Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 07:35:56 -0600 (MDT)
From: Russet McMillan
Subject: 3.5m Night Log 990403
Content-Length: 2782
                 Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM
                       Saturday, April 3rd, 1999
                     3.5-meter Night Observing Log
                                Actual
----------------------------------------------------------------------
ASTRONOMER     OBSERVER(S)       INSTRUMENT    DATE      START  FINISH
----------------------------------------------------------------------
J.Brown        J.Brown           Echelle       4/3-4     21:25  05:00
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 INST       SCHEDULED      WEATH     EQUIP      OBS     DAY   NOTUSED
I/RS/DN   START  FINISH    D    B    D    B    D    B   USE   D    B
----------------------------------------------------------------------
WS01/R    19:49  05:24    1.2  0.8   0    0    0   6.6   0    0    0
               -------------- Activity Log --------------
1st Half Observing Specialist: N.C.Hastings
      I opened the telescope at 16:50 to allow it to start cooling.
The sky was very cirrus filled, moderate wind.  I closed due to clouds
at 19:30 but reopened again at 21:25 MST.
2nd Half Observing Specialist: Russet McMillan
Second half was clear and productive up until 05:00 MDT, when we
closed due to high winds.  At 02:00 MST, the time switched to 03:00
MDT.
There were a couple of mysterious but minor problems, easily solved.
The remote observer's Remark crashed once (see notes below) for
unknown reasons, and the cloud camera got stuck at 04:50 (I *think*
that was MST, because if it happened an hour earlier I would have
noticed).  The strange thing was that the camera was not stuck at its
northernmost point of motion, which is when that normally happens --
this time I went out to look at it, and the camera was sitting right
in the middle of its range, where it normally parks.  It was twilight
by then, so I closed it anyway.
Another problem we encountered was a failure of the echelle focus
routine with the old claim about "no stars found."  There was indeed a
star present, not too close to the slit, and the profile was neither
flat-topped nor a donut.  I saved one of the images that the routine
choked on in export/images/guider/gSav5.fit so that someone can try to
figure out what it was objecting to.  After the routine failed twice,
I focused by hand.
			  OBSERVER COMMENTS
J.Brown (WS01):
For an inaugural run with an instrument, things went very well.  We
suffered one crash of Remark, possibly associated with having the
slit viewer Autoexpose time being set to too low a value, but also
possibly associated with colliding commands sent by the oblivious
remote astronomer while the observing specialist was doing something
else.
[Note: the observing specialist wasn't doing anything at the time.
Reason for crash unclear; it occurred around 23:05 MST. Both sites
were running Remark 2.55b1. --RM]
                               FOCUS LOG
                            April 3rd 1999
                  Best    Telescope    Temp      Wind          Seeing
Time  Instrmnt   Focus      Az  El   Air/Truss  Dir MPH  filter FWHM"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
21:30 Echelle -950(5035)   238  44  -2.8/-3.1   221  22   ND3   2.97"
01:00 Echelle -1006(5095)  196  28  -1.4/-1.9   205  24  clear  1.79"
  (MST)
04:10 Echelle -950(4975)   210  72  -1.1/-1.3   200  32  clear  1.21"
  (MDT)
                              WEATHER LOG
                            April 3rd 1999
                                  Wind
     Time   Temp-F Dewp-F MPH   Direction    Dust      Sky      Precip
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
     16:01    33     5     17   269  (W)      621    Cirrus      None
     17:01    31     1     16   263  (W)     1014    Cirrus      None
     18:01    28     1      9   262  (W)      864    Cirrus      None
     19:01    27     2     10   263  (W)      838    Cirrus      None
     20:01    27     3     10   266  (W)      854    Cirrus      None
     21:01    27     3      8   263  (W)      755    Cirrus      None
     22:01    26     1     14   240  (WSW)    761    Clear       None
     23:01    27     1     10   219  (SW)     562    Clear       None
     00:01    29    -5     18   206  (SSW)    667    Clear       None
     01:01    29    -1     22   209  (SSW)    779    Clear       None
     03:01    30     1     18   196  (SSW)    785    Clear       None
     04:01    30     5     26   192  (SSW)    958    Clear       None
     05:01    31     6     27   187  (S)     1203    Clear       None
     06:01    32     8     34   194  (SSW)   1180    Clear       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: 2.55b1
Current guide software version: GIm Ctrl v3.0b 17.out
-  NCH, RM