From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20000326 Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 06:20:51 -0700 (MST) SUNDAY MARCH 26, 2000 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY OBSERVING LOG ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH Krisciunas Krisciunas SPIcam 3/26 19:13 20:13 Dalcanton Dalcanton, SPIcam 3/26-27 20:13 05:04 Desai INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B UW07/R 19:13 20:13 0 - 0.2 - 0.8 - 0 0 - UW09/R 20:13 05:04 0 0 0 0 4.4 4.5 0 0 0 (note: times listed include instrument change time) ACTIVITY LOG Observing Specialist: Deglman, McMillan The night was mostly clear, with occasional light cirrus and consistently poor seeing. The FWHM on both SPIcam and the guider ranged from about 1.5 to nearly 3.0 for most of the night, while DIMM was showing sub-arcsecond measurements. The cause for the discrepancy might be a sensitivity to wind from a certain direction, or perhaps some sort of divine prejudice against well-sampled imaging instruments. The new encoders for the secondary mirror caused some difficulties with SPIcam's focus routines, which produced a delay in data taking for UW07. Later we worked out a procedure for making the focus measurements more or less by hand; further work will be done on the scripts as soon as possible. Aside from the poor seeing, the telescope and instrument performed well all night. The low-level "corduroy" noise has reappeared on SPIcam, after a brief disappearance when the GRIM umbilical was moved to a different park position. No examples of image jumps were noted in multiple twenty-minute exposures. Focus adjustments were made only between exposures, and some jumps were noticeable on the guider at those times. The guider monitor did not display the focus values for much of the night, although careful checks confirmed that adjustments *were* being made in between exposures. The GOES 10 weather satellite has been stopping output (according to multiple weather websites) each night starting at 8 UT for anywhere from 2 to 4 hours. OBSERVER COMMENTS FOCUS LOG MARCH 26 2000 Wind Time Inst Focus Az El #Temp Dir MPH filt FWHM " 20:15 SPIcam 50(475) 209 53 7.6/7.5 295 16 V 1.15 22:00 SPIcam 20(498) 240 37 7.5/6.9 303 15 I 1.16 #First temp is air, second temp is telescope. WEATHER MARCH 26 2000 Wind Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip. 17:01 49 5 10 281 (W) 341 clear none 18:01 49 7 13 277 (W) 455 clear none 19:01 46 9 19 292 (WNW) 461 clear none 20:01 46 10 16 308 (NW) 462 clear none 21:01 45 11 8 316 (NW) 474 clear none 22:01 45 11 9 301 (WNW) 501 clear none 23:01 44 11 9 308 (NW) 523 clear none 00:01 44 11 16 353 (N) 539 clear none 01:01 43 14 19 1 (N) 553 cirrus none 02:01 43 14 12 4 (N) 595 cirrus none 03:01 43 12 18 15 (NNE) 589 cirrus none 04:01 42 11 11 20 (NNE) 594 mstly clr none 05:01 42 11 12 359 (N) 651 cirrus none 06:01 42 10 18 31 (NNE) 578 mstly clr 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