Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 06:10:18 -0700 (MST) From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 990306 Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM Saturday, March 6th, 1999 3.5-meter Night Observing Log Actual ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- C.Stubbs C.Hastings SPIcam 3/6 19:26 20:26 E.Turner C.Hastings SPIcam 3/6-7 20:26 00:00 A.Diercks A.Diercks GrIm II 3/7 00:20 01:20 H.Ford Z.Tsvetanov GrIm II 3/7 01:20 05:02 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UC02/S 19:26 20:26 0 - 0 - 1.0 - 0 0 0 PU04/S 20:26 00:10 1.8 1.9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UW08/R 00:20 01:20 - 0 - 0 - 1.0 0 - 0 JH05/R 01:20 05:02 - 3.0 - 0 - 0.7 0 0 0 -------------- Activity Log -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: N.C.Hastings Dome opened after clouds at 19:15. Amazingly enough we had exactly one hour of good seeing and no clouds. They moved in right at the end of the first program. Clouds kept any further observing from happening. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Second half was cloudy, with slowly rising humidity and dust counts. We closed at 02:00 due to dust and clouds. There have been some oddities in focus with GRIM lately. Two nights ago, the best focus was -600. Last night it was -150, and tonight it started out at +150. Half an hour later, with a moderate (0.5 degree) change in temperature, the focus was 200 steps different. It was actually changing so quickly that it was hard to keep up with it *during* a focus sequence. All these rapid focus changes were at f/5 -- since no one has reported focus inconsistencies with other instruments, it might indicate that the scale-changing lens optics on GRIM are somehow loose. Around 02:10, for unknown reasons, the telrun process suddenly stopped and the connection with the TCC was broken. I was attempting to do an "encl stat" command at the time, and the crash apparently occurred as soon as I typed the letter "e". FOCUS LOG March 6th 1999 Best Telescope Temp Wind Seeing Time Instrmnt Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 19:40 SPIcam -200(????) 108 63 5.4/6.3 178 14 B 0.95" 00:10 GRIM +150(6521) 263 52 2.8/2.9 165 22 J(f/5) 1.18 00:35 GRIM 0(6382) 267 47 2.4/2.7 152 21 J(f/5) 01:30 GRIM -250(6136) 126 41 2.2/2.3 152 25 J(f/10) 1.2 01:45 GRIM -200(6171) 129 43 2.3/2.1 158 26 J(f/5) 1.6 WEATHER LOG March 6th 1999 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 45 4 16 190 (S) 548 cirrus none 17:01 44 2 15 187 (S) 621 cirrus none 18:01 42 0 15 185 (S) 576 cirrus none 19:01 42 2 16 182 (S) 710 mstly clr none 20:01 42 2 13 177 (S) 756 cirrus none 21:01 41 1 14 157 (SSE) 831 cirrus none 22:01 40 1 16 180 (S) 874 cirrus none 23:01 38 4 17 151 (SSE) 1452 cirrus none 00:01 38 7 17 156 (SSE) 1723 mstly cldy none 01:01 36 14 19 153 (SSE) 2231 mstly cldy none 02:01 36 19 20 155 (SSE) 2698 mstly cldy none 03:01 35 25 21 151 (SSE) 2889 mstly cldy none 04:01 35 29 22 154 (SSE) 3664 mstly cldy none 05:01 34 30 25 155 (SSE) 4455 mstly cldy none 06:01 33 31 18 149 (SSE) 4450 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 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: 2.54b4 Current guide software version: GIm Ctrl v3.0b 17.out - NCH, RM