From: "N.C. Hastings" Subject: 3.5m Night Log 990624 Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 04:35:44 -0600 Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM Thursday, June 24th, 1999 3.5-meter Night Observing Log Actual ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- N.Chanover *See Note AOTF 6/24 20:57 21:57 N.Chanover *See Note AOTF 6/24 21:57 22:57 B.Balick *See Note AOTF 6/24-25 22:57 00:40 A.Diercks A.Diercks GrIm II 6/25 01:15 01:45 G.Gonzales G.Wallerstein Echelle 6/25 02:00 04:45 * N.Chanover(NMSU), J.Hillman(Goddard), K.Anderson(NMSU) & S.Palen(UW) Observation Time Breakdown ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DD02/S 20:57 21:57 - - - - - - 1.0 - - DD02/S 21:57 22:57 - 0 - 0.2 - 0.8 0 - 0 UW10/S 22:57 01:10 - 0.2 - 0 - 2.0 0 - 0 UW01/R 01:10 02:10 - 0 - 0 - 1.0 0 - 0 UW06/R 02:10 04:15 0 0 0 0 1.7 0.4 0 0 0 -------------- Activity Log -------------- Observing Specialist: N.C.Hastings We opened at 18:30 with fair skies. AOTF was mounted and focused without incident. To slew to the first planet of the evening we used the 'slew_to_planet' command in the MC. We were 36" off in x and 56" off in y, but it was easily found in two offsets and then centered. The telescope tracked well on Venus using the velocities generated. All night the telescope pointing was a bit sloppy and not consistent. I saw errors as large as 30 arcseconds. Usually a pointing correction cured them but it wasted time with AOTF especially with the long exposure times and routines needed with that instrument to get an image. It ended up taking quite a bit of time to verify that we were pointing where we thought. The final solution was to slew using the guider as the instrument. I would image the object, center it in the guider display and then switch the instrument back to AOTF. This was actually pretty fast. Based on the pointing I saw I do not believe the AOTF inst block to be bad, just that we were not pointing well enough to get things in their 30" field of view most the time. Rather than search a raster pattern with their slow chip it was faster to use the guider to center objects. The cloud scanner jammed in its northernmost position again tonight. I recentered and restarted. Also, finding the histogram window is not very straight forward in REMARK for the echelle slit viewer and the auto stretch does not work well. Often the star was lost and the observers had to use Eric Deutsch's guider monitor display to view the star in the slit. His guider monitor viewer uses a very good stretching routine to choose the correct display. Very clear, good contrast. The slit view window in REMARK gives a very noisy display of the image when the star is not very bright. FOCUS LOG June 24th 1999 Best Telescope Temp Wind Seeing Time Instrmnt Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 21:00 AOTF +150(6409) +278 33 16.3/16.7 066 21 2.295u ?.??" 02:00 Echelle +406(6368) +189 32 13.7/14.7 131 16 Clear 2.11" WEATHER LOG June 24th 1999 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 71 38 1 154 (SSE) 539 Ptly Cldy None 17:01 68 33 1 339 (NNW) 541 Ptly Cldy Rain 18:01 73 35 1 267 (W) 535 Ptly Cldy None 19:01 69 39 9 192 (SSW) 468 Ptly Cldy None 20:01 63 37 11 135 (SE) 454 Clear None 21:01 61 36 11 111 (ESE) 410 Clear None 22:01 61 34 9 105 (ESE) 484 Clear None 23:01 62 34 8 87 (E) 502 Clear None 00:01 62 34 7 97 (E) 484 Clear None 01:01 58 37 8 108 (ESE) 437 Ptly Cldy None 02:01 57 42 16 136 (SE) 539 Clear None 03:01 60 38 7 173 (S) 524 Clear None 04:01 61 36 11 197 (SSW) 530 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: 2.5.5b5 Current guide software version: GIm Ctrl v3.0b27 - NCH