednesday, December 9th 1998 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5-meter Observing Log ACTUAL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- T.Wyder T.Wyder/D.Zucker DIS 12/09-10 18:25 00:10 B.Rodgers B.Rodgers DIS/GRIM 12/10 00:10 05:27 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UW06/R 18:25 00:10 2.7 0.7 1.3 0 1.0 0 0 0 0 UW05/R 00:10 05:27 0 5.3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -------- ACTIVITY LOG -------- 1st half Observing Specialist: Camron Hastings Everything was in working order today when we opened at 18:25 MST. Ted Wyder decided to use DIS due to the continually ailing SPIcam, which Jon Davis is working on every day to get running for us again. Dan Zucker came in to work with Ted tonight. When focusing DIS this evening I noticed that the gratings did not move completely. I issued a command to move the grating out and mirror in, as well as the slit out. After taking a focus exposure I saw that clearly the grating was still in. When I hit 'sync' it showed the grating in. I issued another move command and all was fine. This issue has arisen before and did again this evening with UW moving the mirror back to gratings. In light of this I would recommend a new policy when using DIS. If you make a configuration change and it says that it changed, don't believe it. Always make a 'sync' before you try an exposure to make sure it is in the configuration you planned. Once you have confirmed the configuration you are fine, but finding out 2 exposures down the road is a drag. In addition to those problems, all first half the net was EXTREMELY congested. So bad that at times UW could not look at images as the FTP would take 10-30 minutes for a single image to make it over. I had similar problems using a web browser anywhere, not just APO or UW. This was exacerbated by the fact that we had some sort of issue with UW commands making it through the MC and to the instrument. When UW did get a command through, I would see it received at the MC, but then nothing would happen. It was as if the MC never handed it off to DIS. I would then issue the exact same command to DIS from my REMARK, I would see it hit the MC, then without trouble DIS would expose. This continued, I called Craig, he scratched his head at home, saw nothing out of the ordinary. This continued until I issued an offset command that went nowhere from the MC and my REMARK locked up. It was as if it was all slowly failing, a little more would go every minute until we eventually restarted the MC and my REMARK interface, this cured the offset issue, but not UW's ability to command DIS. I observed the one object UW was on while trying to fix this issue Craig, but I do not know if that data I gathered for them will even be useful with the clouds that moved in. Finally, the weather deteriorated beyond the computers at 20:45 and we closed up everything. Thanks to Norm for helping me out as I ran around getting it all shut up when the humidity suddenly shot up. I could not find any useful examples or information regarding these strange computer problems after we closed. 2nd half Observing Specialist: Russet McMillan After midnight the precipitation started. It wasn't really snowfall to begin with -- more like a whipping wind-blown ice thing. Very little accumulation on the ground, but nifty effects on the pine trees. I ran the snow program during second half. I was planning to leave the telescope facing south (according to the policy for maximum insolation), but I noticed that was letting quite a bit of snow in through the east-facing louvers. So I faced the telescope into the wind instead. There isn't much sun in tomorrow's forecast anyway. It's worth pointing out that tonight and last night, DIS showed no excessive cryogen use. Regarding Camron's problems moving DIS' mirrors and so forth, I saw some similar trouble last night and noticed that not all the commands were being sent to the mcnode; i.e., I commanded the gratings and the slit mask to move, but only the slit mask command was echoed in the mcnode on the first attempt. I had to sync and reissue the command in order to get the gratings/mirror to move. ------------- Observer's Comments ------------- UW06 (Wyder/Zucker): We were only able to open for about 1 hour and 15 minutes before we closed due to high humidity. We weren't able to get much useful data due to problems with communicating with APO. Some of the images took a very long time to transfer over. Finally the transfer rate became so slow that we couldn't get anything over. (One image was less than half transferred even after waiting almost a half an hour). While we were taking calibration images, DIS seemed to be working well. Once we were on the sky, we began to have problems communicating with DIS too. We would send commands in Remark and these would get sent to the MC but then nothing would happen. Camron was able to send commands to DIS with no problems. A couple of hours after we closed, the network problems seemed to have improved as were able to transfer images over in less than a minute. FOCUS LOG December 9th 1998 Best Telescope Temp (C) Wind Seeing Time Instrmt Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:40 DIS -200(5898) -90 64 -1.8/-0.6 199 13 none 1.62" WEATHER LOG December 9th 1998 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 32 11 9 213 (SSW) clear none 17:01 29 11 10 147 (SSE) mstly clr none 18:01 29 3 12 188 (S) ptly cldy none 19:01 24 17 10 87 (E) mstly cldy none 20:01 23 16 14 116 (ESE) mstly cldy none 21:01 20 18 20 87 (E) mstly cldy none 22:01 20 19 18 82 (E) mstly cldy none 23:01 20 19 25 71 (ENE) cloudy none 00:01 21 20 34 74 (ENE) foggy ice/snow 01:01 20 20 29 72 (ENE) foggy ice/snow 02:01 20 19 34 77 (ENE) cloudy ice/snow 03:01 19 17 33 75 (ENE) cloudy ice/snow 04:01 18 16 31 74 (ENE) cloudy ice/snow 05:01 16 14 30 74 (ENE) cloudy snow 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