From: "Camron Hastings" Subject: 3.5 meter Night Log 980604 Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 05:38:27 -0600 Thursday, June 4th, 1998 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5-Meter Observing Log ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- C. Stubbs P. Palunas GFP* 6/4-5 21:47 02:15 C. Hastings C. Hastings SPIcam 6/5 02:30 04:15 * Goddard Fabery-Perot imager INST SCHEDULED OBS WEATH EQUIP DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ----------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/s 21:48 04:15 1.0 5.4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 (note: times listed include instrument change time) ACTIVITY LOG The telescope opened this evening at 19:50 hours. Skies were clear, but breezy. The Goddard Fabrey-Perot instrument was on again tonight, it is being used for additional training time for the new Obs specialist, myself. They were also able to make up some image time lost due to inst- rument block training that I underwent during their scheduled time. During this run, I noticed that the guider images often took on a notice- able shape change. Their eccentricity reached values as high as 0.20! I spoke with Jeff Morgan (he was at Manastash Ridge Observatory in Washington) about this, and he hypothesized that there could have been an osscillation in the secondary due to the wind, around 23mph, which we happened to be pointed in to. Later in the night, as our pointing changed, and the seeing improved in general, the guide images returned to normal. The second half of the night I switched to SPIcam, and performed a series of training observations to familiarize myself with SPIcam's various features. Also, this run was used as a check to verify that there were no mechanical problems, possibly identified last night as internal reflections. It appears that there are no such artifacts, and SPIcam performed wonderfully, as expected. Seeing reached a best value of .9" Cam OBSERVER'S COMMENTS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The GFP observers, in a fit of joy aroused by the large amount of quality science data collected, and in a state of exhaustion from said efforts, retired before they were able to contribute any comments. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- As for myself, I found my first night with the keys to the telescope, and no one in the passenger seat, to be fully satisfying. Every instruments worked well, as expected. I had the opportunity to utilize many of the features, and arrive at a level of comfort with many of the basic systems. This solo training time for practice, with the ability to simply use the systems that I felt necessary was invaluable. Camron Hastings ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FOCUS LOG June 4th, 1998 Best Telescope Temp Wind Seeing Time Instr Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 21:15 GFP +225/6339 124 82 10.1/11.0 266 17.6 7964 1.27" 22:50 Guider 55300 257 75 10.2/10.0 269 21.7 - 1.5" 00:00 Guider 55370 269 61 10.1/10.1 288 19.5 - 1.5" 00:50 GFP +210/6736 276 49 9.9/9.9 289 20.2 - 1.4" 02:45 SPIcam -280/6097 194 75 8.8/9.3 298 16.9 g' 1.2" 03:14 SPIcam -280/6093 227 69 8.4/8.9 299 16.7 g' .98" WEATHER LOG June 4th, 1998 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 60 12 23 255 (WSW) 1615 Clear None 17:01 60 11 24 260 (W) 2303 Clear None 18:01 58 12 23 261 (W) 1159 Clear None 19:01 56 9 26 250 (WSW) 1000 Clear None 20:01 53 10 20 268 (W) 956 Clear None 21:01 51 12 13 270 (W) 948 Clear None 22:01 50 15 17 279 (W) 1101 Clear None 23:01 50 14 21 276 (W) 741 Clear None 00:01 50 13 14 269 (W) 795 Clear None 01:01 49 14 16 284 (WNW) 701 Clear None 02:01 49 14 18 289 (WNW) 754 Clear None 03:01 47 14 22 295 (WNW) 726 Clear None 04:01 47 14 17 315 (NW) 650 Clear None 05:01 46 16 9 287 (WNW) 756 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: 2.41a Current guide software version: GIm Ctrl v3.0b 15.out - Camron Hastings