Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 06:17:40 -0600 (MDT) From: Tia Hoyes Subject: 3.5m obslog 980430 THURSDAY APRIL 30, 1998 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY OBSERVING LOG ACTUAL ASTRONOMER INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH Briggs APO device 4/30 18:30 21:55 Geha SPICAM 4/30 22:24 00:40 Marley SPICAM 4/30 00:40 01:10 Anderson SPICAM 4/30 01:30 06:15 INST SCHEDULED OBS WEATH EQUIP DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B EN01/S 21:15 22:15 0 1.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NM05/R 22:15 00:30 0.2 2.1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 DD04/S 00:30 01:10 0 0 0 0 0.7 0 0 0 0 UW05/R 01:10 04:46 1.3 0 0 0 2.3 0 0 0 0 (note: times listed include instrument change time) ACTIVITY LOG The telescope was open tonight at 18:45. John Briggs was observing for the engineering time for the first part of the evening. Comments:Shu-i Wang and J. W. Briggs successfully recorded video shadowgrams of the 3.5-m optical system at a variety of focus settings using a device assembled in the APO shop. Air turbulence made for star images about 30 thousandths of an inch in diameter (4.4 arcseconds) as measured with the knife edge. Various zones in the optical figure (presumably in the secondary) are clearly indicated in the video, but the seeing conditions did not allow clear measurement of more subtle effects such as spherical aberration, We shall be reviewing the video tape for a more critical evaluation. Marla Geha was second, driftscanning with SPICAM. Comments:I had trouble at the beginning of the night with pointing. The telescope was pointed nearly 2.5' from where it should have been. A correction was made and I had no problem the rest of the night. Seeing was good and the focus was constant throughout my run. I was the observer for DD04. About half way through my exposure (768sec), Spicam died on me. The window I had dryrot open on froze and came up with gibberish script. I checked to see if the image was saved on /export/images, but it did not complete, and I did not have enough time to try another. At this time, I went up to reset SPICAM, and change the filter wheel and baffle for Scott Anderson. After resetting SPICAM numerous times and Scott trying to run a focus, the TCC seemed to hang. I tried the TELSTOP/TELRUN command. This did not work. The TCC seemed to get progressively worse to the point that I could not open a TCC window. I got Dan Long to come in and help me sort through things. It seems from Dan's experience, this all may have had something to do with communication between the TCC and SPICAM. After Dan looked at the problem for a few minutes, he came to the conclusion that the TCC crashed to boot level, and the auto reboot did not work. After a few minutes of work, things were back up and running, and Scott had no more problems to speak of. Comments:SPIcam hung multiple times (e.g., readout starting several minutes after end of exposure) at beginning of our observing time. Several software reinits and camera resets did not correct. Then TCC etc also hung. Tia and Dan were eventually able to reboot all; a total of 2.1 hours was lost due to SPIcam, TCC hangs. After reboots, all went smoothly though, with some subarcsecond seeing in R-band images. The night was mainly clear, until near twilight, but not photometric. Thanks to Tia and Dan for getting us restarted again in time to collect some useful data. --Scott Anderson (* means a trouble report has been issued or appended to) FOCUS LOG APRIL 30, 1998 Best Telescope Wind Seeing Time Inst Focus Az El Temp# Dir MPH filter FWHM " 20:21 APO dev. +450(7121) 85.7 30.4 270.6 6.0 NONE 22:25 SPICAM -150(6261) 64.4 47.5 8.6/8.13 271.3 7.4 V 1.4 03:45 SPICAM -150(6222) -5.6 58.4 8.2/8.11 303.3 10.7 R 0.8 # The first temp is air, the second is truss, both in degrees C. WEATHER APRIL 30, 1998 Wind Time Temp F Dewp. MPH. Dir. DUST Sky Precip. 16:01 54 21 18 272 (W) 1270 partly cloudy none 17:01 52 20 14 270 (W) 1052 clear none 18:01 54 21 14 296 (WNW) 1042 clear none 19:01 51 18 5 269 (W) 1001 clear none 20:01 48 18 7 268 (W) 992 clear none 21:01 45 17 7 280 (W) 1112 clear none 22:01 45 16 5 265 (W) 1126 clear none 23:01 48 14 7 268 (W) 1215 light clouds none 00:01 47 14 6 246 (WSW) 1196 partly cloudy none 01:01 46 18 7 242 (WSW) 1267 clear none 02:01 47 20 4 266 (W) 1576 light clouds none 03:01 47 21 7 285 (WNW) 1402 clearing none 04:01 47 20 7 316 (NW) 1459 clearing none 05:01 44 22 6 2 (N) 1325 light clouds none 06:01 46 23 6 333 (NNW) 1228 light clouds 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