Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 05:55:10 -0600 (MDT) From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 990602 Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM Wednesday, June 2, 1999 3.5-meter Night Observing Log Actual ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Infante Infante GRIM 6/2 21:47 00:10 Diercks Magnier GRIM 6/3 00:10 01:05 Gonzales Wallerstein Echelle 6/3 01:15 04:16 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PU06/S 21:47 00:10 0.3 0 0 0 0.9 1.2 0 0 0 UW01/R 00:10 01:10 - 0 - 0 - 1.0 0 - 0 UW06/S 01:10 04:16 - 0 - 0 - 3.1 0 - 0 -------------- Activity Log -------------- * Indicates that a problem report has been issued. Observing Specialist: R.McMillan A dust spike around sunset made it necessary to stay closed until 22:05, which was also around the time the clouds started to move off. The weather was clear and stable after 23:00, with good seeing for GRIM and decent seeing for the echelle. Pointing was very good with GRIM, but the nature of tonight's observations with the echelle made the pointing at NA1 harder to judge. At the beginning of the evening, the temperature sensors on the telescope truss stopped reading out. Once I realized that the temperature wasn't updating, Craig was able to restart the process quickly, but it was unclear why it had stopped in the first place. Craig's timely warning that the temperature update would move the secondary allowed me to prevent a drastic focus change in the middle of an automated GRIM script. (For this reason, no focus information is shown for GRIM, but the seeing was around 0.8 - 1.0 arcseconds). Around 02:45, the cloud camera got stuck at its northernmost point, not an unusual event. But the control program on dione never beeped or complained, and even after multiple power cycles it was apparently unable to get a response from the cloud camera. I requested another scan for lack of anything else to try, and when that didn't appear to work I told it to stop. But the cloud camera was outside merrily scanning away, while dione still claimed it was stalled. I suspected a failure in communications somewhere between UW and here, but all other weather information on the guider monitor continued to update. Perhaps it was just dione, or perhaps it was related to the fact that APO's web server also stopped responding around mid-morning. OBSERVER COMMENTS G. Magnier (UW01): Everything went smoothly, seeing was good. G. Wallerstein (UW06): A very good session. FOCUS LOG June 2 1999 Best Telescope Temp Wind Seeing Time Instrmnt Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 01:45 Echelle -55(5714) 150 46 11.7/11.6 290 21 clear 1.7 03:55 Echelle 0(5710) 198 50 10.8/10.7 282 16 clear 1.2 WEATHER LOG June 2 1999 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 63 21 15 244 (WSW) 1180 mstly cldy none 17:01 66 22 17 232 (SW) 1066 mstly cldy none 18:01 64 21 20 231 (SW) 1431 mstly cldy none 19:01 62 22 21 217 (SW) 2052 mstly cldy none 20:01 59 22 23 224 (SW) 2557 mstly cldy none 21:01 57 24 16 233 (SW) 4704 mstly cldy none 22:01 56 24 16 246 (WSW) 2933 ptly cldy none 23:01 57 25 16 235 (SW) 2572 clear none 00:01 55 25 9 270 (W) 2620 clear none 01:01 53 27 13 278 (W) 1645 clear none 02:01 53 28 12 292 (WNW) 1350 clear none 03:01 52 29 11 279 (W) 1153 clear none 04:01 52 29 12 278 (W) 1137 clear none 05:01 50 30 9 281 (W) 1042 clear 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