From: "Camron Hastings" Subject: 3.5-Meter ObsLog May 26th, 1998 Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 04:59:09 -0600 SATURDAY MAY 26th, 1998 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5-Meter Observing Log ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kent G. Richards DIS 5/26-27 21:41 01:10 York B. Holden DIS 5/27 01:10 04:20 INST SCHEDULED OBS WEATH EQUIP DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ----------------------------------------------------------------------- UC04/R 21:41 01:10 1.8 - 0 - .8 - 0 0 - UC02/R 01:10 04:20 3.2 - 0 - 0 - 0 0 - (note: times listed include instrument change time) ACTIVITY LOG The telescope opened this evening at 20:30. Dust counts were below previous nights, and in the enclosure stayed around 1000 for > 1u. Seeing was good, at 1.1". Early in the night had trouble with the rotator. It became stuck part way through a rotation, and when physically checked, we found no obvious problems, but the rotator was oscillating at about 40hz with an amplitude of of about 1inch. We turned the motors off, and did an 'axis init'. After a couple init's, it started to behave. Uneventful for the rest of the evening. Well, not completely uneventful. Right before closing, around 4:30am, the MAC interface crashed here in the control room. Required a hard reboot, then all was O.K.. The observer finished the lamp cals, and we lived happily ever after. Cam Hastings :p OBSERVER COMMENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----- Well, we had a reasonably successful night at APO, though we lost about an hour due to problems with the instrument rotator. We got a 30 minute spectrum of #23. Definitely a supernova there. I also extracted the nucleus and the opposite arm. S/N ranged from 20-70 (sorry about the overkill). We also got a 45 minute spectrum of #22. Again the S/N was very high. I don't see any evidence for a SN, but I can't claim to know for sure. Note that it is supposed to be right in the center of the galaxy. However, I can tell you the redshift, which is 0.025 (from CaII H+K). Heidi also asked me to try to extract a spectrum slightly offset from the center and subtract this off of the spectrum from the center to see if the SN was evident in the difference spectrum. I had some trouble redoing the extraction (probably due to lack of sleep), but was able to determine that this didn't help reveal the SN. We didn't have much time for the last one, so we didn't bother taking the time to get the center of the galaxy. However, the slit should have been right on the SN. There are narrow emission lines and the redshift is 0.028 from CaII H+K. S/N was about 10-20. Many thanks to Camron Hastings and Karen Gloria, the observing specialists for the night, as they were the ones that actually kept things in the slit, while I sat around drinking coffee. The files are in /pub/gordonr/sn on sdss.fnal.gov, you should be able to get to it from anonymous FTP. If anybody wants the raw spectra, I can deal with that sometime tomorrow afternoon. Gordon ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Tonight was trouble free (except the computer crash.) I got a good selection of targets. All in all this was quite useful. cheers brad holden ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- FOCUS LOG MAY 26th, 1998 Best Telescope Wind Seeing Time Instr Focus Az El #Temp Dir MPH filter FWHM " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - 21:15 Guider 52571/6318 13.2/15.2 267 13.2 r 1.4"** 22:45 DIS -350/6418 212 39.1 12.8/13.5 259 14.6 r ?.?"** 01:20 DIS -175/6442 302 60.4 11.7/12.1 270 11.7 r 1.1" #The first temp is air, the second is truss, both in degrees Celsius ** Due to calibrations in spectral mode, we were not able to image for focus. These were best guess values based on slit imaging. WEATHER LOG MAY 26th, 1998 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:01 62 15 16 238 (WSW) 1890 Clear/Dry None 17:01 61 14 9 211 (SSW) 1834 Clear/Dry None 18:01 61 14 11 264 (W) 1868 Clear/Dry None 19:01 60 14 14 244 (WSW) 1910 Clear/Dry None 20:01 57 14 16 265 (W) 2192 Clear/Dry None 21:01 56 14 10 264 (W) 2143 Clear/Dry None 22:01 55 13 14 242 (WSW) 1931 Clear/Dry None 23:01 55 13 10 263 (W) 1813 Clear/Dry None 00:01 54 13 11 268 (W) 1780 Clear/Dry None 01:01 53 12 11 301 (WNW) 1932 Clear/Dry None 02:01 52 12 16 276 (W) 2406 Clear/Dry None 03:01 52 12 9 278 (W) 2817 Clear/Dry None 04:01 51 12 9 270 (W) 3083 Clear/Dry 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: 2.41 Current guide software version: GIm Ctrl v3.0b 15.out -Camron Hastings & Karen Gloria _______________________________________________ Camron Hastings at Apache Point Observatory http://users.apo.nmsu.edu/~hastings