From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20001122 Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 06:27:27 -0700 (MST) APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, November 22nd, 2000 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Strauss V.Narayanan DIS-low 16:50 23:31 B.Gillespie R.McMillan SPIcam 23:40 00:15 D.York C.Mallouris Echelle 00:18 01:35 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- PU02/R 17:55 23:38 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 5.7 0.0 0 0.0 0.0 EN01/O/D 23:38 00:10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.0 0 0.0 0.0 UC06/R 00:10 05:44 2.3 1.4 0.5 0.0 1.4 0.0 0 0.0 0.0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist, 1st Shift: Noel Camron Hastings The dome was opened tonight at 17:30 MST after the Princeton group took calibration images with DIS. Although SPIcam was returned to service tonight, it was too late for the lens monitoring program, so that time was given to the PU02 team. In return, they agreed to stop early, at 23:28 instead of 23:58 to allow us a short testing time with SPIcam. SPIcam's Cryotiger is now on UPS, and the good news is that from preliminary bias images, it appears the bias noise is gone. Whether or not this will stay that way remains to be seen. Weather was good except for one patch of clouds. Lots of useful data under clear skies. Slit camera worked well. Observing Specialist, 2nd Shift: Russet McMillan I started out by doing some image tests with SPIcam, which looked just fine, and an ultra-fast instrument block. The parameters changed very little from the previous instrument block, and SPIcam appears ready for science use. We switched to the echelle just a few minutes behind schedule and started observing under lovely clear skies with sub-arcsecond seeing, a pleasant surprise considering that winter storms were in the forecast. We got one good exposure with the echelle in clear conditions, then clouds started to move in. At the same time, communications problems between here and Chicago caused some MC hangups. We nearly lost the one good exposure, which didn't get written to disk after readout. I managed to rescue the image off the echelle ICC, but the network difficulties continued, and the clouds got thicker. It was hard to separate out how much time was lost to equipment trouble and how much to weather, so I just made a rough estimate. --------------- INSTRUMENT FOCUS LOG ---------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El #Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 17:50 DIS Slit -150(538) 172 75 2.2/4.7 187 09 none 1.17" 23:54 SPIcam* 200(781) 157 70 2.2/2.0 206 15 V 0.80 00:02 Gdr * 59700(780) 162 71 2.2/1.9 206 18 none 0.92 00:28 Echelle 46(-193) 292 65 2.1/1.9 212 14 ND1 0.79 * The zeropoints were changed after these measurements ------------- WEATHER CONDITIONS ------------ Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 41 27 4 248 (WSW) 479 clear none 17:01 36 28 7 181 (S) 457 clear none 18:01 35 28 10 197 (SSW) 407 clear none 19:01 35 29 11 194 (SSW) 511 clear none 20:01 34 28 10 217 (SW) 697 cloudy none 21:01 35 27 10 244 (WSW) 739 cloudy none 22:01 36 27 13 256 (WSW) 537 clear none 23:01 37 24 9 214 (SW) 414 clear none 00:01 36 24 15 201 (SSW) 428 clear none 01:01 35 23 20 203 (SSW) 519 mstly clr none 02:01 35 24 22 219 (SW) 495 ptly cldy none 03:01 34 26 16 229 (SW) 569 cloudy none 04:01 32 28 16 238 (WSW) 968 cloudy none 05:01 31 29 19 241 (WSW) 864 cloudy none note: the wind was coming from the azimuth listed. The convention used is north=0 degrees, east=90 degrees. The dust count is particles > 1u per 0.1 cubic feet. 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: 2.62. Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv3.0b27. Current TCC version is 2.4.1 Current MC version: v1_7_3. - Noel Camron Hastings, Russet McMillan