Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 06:26:59 -0600 From: tia@tycho.apo.nmsu.edu (Tia Hoyes) Subject: 3.5m obslog 980925 FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 1998 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY OBSERVING LOG ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH Turner Hoyes SPICAM 09/25 18:00 20:50 Strauss Strauss DIS 09/25 21:15 00:30 Holtzman Holtzman SPICAM 09/25 01:45 06:00 INST SCHEDULED OBS WEATH EQUIP DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B PU01/S 20:18 21:08 0 0.8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 PU02/R 21:08 01:10 1.0 1.0 2.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NM02/S 01:10 05:32 3.8 0 0.6 0 0 0 0 0 0 (note: times listed include instrument change time) ACTIVITY LOG The telescope was opened at 19:00. I was able to observe 2237 for the Lens Monitoring program. Michael Strauss was observing for the first half of the evening. I had to close at 23:00 due to heavy clouds, and was able to reopen at 01:45. COMMENTS: Comments for tonight: things ran very smoothly, we didn't have any technical problem. We found one z=3.1 SDSS quasar before it turned cloudy and we had to close. Thanks! Xiaohui Jon Holtzman was on sight for the NM02 run. COMMENTS: We were using SPICAM in drift-scan mode on some edge-on spiral galaxies. We opened a bit late because of clouds. Our first drift scans did not work well. We were trying to drift at the slower rates now allowed by the hardware/software. Our first drift appeared to go well at rate of 1 arcsec/sec, but at the end of the drift, SPICAM appeared to hang for several minutes, then finally printed out "got 7248384 of 7299864 pix" - the last frame did appear to be missing some pixels. Then the next drift failed altogether with mesages: read: Invalid argument making sure controller is ready.. sending TDI-START to controller sec read blocks write blocks write files Nbuf second buffer finished before first!! (switching order) eadtime: 9.029 1/ 99 1/ 16 1/ 6 5 After this it output a single frame and quit the scan. At this point we restarted spicam software and tried again. This time we tried a 2"/sec scan and got exactly the same problem. After this, we restarted the software again and tried 2.6"/sec (the old minimum) and things worked fine! But then as a check we went back to 2"/sec and this time things worked fine! Things continued to work fine at 2"/sec for the rest of the night - we weren't brave (or smart) enough to try slower rates. So it's unclear (to me) what's going on. When it was behaving, SPICAM drift scanning procedure as described in my previous email (message 54 in the spicam mailer) appeared to work. The telescope returns to the beginning position after a scan is completed. Subsquent scans appear to be fine - first frame is the expected ramp frame. Clouds drifted in and out a couple of times during the second half of the night. Jon Holtzman Forecast:(4:30am). .TODAY...PARTLY CLOUDY WITH A SLIGHT CHANCE OF AFTERNOON THUNDERSTORMS. SOUTH TO SOUTHEAST 10-20 MPH. .TONIGHT...PARTLY CLOUDY WITH A SLIGHT CHANCE OF EVENING THUNDERSTORMS...BECOMING FAIR BY MIDNIGHT. .SUNDAY...PARTLY CLOUDY WITH A FEW LATE AFTERNOON THUNDERSTORMS... MAINLY IN THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS. (* means a trouble report has been issued or appended to) FOCUS LOG SEPTEMBER 25, 1998 Best Telescope Wind Seeing Time Inst Focus Az El Temp# Dir MPH filter FWHM " 19:45 SPICAM -100(6801) 106.7 30.2 15.1/17.47 188.7 12.5 g' 1.36 21:45 DIS 0(6827) 136.2 48.2 15.6/16.01 194.8 14.0 IN 1.20 01:45 SPICAM -100(6528) 227.7 67.4 12.6/14.95 186.8 12.6 V 1.20 # The first temp is air, the second is truss, both in degrees C. WEATHER SEPTEMBER 25, 1998 Wind Time Temp F Dewp. MPH. Dir. DUST Sky Precip. 16:01 67 45 20 220 (SW) 359 partly cloudy none 17:01 65 45 17 215 (SW) 534 partly cloudy none 18:01 64 42 5 225 (SW) 358 clearing none 19:01 61 41 12 232 (SW) 379 clear none 20:01 59 42 13 212 (SSW) 452 clear none 21:01 60 42 13 214 (SW) 533 clear none 22:01 60 43 13 191 (S) 537 clear none 23:01 60 42 14 243 (WSW) 501 partly cloudy none 00:01 57 45 19 204 (SSW) 659 mostly cloudy none 01:01 56 46 12 193 (SSW) 646 mostly cloudy none 02:01 56 45 14 201 (SSW) 572 clearing none 03:01 55 42 13 211 (SSW) 568 partly cloudy none 04:01 54 42 8 196 (SSW) 537 clearing none 05:01 54 34 7 197 (SSW) 576 clear none 06:01 53 30 9 248 (WSW) 469 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: 2.42a Current guide software version:GIm Ctrl v3.0b 15.out -Tia