From: "N.C. Hastings" Subject: 3.5m Night Log 990629 Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 04:30:26 -0600 Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM Tuesday, June 29th, 1999 3.5-meter Night Observing Log Actual ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Gillespie C.Hastings Guider/DIMM 6/29 21:57 22:42 G.Gonzales G.Wallerstein Echelle 6/29-30 23:12 03:32 E.Turner C.Hastings DIS 6/30 03:55 04:35 Observation Time Breakdown ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/S 21:57 22:57 - 0 - 0 - 1.0 0 - 0 UW06/R 22:57 03:46 - 1.0 - 0.5 - 3.3 0 - 0 PU03/S 03:46 04:17 - 0 - 0 - 0.5 0 - 0 -------------- Activity Log -------------- Observing Specialist: N.C.Hastings The telescope was opened at 19:45 this evening to clear skies. I spent 3 hours earlier cleaning moths out of the inside of DIMM! I also cleaned the guider mirrors as it looks as if camera coolant was leaking, just slightly, on to the mirrors. The first program was allocated to engineering to work on DIMM and the guider instead of UW's SPIcam program. DIMM was refocused successfully and ran simultaneously with the 3.5m while pointed at Polaris. Tonight I recorded 1 hour of commensurate seeing data between the 3.5m and the DIMM. When I started DIMM tonight I again found 100's of moths in the open DIMM enclosure and AGAIN, a moth had somehow worked its way into the Meade! This moth issue is really going to have to be solved or the DIMM system will not be able to operate unless completely cleaned out every day, a 3 hour process.... When I started the echelle run I found the pointing off by about 30" in Y. The pointing at NA2 earlier was within 10 arcseconds. This pointing issue was noticed when AOTF ran as well and must not be a freak occurrence. Perhaps a new pointing model should be priority next engineering time. The clouds moved in on UW to the point that focus or corrections were useless so I closed the telescope at 23:50 MST. I mentioned to Russ Owen the fact that the echelle is using the old guider image file name structure and he mentioned that it sounds as if it has not been upgraded to the newest version. Is this necessary? Currently it is using the 20 image cache with 'gImg' file names while the NA2 guider is using the 1000 image cache with 'gimg' filenames. The pointing was great on the NA2 port when I switched to DIS for the lens project. FOCUS LOG June 29th 1999 Best Telescope Temp Wind Seeing Time Instrmnt Focus Az El Air/Truss Dir MPH filter FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 21:30 Guider -1000(????) 001 47 18.9/19.3 186 15 Red+ND2 1.26" 00:45 Echelle +025(6159) 176 33 18.7/18.8 178 12 Clear 1.89" 03:50 DIS +025(6926) 141 53 18.7/18.3 003 05 Gunn r 1.28" WEATHER LOG June 29th 1999 Wind Time Temp-F Dewp-F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 73 31 9 265 (W) 857 Clear None 17:01 73 31 4 0 (N) 853 Clear None 18:01 75 31 15 308 (NW) 774 Clear None 19:01 74 31 9 263 (W) 827 Clear None 20:01 69 31 6 266 (W) 746 Clear None 21:01 67 31 13 201 (SSW) 927 Mstly Clr None 22:01 67 30 13 184 (S) 923 Mstly Clr None 23:01 66 30 17 185 (S) 985 Ptly Cldy None 00:01 66 30 14 201 (SSW) 1049 Mstly Cldy None 01:01 66 30 9 179 (S) 1066 Prtly Cldy None 02:01 64 31 5 110 (ESE) 1060 Prtly Cldy None 03:01 66 32 2 339 (NNW) 932 Prtly Cldy None 04:01 66 31 6 348 (NNW) 1072 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