From: "N.C. Hastings" Subject: 3.5m Night Log 990611 Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 04:10:00 -0600 Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM Friday, June 11th, 1999 3.5-meter Night Observing Log Actual ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- K.Krisciunas K.Krisciunas GRIM II 6/11 20:35 22:53 & C.Stubbs & SPIcam S.Tremaine M.Holman SPIcam 6/11-12 22:58 00:58 S.McCandliss S.McCandliss Echelle 6/12 01:15 03:31 E.Turner C.Hastings SPIcam 6/12 03:52 04:16 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 - 2.3 - 0 0 - JH07/S 01:13 03:45 0 - 0 - 2.5 - 0 0 - PU03/S 03:45 04:14 0 - 0 - 0.3 - 0 0 - -------------- Activity Log -------------- Observing Specialist: N.C.Hastings The telescope opened at 19:00 this evening to cool. Craig Loomis and Jon Brinkman worked on SPIcam in the afternoon and evening which lead to little insight, but more problems. SPIcam currently seems to be working but not stable. Currently, Al Diercks & Chris Stubbs (UW), Camron Hastings, Craig Loomis and Jon Brinkman (APO) are working on the issue. Gene Magnier is out of town for the week but is being kept up to date. Although there was no lost time due to instrument problems, we had plenty! We just managed to have it outside observing time or else programs were able to switch to a second instrument. During the evening of working on SPIcam trouble documentation and trying to keep up with the instrument switches, the echelle died! Steve was getting ready for his program and we found that the echelle would not read the chip. When it did read the chip, random, it read nothing and the MC pulled null data out of memory. I consulted Connie Rockosi, on sight with the Sloan program, and we fought with it for over an hour before his observing run started. It seems that sometimes you get 'Check CCD' as if it cannot talk to the CCD. Other times you get 'Reading Chip' for a second and that means the ICC thinks it received all the data from the CCD but really it received none. We cycled fiber drivers, computers & software, all to no avail. Finally, after restarting everything, including REMARK (which should have no effect on the echelle directly), the echelle began reading the chip like normal. Neither Connie or I really know why, sorry to say. After an hour or so of working on the echelle I also tried to start DIMM and test the new software that Armin downloaded. I recalibrated on Polaris because during the day it seems that the Meade blew a fuse. After recalibrating I moved Polaris just slightly off the field and started the remote control panel. Inside I issued a 'SMALLSEARCH' command and DIMM immediately found the star and started measurements. This was good, but the measurements were again about 1.0 to 1.2 arcsecs higher than measured values with SPIcam, which was working also, by the way. DIMM eventually dies because the disk filled up with images that I was saving for Armin. I shut it off and cleared the 'recycle bin' which opened up 45MB of space. FOCUS LOG June 11th 1999 Best Telescope Temp Wind Seeing Time Instrmnt Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 22:55 SPIcam -170(????) 138 61 14.2/14.5 252 12 r' 0.95" 00:15 SPIcam -160(6510) 179 47 14.2/13.8 272 10 r' 1.13" 01:15 Echelle -060(5687) 092 69 13.9/13.5 308 07 none 0.91" 03:58 SPIcam -150(6493) 138 68 09.2/11.8 060 07 r' 3.56" WEATHER LOG June 11th 1999 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 74 13 21 234 (SW) 1134 Cirrus None 17:01 71 12 20 207 (SSW) 1064 Cirrus None 18:01 68 13 19 215 (SW) 1335 Cirrus None 19:01 65 9 21 211 (SSW) 1200 Cirrus None 20:01 60 5 14 233 (SW) 1005 Cirrus None 21:01 59 7 11 244 (WSW) 1059 Clear None 22:01 58 8 8 249 (WSW) 1028 Clear None 23:01 58 8 12 243 (WSW) 1222 Clear None 00:01 57 6 7 272 (W) 1420 Clear None 01:01 57 9 9 277 (W) 1171 Clear None 02:01 57 13 6 287 (WNW) 1269 Clear None 03:01 53 13 8 59 (ENE) 1335 Clear None 04:01 55 17 2 53 (NE) 1543 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: 2.55b5 Current guide software version: GIm Ctrl v3.0b 17.out - NCH