From: "Noel Camron Hastings" Subject: 3.5-m Night Log 2000.05.06 Date: Sun, 7 May 2000 05:38:07 -0700 ******************************************************************* * APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY * * 3.5-m Telescope Observing Log * * Saturday, May 6, 2000 * ******************************************************************* ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- X. Fan X. Fan DIS-Low 5/06-7 19:04 05:14 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- PU01/R 20:48 05:12 0 0 0 0 6.3 2.1 - 0 0 note: times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: deglman Xiaohui Fan obtained calibration frames with the DIS. Opened dome at 19:50. The DIMM started up perfectly tonight ("seestart" then "seectrl START"). Ran the press fans because of high dust count. Had a few minor rotator runaways which recovered. Quite bad image motion at times (>2 acrsec). It settled down somewhat, later on. Had one rotator stall at about 00:35. Reinitialized axes, then it worked fine. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: Camron Hastings Took over at 01:00 MDT and ran smoothly for the most part. I should mention that most of the guider images showed slight dragging in one axis. The rotator appeared to be slightly behind, .01 degrees usually, from the expected position, but not always. Is there an easy way to monitor rotator amps? If it was working hard to keep up I expect it would be drawing a lot of amps. Anyway, not sure if it was the rotator, but I had to keep the auto guider exposures around 3-4 seconds to make sure images were usable, which they were, so no time lost. (You can also see a 90 second unguided slit image: /export/images/disslit/fan002-4.fit) Near the end of the night the guide camera shutter stuck open again and you could see the trailed images as the chip read out. I checked the echelle ion pump LED's and found that the pump is behaving normally. This leads me to believe that the vacuum is not compromised and that the higher lN2 usage is from the normal temperature increase due to summer. I checked this with Connie Rockosi and she mentioned that this happened last year as well. ****** OBSERVER COMMENTS ****** None --------------- INSTRUMENT FOCUS LOG ----------------- Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El #Temp Dir MPH filt FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 22:15 DISslit 125(1070) 179 57 15.3/17.3 272 20 none 1.22" 20:45 NA2gdr 1120 red 1.70" 01:50 DISslit +120(0904) 167 57 13.5/13.7 279 14 none 1.04" #First temp is air, second temp is telescope structure. ------------- WEATHER CONDITIONS ------------ Wind Precip. or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions -------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:01 65 23 23 259 (W) 2092 clear none 19:01 64 22 12 257 (WSW) 2207 clear none 20:01 59 24 14 275 (W) 2066 clear none 21:01 59 24 13 266 (W) 2473 clear none 22:01 59 25 12 257 (WSW) 2373 slt cirrus none 23:01 59 25 10 267 (W) 2550 hvy cirrus none 00:01 59 26 11 310 (NW) 2341 lt cirrus none 01:01 58 27 10 275 (W) 2593 lt cirrus none 02:01 56 26 14 303 (WNW) 2448 lt cirrus none 03:01 55 25 8 274 (W) 2381 lt cirrus none 04:01 55 24 7 294 (WNW) 2415 lt cirrus none 05:01 54 24 9 272 (W) 2570 lt cirrus 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 2.2.5. - Russet McMillan, Camron Hastings