From: "Noel Camron Hastings" Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20001109 Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 06:36:51 -0700 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, November 9th, 2000 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Gillespie R.McMillan,J.Morgan DIS slit, 17:55 06:14 C.Hastings,J.Holtzman DIS,S-H,NA2gdr INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/O 18:01 05:34 0 0 0 0 0.6 11.0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist, 1st Shift: Russet McMillan Lovely weather again, and the snow was off the roof thanks to heroic efforts from the day staff, who literally had to shovel away two feet of snow and ice. The seeing started out extremely variable at the beginning of the night, swinging from 1 to 5 arc seconds more or less at random. First half was a productive mix of Shack-Hartmann measurements (we studied the thermal behavior of the telescope some more and made a small change to the collimation once everything settled down) and slit viewer characterization. The new DIS slit viewer is acceptably well focused and appears to be more sensitive than the old one (we're working on quantitative measures of how sensitive). It should be fine for observing even though the control software is still undergoing some changes. We'll start out with the observing specialists controlling the slit viewer and doing the centering and guiding as before, until the software is stable and reliable. Eventually, remote observers will be able to run it themselves. Observing Specialist, 2nd Shift: Noel Camron Hastings I came in a little early to see the end of the S-H stuff and mirror tilt changes. I then began the pointing models, starting with a small model and then began increasing in points and range. In the end they looked very good and I ended up implementing the final model with a 3.3" RMS. During the pointing model I had one major rotator speed problem. Remark stated that we had arrived at our new position, but it took the rotator another 51 seconds to reach its value of -283 degrees. This happened at 00:25. I was seeing quite a few of these rotator drags in the counter- clockwise direction and it complicated the later pointing models. I had to put in a default delay on every slew of 20 seconds to make sure the rotator had caught up. These delays were always in the CCW direction with a few minor overshoots in the CW direction of 2-3 degrees at most. At the end of the night I got a few S-H frames in as well as rotating the instrument to characterize the center of the DIS chip on the slit imager, which happens to be about x=200. In addition, I have updated parts of the web manual dealing with these engineering tasks and added the new Apogee parameters to the detector info page of the upcoming manual. (These values are still preliminary) --------------- INSTRUMENT FOCUS LOG ---------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El #Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:40 DIS(red) 50(541) 13 65 -2.1/-1.9 228 11 - 1.6 20:41 DISslit 0(491) 13 65 -2.1/-1.9 228 11 - 1.5 ------------- WEATHER CONDITIONS ------------ Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 37 13 9 263 (W) 266 clear none 17:01 32 11 7 208 (SSW) 407 clear none 18:01 30 13 9 225 (SW) 286 clear none 19:01 30 13 10 222 (SW) 259 clear none 20:01 29 12 12 209 (SSW) 360 clear none 21:01 29 12 11 218 (SW) 287 clear none 22:01 29 16 15 270 (W) 211 clear none 23:01 30 17 19 266 (W) 205 clear none 00:01 30 18 14 264 (W) 189 clear none 01:01 30 18 16 267 (W) 211 clear none 02:01 31 16 20 235 (SW) 204 clear none 03:01 30 16 15 253 (WSW) 210 clear none 04:01 30 12 14 275 (W) 211 clear none 05:01 29 16 16 237 (WSW) 243 clear none 06:01 28 17 12 227 (SW) 226 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 particles > 1 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. - Russet McMillan, Noel Camron Hastings