Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 06:37:40 -0600 (MDT) From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 990411 Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM Sunday, April 11th, 1999 3.5-meter Night Observing Log Actual ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- V.Galarza V.Galarza SPIcam 4/11 21:29 00:58 B.Margon E.Deutsch DIS 4/11-12 00:23 05:12 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NM08/R 20:56 01:10 0.4 - 0 - 3.8 - 0 0 - UW03/R 01:10 05:11 1.6 0 0.2 0.3 1.6 0.3 0 0 0 -------------- Activity Log -------------- * Indicates that a problem report has been issued. 1st Half Observing Specialist: N.C.Hastings I did not open the enclosure due to the thick cloud cover we had in the early evening. Between 20:06 and 20:30 the interfaces to UW died. It turns out that Seattle was having power problems city wide, on the hour. Until we could establish stable computers I refrained from opening connections. We were without cloud cam from 20:06 PDT. I tried again around 22:20 with some luck. Maybe we could convince Eric to come down and install the IDL stuff here at APO if we bought a machine to run it all!! :) I think almost every problem that we have had with this interface has been sue to the distance, not software or hardware! I did open finally at 21:20. After a test slew at 21:34 I noticed that the azimuth was not responding. I made successful slews earlier in the evening. I reinitialized axes without success. I checked the drive control box and found red LED's indicating a fault. I reset and all worked normally after that. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan The telescope was closed due to high dust counts from 02:30 to 04:05. The rest of the time, the telescope was exposed to marginal dust levels, and the mirror should probably be cleaned soon. When we reopened after being closed for over an hour (with AXIS STOP having been entered during the closure), a rotate command caused the telescope to slew to the object we had been tracking before we closed. Since that object was now just a few degrees from the zenith, it posed a problem. I believe this has already been fixed in Russ Owen's latest revision; maybe we could implement that sometime soon? * A twenty-minute exposure that started at 04:20 came out completely blank -- no sky lines or anything. The guider and slit viewer were both seeing sky, and everything appeared fine on DIS after a sync. The shutter status appeared normal with no faults. The next exposure was normal. I don't know what caused the problem. FOCUS LOG April 11th 1999 Best Telescope Temp Wind Seeing Time Instrmnt Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 22:05 SPIcam -140(6197) 024 79 6.8/8.8 174 14 B 1.68" 23:10 SPIcam -325(5976) -129 71 6.8/7.2 153 20 659/2.5 1.10" 01:50 DIS -30(6364) -105 68 8.4/7.2 190 24 none 1.28 04:30 slitcam -150(6302) 222 48 8.1/7.1 180 22 -- ~1.4 (seeing estimate for slitcam focus taken from guider measurements) WEATHER LOG April 11th 1999 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 50 7 19 185 (S) 1219 cloudy none 17:01 54 8 19 213 (SSW) 1687 cloudy none 18:01 50 7 13 193 (SSW) 1960 cloudy none 19:01 46 4 15 152 (SSE) 1970 cirrus none 20:01 45 4 16 171 (S) 2131 cirrus none 21:01 48 4 14 170 (S) 1319 cirrus none 22:01 44 1 17 172 (S) 1758 cirrus none 23:01 44 0 19 152 (SSE) 2223 cirrus none 00:01 44 1 13 150 (SSE) 2364 cirrus none 01:01 45 11 18 171 (S) 2425 cirrus none 02:01 47 7 16 181 (S) 2700 cirrus none 03:01 43 19 17 171 (S) 3174 cloudy none 04:01 45 14 19 169 (SSE) 2922 cirrus none 05:01 45 17 21 173 (S) 2797 cirrus none 06:01 46 8 19 180 (S) 2043 cirrus 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: 2.55b2 Current guide software version: GIm Ctrl v3.0b 17.out - NCH, RM