From: Russet McMillan
Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20000524
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 05:38:23 -0600 (MDT)
Precedence: bulk
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*                      APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY                     *
*                   3.5-m Telescope Observing Log                   *
*                      Wednesday, May 24, 2000                      *
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                                                          ACTUAL
 ASTRONOMER    OBSERVER(S)         INSTRUMENT   DATE   START  FINISH
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 K.Krisciunas  K.Krisciunas        SPIcam,GRIM  5/24   21:03  00:58
 L.Hobbs       L.Hobbs             Echelle      5/25   01:03  04:10
 E.Turner      R.McMillan          SPIcam       5/25   04:35  04:57
  INST        SCHEDULED     WEATH     EQUIP      OBS    DAY   NOTUSED
 I/RS/DN    START  FINISH  D    B    D    B    D    B   USE   D    B
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 UW02/R     21:03  01:00   0    -   0.1   -   3.9   -    0    0    0
 UC06/R     01:00  04:22   0    0    0    0   0.2  3.2   0    0    0
 PU05/S     04:22  04:57   -    0    -    0    -   0.6   0    -    0
 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time
                ------------- ACTIVITY LOG --------------
Observing Specialist: Russet McMillan
The evening started out clear and warm, with a few spotty clouds
appearing right after the photometric program ended.  Seeing was good
to moderate.  Everything was normal during checkout, including a
conspicuous absence of rotator overshoots.  However, we did encounter
a few problems during the night.  The problem reporting database was
not accessible for most of the night, making it difficult to report
these (Craig fixed it around morning twilight).
We had three hang-ups of spicam control during image integration,
possibly in connection with an odd clock error or possibly triggered
by changing the name of the output file.  Once the output filename was
kept constant, the problem stopped recurring.
Pointing with the echelle was quite poor, with offsets of 20 or more
arcseconds needed to center the star at the beginning of second half.
The first local pointing correction (at an altitude of 60 degrees)
only worked locally; in order to acquire the next star, it was then
necessary to zero out the previous calib offset and do another
pointing correction.  With the offset zeroed, the stars were coming up
fairly consistently in the bottom left of the slitviewer (IRAF view).
This consistency in position on the instrument (rather than in az/alt)
suggests a possible problem in the tertiary tip/tilt adjustments.  The
numbers for the tertiary position were correct and should not have
changed since the last time the echelle was in use, so perhaps the
numbers were not reflecting the true position of the tertiary.  Is
this related to the spontaneous controller restart earlier this week?
Should it be homed yet again?
In general, once centered, the echelle tracked well.  The observer did
report considerable difficulty keeping the star centered during one
particular exposure, around 03:15.  There were no strong wind gusts at
the time, but collimation adjustments (which were made when offsets
were requested) did show a few reversals of motion in the secondary,
which may have produced the image motion.
                   ****** OBSERVER COMMENTS ******
K.Krisciunas (UW02):
Under apparently clear skies, we did well with spicam, then grim. The only
glitch in hardware or software was spicam hanging up 0.75 sec into an
integration, but only if I changed the file name prefix with the "file"
command.  Never seen that one before. We obtained BVRI frames on 3 Landolt
standards fields, three supernova fields and 2 points in the V-band on 4
SDSS RR Lyr candidates. Had to retake 4 or five images because of
strategic cosmic ray hits. Then we switched to GRIM and observed one Hunt
standard in JHK', took 144 integrations in H on SN 2000ce, then 96
integrations in K' on that supernova, then a measured a second Hunt std in
H and K'.
        --------------- INSTRUMENT FOCUS LOG -----------------
                                               Wind
Time  Instrument  Focus     Az  El   #Temp     Dir  MPH   filt  FWHM"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
20:50 SPIcam     -50(965)  240  42  19.4/20.8  250   14    V    0.94
20:55 Guider    2000(965)                                  --   1.25
23:45 GRIM(f/5)   85(1071) 188  57  17.3/17.7  288   13    H    1 micron per 0.1 cu. ft.
              Telescope Mechanical and Computer 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 2.2.9
- Russet McMillan