From: "N.C. Hastings" Subject: 3.5m Night Log 990610 Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 04:41:39 -0600 Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM Sunday, June 10th, 1999 3.5-meter Night Observing Log Actual ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- K.Krisciunas K.Krisciunas GRIM II 6/10 20:20 22:53 & C.Stubbs & SPIcam S.Tremaine M.Holman SPIcam 6/10-11 22:58 00:58 D.York D.York Echelle 6/11 01:25 04:45 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UW02/R 21:53 22:53 0 - 0 - 1.0 - 0 0 - PU02/R 22:53 01:13 0 - 0.9 - 1.4 - 0 0 - UC03/R 01:13 04:13 0 - 0 - 3.0 - 0 0 - -------------- Activity Log -------------- Observing Specialist: N.C.Hastings Telescope was opened this evening at 19:50 MST. The first program switched to GRIM for the evening. After they imaged with GRIM for a while and then decided to switch back to SPIcam. This switch went fast and easy and without incident. I worked with Armin Rest trouble shooting DIMM info. I made a long email of the work done and sent it to Armin and Chris Stubbs. There was a little trouble with the search and the 'GOPOLARIS' command. DIMM was started manually after this work but seemed to be reading 1.2" higher than the seeing actually was. Armin is working on it. SPIcam had a problem right at switch time. It was running fine for the first program with UW, but then the second program had trouble right off the bat. The files were being truncated at read out. It was turned over to me and I tried an 'object' exposure and it worked fine, but the first 'dofocus' I tried truncated as well. I called Chris Stubbs, who was still around from the first program, and he logged into SPIcam and tried. He noticed that the 'filters.txt' file was open. I had used 'more' to look at it here and had left it open. His 'dofocus' worked fine. We speculated that maybe SPIcam did not like the 'filters.txt' file being locked open. This is not very probable though because the truncation was happening intermittently, not each time. I have saved the files and will send Gene Magnier email regarding this. We lost the last two 500 second images to the same truncation problem after about 20 good images. Switch to the echelle went well. Pointing seemed a bit off, but not too bad. I tried two pointing corrections that both said they corrected but did not get the star centered again. Are the pixel scale values that track/pterr uses to figure the offset correct for the echelle? The MC crashed at around 01:35 MST. Looks like it was due to a large amount of offset commands being sent very quickly and piling up. I restarted the MC and we all logged back in. A good idea to clean the primary as it seems a bird has taken a liking to the lower portion of the primary, near the mirror cover switch! FOCUS LOG June 10th 1999 Best Telescope Temp Wind Seeing Time Instrmnt Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:25 GrIm II -070(????) 182 72 14.8/18.0 222 13 K-Prime 1.21" 22:25 SPIcam -200(6493) 226 46 14.4/14.5 223 12 R 0.96" 23:10 SPicam -160(6464) 154 65 14.6/14.6 238 10 r' 0.83" 00:15 Echelle -029(5771) 164 59 13.8/13.9 264 6 ND3 1.06" WEATHER LOG June 10th 1999 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 70 13 13 198 (SSW) 1578 Photometric None 17:01 69 11 20 238 (WSW) 1385 Photometric None 18:01 68 5 17 217 (SW) 1092 Photometric None 19:01 64 3 17 218 (SW) 892 Photometric None 20:01 60 2 16 235 (SW) 955 Photometric None 21:01 58 3 13 219 (SW) 970 Photometric None 22:01 58 5 10 226 (SW) 1276 Photometric None 23:01 59 6 10 239 (WSW) 1317 Light Cirrus None 00:01 58 6 10 226 (SW) 1293 Light Cirrus None 01:01 57 8 7 241 (WSW) 1614 Photometric None 02:01 57 9 7 266 (W) 1555 Photometric None 03:01 56 9 6 278 (W) 1352 Photometric None 04:01 57 8 4 342 (NNW) 1291 Photometric 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: 2.55b5 Current guide software version: GIm Ctrl v3.0b 17.out - NCH