Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 06:22:19 -0700 (MST) From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 990112 Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM Tuesday, January 12th, 1999 3.5-meter Night Observing Log Actual ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ----------------------------------------------------------------------- E.Turner C.Hastings SPIcam 1/12 18:44 19:29 E.Grebel E.Grebel SPIcam 1/12 19:29 00:10 D.York G.Richards DIS 1/13 00:10 05:39 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PU01/S 18:42 19:29 0 - 0.6 - 0.2 - 0 0 - UW13/S 19:29 00:10 3.7 - 0 - 1.0 - 0 0 - UC01/R 00:10 05:39 1.4 2.1 0 0 2.0 1.0 0 0 0 -------------- Activity Log -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: Camron Hastings Opened at 17:20 for cooling and flats. Clouds moved in. No more data for my shift. :( Had a problem with the guider early on. Kept getting an error stating "Starfinder Dectructed". Wow, what an error message to promote a feeling of well being. Anyway, it seems the error happens when the starfinder has no image to act on. I am not sure why the image was not showing up, but after I typed the 'gfocus' command in full it started working. Weird. Second issue was that whenever we tried to 'epar' the 'imcombine' utility in IRAF it would cause a bus error and dump the core when we tried to save it. We just ran imcombine and typed in the variables as it asked for them and it work. Another mystery.... 2nd Half Observing Specialist: Russet McMillan Second half started out mostly cloudy. I saw some snowflakes along the road when I was driving in, so we closed as soon as I arrived at 23:00. The sky cleared abruptly after midnight, so I reopened at 01:00. Gordon managed to get a couple of science exposures in mostly clear skies. But the temperature was falling fast and the dewpoint was rising, so I closed again at 03:00. Then the humidity fell again, and I reopened at 04:30 in time to get one more science exposure before dawn. At least the telescope and instruments were well-behaved during all this back-and-forthing. OBSERVER COMMENTS G.Richards (UC01): Squeezed 3 target exposures in between patches of mediocre weather. FOCUS LOG January 12th 1999 Best Telescope Temp Wind Seeing Time Instrmnt Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:20 SPIcam 050(6015) 140 54 0.4/0.6 268 18 g' 2.54" 19:25 SPIcam 100(5931) 000 64 0.4/0.5 293 20 V 1.25" 01:10 slitcam -150(5904) 83 54 -2.3/-1.6 37 4 none ? WEATHER LOG January 12th 1999 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 40 8 17 265 (W) Clear None 17:01 37 7 17 243 (WSW) Clear None 18:01 34 6 17 268 (W) Clear None 19:01 33 6 20 280 (W) Clear None 20:01 32 7 19 284 (WNW) Cloudy None 21:01 32 8 16 268 (W) Cloudy None 22:01 32 8 13 297 (WNW) Cloudy None 23:01 30 11 7 318 (NW) Cloudy None 00:01 27 17 14 40 (NE) Cloudy None 01:01 29 14 10 343 (NNW) ptly cldy none 02:01 27 18 16 31 (NNE) mstly clr none 03:01 25 20 17 55 (NE) mstly clr none 04:01 25 19 19 60 (ENE) mstly clr none 05:01 26 18 19 54 (NE) mstly clr none 06:01 26 18 14 51 (NE) mstly clr 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: 2.42a Current guide software version: GIm Ctrl v3.0b 15.out - NCH, RM