Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 05:46:33 -0600 (MDT) From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 990531 Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM Monday, May 31, 1999 3.5-meter Night Observing Log Actual ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hobbs Mallouris Echelle 5/31-6/1 21:45 01:10 York Mallouris Echelle 6/1 01:10 04:17 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UC05/R 21:45 01:10 - 0 - 0.6 - 2.8 0 - 0 UC03/R 01:10 04:17 - 0 - 0 - 3.1 0 - 0 -------------- Activity Log -------------- * Indicates that a problem report has been issued. Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Before we opened in the evening, there was some trouble with the PMSS -- one of the vacuum pumps had shut down, apparently due to overheating. Fortunately, the telescope had been parked at an elevation of 60 degrees rather than being tied at the horizon. I moved the telescope to the zenith and turned off the pumps. It took about an hour and a half for the hotter pump to cool significantly. Once turned on, they seemed to run well. By morning, neither pump was excessively hot. First half was marked by thin high clouds, which did not make closure necessary but did prevent obtaining good data on anything fainter than 10th magnitude. Both the clouds and the seeing improved after about 02:00. The telescope and instrument generally behaved well. At one point, we had some difficulty with the echelle slit viewer reporting CAMERA IS BUSY, but it didn't seem quite identical to the previous night's trouble. For one thing, this problem was traced to an accidental request for a 28-hour exposure. Neither gcam clear nor gcam init could abort the request (we didn't try gcam cancel until a little later), so I tried to reboot the slitviewer Mac. This proved equally difficult, since the power button did nothing -- eventually the only solution was to unplug the Mac. Once the machine was rebooted and a gcam cancel was issued, the problem cleared up. It would be good to have a way to abort unwanted gcam commands from inside Remark. It would also be good to have a way to restart the Mac without unplugging it when it hangs up. FOCUS LOG May 31 1999 Best Telescope Temp Wind Seeing Time Instrmnt Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 21:00 Echelle -45 12.9/13.7 clear 1.6 01:45 Echelle 6 11.0/11.9 ND1 1.7 03:30 Echelle -16(5990) 58 70 10.7/9.9 304 14 ND1 0.94 WEATHER LOG May 31 1999 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 63 21 20 275 (W) 1077 mstly cldy none 17:01 64 22 17 269 (W) 1294 mstly cldy none 18:01 60 21 24 240 (WSW) 1230 mstly cldy none 19:01 57 15 15 267 (W) 1359 mstly cldy none 20:01 56 16 15 238 (WSW) 1351 mstly cldy none 21:01 56 15 15 255 (WSW) 1453 mstly cldy none 22:01 55 15 15 266 (W) 1254 mstly cldy none 23:01 55 14 7 268 (W) 1064 mstly cldy none 00:01 54 12 12 297 (WNW) 909 mstly cldy none 01:01 52 10 7 261 (W) 1079 mstly cldy none 02:01 50 9 14 293 (WNW) 1275 mstly clr none 03:01 52 9 8 279 (W) 1238 mstly clr none 04:01 51 8 11 336 (NNW) 1256 mstly clr none 05:01 51 10 11 29 (NNE) 1395 ptly cldy none 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: 2.55b5 Current guide software version: GIm Ctrl v3.0b 18.out - RM