From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 19991230 Date: Fri, 31 Dec 1999 07:17:32 -0700 (MST) THURSDAY DECEMBER 30, 1999 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY OBSERVING LOG ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH Turner McMillan SPIcam 12/30 18:04 18:42 Gonzalez Gonzalez Echelle 12/30-31 19:07 23:58 Duncan Duncan Echelle 12/31 00:23 06:08 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B PU02/O 18:04 18:54 0 - 0 - 0.8 - 0 0 - UW09/R 18:54 00:10 0 - 0 - 5.3 0 0 0 - UC09/R 00:10 06:07 0 2.4 0 0.5 1.5 1.6 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: McMillan, Deglman The telescope was opened at 16:45 under clear skies. Service observing for PU02 was performed with SpiCam. Gonzalez observed for UW09 with the Echelle. 2nd half observing specialist: McMillan An eventful night. I hope tomorrow is more peaceful... The weather started out clear during second half, with moderate seeing, until the most astonishing front moved through at 03:30; the cloud camera went from clear to black (thick clouds, moon invisible) in the space of a single scan, and the dewpoint rose 20 C in fifteen minutes. Then the sky cleared in the space of ten minutes and clouded up again shortly after. There was no warning of these clouds from the satellite; in fact, they remained invisible on the satellite picture until after dawn. The telescope was closed from 03:40 until morning twilight. Various equipment difficulties during the night cost only a little time, with mostly slight impact on data quality. * There was a problem during checkout when Remark failed to slew the telescope and gave a "failed to respond" error. Eventually it cleared up and everything worked normally. * The spicam images for the lens monitoring program showed significant motion, with occasional excursions of as much as an arcminute, quickly returning to the original position. Echelle observers also reported multiple jumps on and off during the night, with gradually decreasing frequency. We suspect this may be a result of primary mirror motion rather than telescope jerks; a checkout of the primary mirror support system is planned for daytime tomorrow. The lens data could not be scped to Princeton because of a communications blackout, but they were burned to a CD. * When we switched instruments to the echelle, there was an error message in the TCC indicating a failure in communication with the secondary. Subsequent focus commands and autocollimation commands all appeared successful, and there was no recurrence of the error. * When the remote connection for the UC09 observer was lost, there were some interesting local consequences as well. Most notably, although slitviewer images were still being taken, they were not being written to disk. The guiding was good, and the echelle continued to expose and readout correctly. Once the image was safe, we reestablished the remote connection. Some time was lost due to erroneous status indications in the remote observer's Remark, which was eventually solved by unselecting and reselecting the instrument. * The count levels for QTH exposures went down drastically in the last few nights. Exposure times are now a factor of 10 or 20 longer in order to get the same count levels as earlier. The bulb may be getting old. OBSERVER COMMENTS FOCUS LOG DECEMBER 30 1999 Wind Time Inst Focus Az El #Temp Dir MPH filt FWHM " 18:10 SPIcam -80(726) -129 49 2.7/3.2 21 23 r' 1.0 19:10 Echelle 64(79) -92 39 3.3/2.8 9 20 ND2 1.1 00:05 Echelle 95(14) 311 51 3.1/2.0 260 3 ND2 1.2 #First temp is air, second temp is telescope. WEATHER DECEMBER 30 1999 Wind Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip. 16:01 38 0 6 346 (NNW) 257 Clear None 17:01 37 -5 15 17 (NNE) 376 Clear None 18:01 36 -12 9 11 (N) 249 Clear None 19:01 37 -8 18 10 (N) 50 Few clds None 20:01 38 -12 6 26 (NNE) 54 Clear None 21:01 34 0 10 343 (NNW) 244 Clear None 22:01 39 -5 11 358 (N) 112 Clear None 23:01 37 -5 7 320 (NW) 110 Clear None 00:01 37 -6 4 267 (W) 88 clear none 01:01 35 -4 7 264 (W) 84 clear none 02:01 36 -5 9 185 (S) 88 clear none 03:01 36 -5 14 225 (SW) 82 ptly cldy none 04:01 36 30 12 229 (SW) 122 mstly cldy none 05:01 36 30 11 254 (WSW) 155 mstly cldy none 06:01 37 30 15 256 (WSW) 82 mstly cldy none 07:01 37 30 15 266 (W) 87 mstly cldy 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. Current TCC version: 2.2.1. - Frank Deglman, Russet McMillan