From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20000212 Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 05:56:45 -0700 (MST) SATURDAY FEBRUARY 12, 2000 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY OBSERVING LOG ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH Brown Brown Echelle 2/12 18:40 00:08 Strauss Strauss, Fan DIS 2/13 00:12 05:55 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B WS01/R 18:40 00:10 - 5.0 - 0 - 0.5 0 0 0 PU01/R 00:10 05:55 2.6 0.6 0 0 2.3 0.3 0 0 - (note: times listed include instrument change time) ACTIVITY LOG (* means a trouble report has been issued or appended to) Observing specialist: McMillan The weather was variably cloudy all night, except for a period of mostly clear skies in the evening when we were kept closed by high winds and dust. By devout chasing of sucker-holes (i.e., opening and closing four times), we were able to get some meaningful data during second half. Seeing was poor whenever focus measurements were possible; the guider was getting 1.5-2.0 arcseconds when in use. Some cases of possible image motion were evident on the guider, but not certain due to the longer exposure times we need to cut through the clouds. During the period of high dust (and in fact for the last several weeks), we once again had a large discrepancy between the tower dust counter and the enclosure dust counter, which was reading about twice as high. The third, hand-held counter was in between the other two readings, at about 130% of the tower counter, so I went with the middle value when deciding whether to open. While we were closed, the second half observers did some experiments with DIS, taking calibration spectra at different rotations. They found that both spectral flats and arc wavelengths were affected somewhat by the rotation of the instrument, so observers who are especially concerned with accurate calibration should consider taking arcs and flats at their target positions. OBSERVER COMMENTS M. Strauss (PU01): The telescope and instrument behaved fine; the weather, unfortunately, was not so cooperative. However, we were able to get useful data on two objects, despite heavy clouds. FOCUS LOG FEBRUARY 12 2000 Wind Time Inst Focus Az El #Temp Dir MPH filt FWHM " 18:45 Echelle 87(-566) 148 55 0.3/1.8 258 28 ND2 2.10 23:00 DIS 100(270) 143 51 -0.9/-0.4 263 27 none 2.16 #First temp is air, second temp is telescope. WEATHER FEBRUARY 12 2000 Wind Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip. 17:01 35 1 28 268 (W) 661 cloudy none 18:01 34 4 20 262 (W) 1218 ptly cldy none 19:01 32 6 26 258 (WSW) 1110 mstly clr none 20:01 32 8 28 264 (W) 2383 mstly clr none 21:01 32 8 26 270 (W) 6945 mstly clr none 22:01 31 8 20 264 (W) 5674 mstly clr none 23:01 30 9 25 276 (W) 1122 ptly cldy none 00:01 30 11 26 256 (WSW) 1145 ptly cldy none 01:01 28 12 17 265 (W) 732 ptly cldy none 02:01 28 13 18 283 (WNW) 761 ptly cldy none 03:01 28 14 17 290 (WNW) 670 ptly cldy none 04:01 27 15 13 297 (WNW) 605 ptly cldy none 05:01 27 15 11 266 (W) 671 ptly cldy 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 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 Ctrlv3.0b27. Current TCC version is 2.2.2. - Russet McMillan