Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 05:14:05 -0600 (MDT) From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 990601 Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM Tuesday, June 1, 1999 3.5-meter Night Observing Log Actual ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Infante Infante GRIM 6/1 -- -- Diercks Diercks GRIM 6/2 00:10 01:05 Gonzales Wallerstein Echelle 6/2 01:15 02:30 Turner McMillan SPIcam 6/2 -- -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PU06/S 21:46 00:10 0.4 2.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UW01/R 00:10 01:10 - 0.5 - 0 - 0.5 0 - 0 UW06/S 01:10 03:46 - 1.3 - 0 - 1.3 0 - 0 PU03/S 03:46 04:16 - 0.5 - 0 - 0 0 - 0 -------------- Activity Log -------------- * Indicates that a problem report has been issued. Observing Specialist: R.McMillan High clouds persisted for most of the night, making observations difficult even when they did not necessitate closure. GRIM observations were especially affected. Leopoldo Infante gave some of his clouded-out time for George Wallerstein to become acquainted with the echelle, but nothing was really accomplished besides focusing the telescope. Brief patches of almost clear skies around 00:15 and 01:30 also allowed little time for real work. The tertiary got a lot of exercise, with a total of 6 moves between Nasmyth ports. These were all trouble-free, and the pointing (when it was possible to tell) was excellent. One thing I did discover which I didn't know before was that the tertiary tip-tilt and secondary focus are not adjusted immediately when a set inst command is issued; instead, the mirrors adjust when the first telescope move is commanded *after* the set inst. This was true even when the telescope was tracking during the tertiary rotation and set inst procedure. Is there some reason why SecCmdMount and TertCmdMount are not included in set inst? Test images before opening revealed a communications problem with the echelle slit viewer which was rapidly traced (thanks, Craig!) to a bad fiber driver on the intermediate level. The slit viewer otherwise behaved well for the night, recovering gracefully from user errors when a gcam clear was issued. More distressing was the discovery that there was apparently no good way to abort a sequence of echelle bias images that were accidentally requested -- the abort button (only highlighted part of the time) did nothing, and neither did a manual "stop inst" from the mcnode. Between chip flushing and readout time, unwanted echelle images can be a real time-waster; an effective abort would be very desirable, especially for sequences of images. FOCUS LOG June 1 1999 Best Telescope Temp Wind Seeing Time Instrmnt Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 23:00 Echelle -37(5780) 56 58 12.9/14.1 217 15 ND1 1.5 00:10 GRIM -75(6655) 151 75 13.0/12.9 215 14 J 1.2 01:15 Echelle 48(5753) -149 75 12.8/12.5 214 17 ND2 1.3 WEATHER LOG June 1 1999 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 66 11 11 255 (WSW) 587 cloudy none 17:01 62 12 6 267 (W) 605 cloudy none 18:01 61 15 15 219 (SW) 643 cloudy none 19:01 59 17 7 208 (SSW) 662 cloudy none 20:01 58 17 12 264 (W) 743 cloudy none 21:01 57 18 18 228 (SW) 772 cloudy none 22:01 55 18 14 219 (SW) 804 cloudy none 23:01 55 17 11 218 (SW) 856 cloudy none 00:01 55 16 7 203 (SSW) 831 ptly cldy none 01:01 55 17 11 197 (SSW) 965 cloudy none 02:01 55 18 9 213 (SSW) 1011 ptly cldy none 03:01 53 17 5 194 (SSW) 966 cloudy none 04:01 55 15 3 209 (SSW) 886 cloudy none 05:01 55 18 2 252 (WSW) 818 cloudy 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