From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20000615 Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 05:46:45 -0600 (MDT) THURSDAY JUNE 15 2000 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY OBSERVING LOG ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH Krisciunas Krisciunas SPIcam 6/15 20:20 00:51 Leeber Leeber GRIM 6/16 01:04 04:04 Turner McMillan SPIcam 6/16 04:29 05:05 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B UW02/R 21:17 01:00 - 0 - 0 - 3.7 0 - 0 NM01/R 01:00 04:16 - 0 - 0 - 3.3 0 - 0 PU05/S 04:16 04:51 - 0 - 0 - 0.6 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 night was clear, with variable seeing and several sharp changes in temperature. While the guider was in use during first half, it showed 0.9-1.5 arcsecond seeing; some of that may have been due to rapid focus changes as the telescope cooled. The observer for NM01 reported approximately the same range of seeing. When it was good, this skirted the edge of undersampling with GRIM, and she elected to defocus a little to avoid getting all her data in one pixel. The night was mostly problem-free, except that * the rotator overshot by more than 50 degrees during checkout, on a clockwise move. Other clockwise test moves showed smaller overshoots, and I didn't notice any problems during the night. The NM01 observer also mentioned a problem that she said was already known, although I hadn't heard of it. The focus changes across GRIM, apparently due to some tilt of the chip. The lower left quadrant shows a detectable difference compared to the rest of the chip. The IR camera was moved to see the NA2 instrument port. It showed that considerable heat is being generated by the guider, and eventually the entire fork warms up (or it might simply be lagging behind in cooling). It was difficult to judge the heat movement from the rotator into the instruments, however, because both SPIcam and GRIM are reflective in the IR. SPIcam was black with a bright nimbus around it at certain rotations, while GRIM was bright with a dark nimbus. A similar effect shows up around the black truss supports. Could it be some kind of localized greyscale adjustment by the camera? OBSERVER COMMENTS D. Leeber (NM01): Beautiful clear skies tonight. Seeing fluctuated a bit, but was mostly around .9 - 1.2". Nice night. FOCUS LOG Time Instrument Focus Az El #Temp Dir MPH filt FWHM " 21:05 SPIcam -50(994) 185 48 20.7/22.3 247 12 V 0.94 21:08 Guider 500(994) 185 48 20.7/22.3 247 12 -- 1.1 23:30 SPIcam 20(890) 95 66 16.8/19.4 212 8 V 1.01 00:45 SPIcam 100(1005) 147 53 18.7/19.5 298 12 V 1.21 01:10 GRIM 50(1092) 96 60 19.4/19.3 293 12 J 1.21 04:30 SPIcam 70(891) 139 54 18.1/17.5 7 12 r' 0.90 #First temp is air, second temp is telescope. WEATHER Wind Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip. 17:01 72 26 15 328 (NNW) 496 clear none 18:01 74 29 4 272 (W) 485 clear none 19:01 75 29 10 258 (WSW) 436 clear none 20:01 70 25 7 268 (W) 460 clear none 21:01 70 25 13 239 (WSW) 422 clear none 22:01 69 25 13 235 (SW) 512 clear none 23:01 67 24 9 262 (W) 952 clear none 00:01 69 24 6 264 (W) 1023 clear none 01:01 68 22 10 321 (NW) 936 clear none 02:01 67 20 7 332 (NNW) 544 clear none 03:01 65 19 2 299 (WNW) 806 clear none 04:01 63 18 15 18 (NNE) 495 clear none 05:01 64 18 14 16 (NNE) 514 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 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: 2.3.1. Current MC version: 1.7.2. - Russet McMillan