Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 06:29:13 -0600 (MDT) From: Tia Hoyes Subject: 3.5m obslog 980416 THURSDAY APRIL 16, 1998 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY OBSERVING LOG ACTUAL ASTRONOMER INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH Morgan SPICAM 4/16 20:15 22:30 Hoopes SPICAM 4/16 22:35 01:30 INST SCHEDULED OBS WEATH EQUIP DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B EN01/S 21:01 05:05 2.9 1.5 0 3.6 0 0 0 0 0 (note: times listed include instrument change time) ACTIVITY LOG The telescope was open tonight at 18:45. Jeff Morgan began the engineering time with offset tests. Comments: Telescope behaved very well and the weather was moderately poor. Worst seeing I've ever seen at APO (it was measured as bad as 4.0 arcsec at one point). The drift scan tests of small telescope offsets seemed to go very well. This data set should be very helpful in trying to diagnose the guiding performance. Charles Hoopes was second, and he tested some driftscanning with SPICAM. I observed individual images after he collected each. Comments:We did some experiments with drift-scan mode for spicam. We were successful until the clouds came in. Drift scanning works well, we will send out a write-up in a day or two. The clouds began to arrive at 1:30, and the Albuquerque Weather Service called me at 1:45 to warn me that there was a large storm front advancing toward the observatory from the east. At this time, I began noticing an increase in the dust counts and the humidity and closed the dome. The dust and humidity stayed high the rest of the evening. I tried testing the new versions of the DIS and Remark software. Changed to the new version in mirella (update-dis.m), rebooted mirella, changed the Remark version to 2.40, and then took some ARCS using the new mcnode commands: dis grating n=1 col=r zerostep=302, dis grating n=1 type=low, and took a 60 second exposure.(luptontest0417.0001r) I did the same for blue in the low res., at 311, (luptontest0417.0002b). I then changed to dis grating n=2 col=r zerostep=299, dis grating n=2 type=high, (luptontest0417.0003r). I noticed that the configuration had stayed the same even after the command. It also looks like the image is the same. Forecast:.TODAY...AREAS OF FOG EAST SLOPES THIS MORNING. OTHERWISE MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF RAIN AND HIGHER ELEVATION SNOW SHOWERS. PARTIAL CLEARING IN THE AFTERNOON. NORTHEAST WIND 10 TO 15 MPH. .TONIGHT...PARTLY CLOUDY. NORTH WIND 5 TO 10 MPH. .SATURDAY...MOSTLY SUNNY. NORTHWEST WIND 10 TO 15 MPH. (* means a trouble report has been issued or appended to) FOCUS LOG APRIL 16, 1998 Best Telescope Wind Seeing Time Inst Focus Az El Temp# Dir MPH filter FWHM " 21:50 SPICAM -250(5592) 174.8 77.2 -3.4/-2.84 267.6 7.8 V 2.2 # The first temp is air, the second is truss, both in degrees C. WEATHER APRIL 16, 1998 Wind Time Temp F Dewp. MPH. Dir. DUST Sky Precip. 16:01 40 14 16 267 (W) 817 light clouds none 17:01 35 9 26 243 (WSW) 1268 light clouds none 18:01 36 6 24 263 (W) 1075 clearing none 19:01 32 5 17 264 (W) 691 clear none 20:01 29 5 12 269 (W) 778 clear none 21:01 27 6 18 266 (W) 838 clear none 22:01 26 7 10 269 (W) 690 clear none 23:01 27 9 7 280 (W) 987 clear none 00:01 29 6 2 254 (WSW) 607 light clouds none 01:01 29 7 8 237 (WSW) 614 mostly cloudy none 02:01 24 18 8 77 (ENE) 2302 overcast none 03:01 26 16 4 272 (W) 1011 clearing none 04:01 22 19 11 76 (ENE) 1975 partly cloudy none 05:01 22 20 7 106 (ESE) 1708 partly cloudy none 06:01 22 19 7 129 (SE) 1574 partly cloudy 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: 2.39 Current guide software version:GIm Ctrlv3.0b11. -Tia