From: Russet McMillan
Subject: 3.5m Night Log 19991227
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 06:12:24 -0700 (MST)
                         MONDAY DECEMBER 27, 1999
                         APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY
                              OBSERVING  LOG
                                                          ACTUAL
ASTRONOMER      OBSERVER(S)        INSTRUMENT   DATE   START FINISH
Gillespie       Loomis, Loomis,    S-H, SPI   12/27-28 18:03  06:06
		Deglman, McMillan  ECH, GRIM
 INST        SCHEDULED     WEATH     EQUIP      OBS    DAY   NOTUSED
I/RS/DN    START FINISH   D    B    D    B    D    B   USE   D    B
EN01/S     18:03  06:06   0    0    0   1.1  4.8  6.2   0    0    0
(note: times listed include instrument change time)
                              ACTIVITY LOG
(* means a trouble report has been issued or appended to)
1st half observing specialist: Loomis, Deglman
2nd half observing specialist: McMillan, Deglman
The night was mostly clear, with a few clouds creeping up in the
southwest during second half but never obscuring the sky.  Seeing
ranged widely from terrible at the beginning of the night to
sub-arcsecond at times when the wind was low.
* First half was spent struggling with the Shack-Hartmann camera,
which appears to be dropping bits and having other problems.  After
numerous attempts at diagnosis, we gave up on obtaining Shack-Hartmann
data around 01:45.
SPIcam was then used as a reference in order to check the NA1
tip/tilts for the tertiary.  When a star was placed on the boresight
at NA2 and the tertiary rotated, the same star came up within a few
arcseconds of the slit at the echelle.  We tried pointing to
widely-spaced parts of the sky and got excellent pointing consistency
with the echelle at all positions.  The minor tracking difficulties we
have been experiencing with the echelle must be attributable to
another source, since the tip/tilts appear to be very good.
We were unable to perform a pointing model with the magnasensor
corrections turned off, as planned, because a critical piece of TCC
programming was not ready as a result of the extra time spent dealing
with the Shack-Hartmann camera.  We considered performing a normal
pointing model, but the performance we saw with both SPIcam and the
echelle was so good that it seemed pointless.
We made some tests of image quality with SPIcam, but star images were
generally round and we couldn't repeat the teardrop-shape seen by
K. Loomis a few weeks ago.  We did make a comparison of seeing with
SPIcam, GRIM, and the guider (although the wind strength changed
between the last SPIcam focus and the first GRIM focus), and we found
that GRIM's advantage in the infrared was distinct but not large.  We
hope this means that last night's good seeing with GRIM would have
translated well to any of our optical instruments.  SPIcam images were
definitely subarcsecond for at least part of the night.
* We tested the new guider monitor and found that it worked well with
only one significant omission: the guider image displayed was an
ancient relic from 1997 rather than the most recent image in the
guider directory.  The rest of the weather and status displays
functioned normally, and we're looking forward to getting the guider
monitor back into regular use.
                            OBSERVER COMMENTS
                                FOCUS LOG
                             DECEMBER 27 1999
						 Wind
Time   Inst        Focus     Az  El   #Temp    Dir  MPH  filt  FWHM "
02:00 SPIcam     -110(438)   38  80  -0.1/-0.6 260  2.0    R   0.81
02:40 Echelle      22(-232)  64  65   0.3/-0.8 258  1.1  clear 1.28
03:25 SPIcam      -50(484)   60  74  -0.6/-1.2 337  1.8    V   1.07
04:00 GRIM(f/10) -100(583)   43  80  -1.1/-1.5 346  6.2    J   0.87
04:10 guider   -4467(55500)  36  82  -1.3/-1.6 340  6.6    --  1.03
#First temp is air, second temp is telescope.
                                 WEATHER
                             DECEMBER 27 1999
                               Wind
     Time   Temp F Dewp F  MPH  Direction    Dust      Sky      Precip.
     16:01    34    13     10    78  (ENE)     80    clear       none
     17:01    30    14     17    68  (ENE)     93    clear       none
     18:01    29    18     28    66  (ENE)     85    clear       none
     19:01    29    20     18    49  (NE)     107    clear       none
     20:01    30    15     21    61  (ENE)     58    clear       none
     21:01    32    10     14    75  (ENE)     37    clear       none
     22:01    32     8      8    87  (E)       41    clear       none
     23:01    34     6      8    87  (E)       45    clear       none
     00:01    34     5      8   136  (SE)      32    clear       none
     01:01    35     5      3   184  (S)       39   mstly clr    none
     02:01    32     7      1   286  (WNW)     50   mstly clr    none
     03:01    31     8      6   271  (W)       68   mstly clr    none
     04:01    31    11      6   321  (NW)      93   mstly clr    none
     05:01    30    12      6   340  (NNW)    156   mstly clr    none
     06:01    30    10      9   355  (N)       52   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 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: 2.55b5.
Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv3.0b27.
- Russet McMillan