From: Russet McMillan
Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20000729
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2000 05:42:20 -0600 (MDT)
                          SATURDAY JULY 29 2000
                         APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY
                              OBSERVING  LOG
                                                          ACTUAL
ASTRONOMER      OBSERVER(S)        INSTRUMENT   DATE   START FINISH
Gillespie       McMillan           DIS, S-H,  7/29-30  02:25 03:45
                                   Echelle
 INST        SCHEDULED     WEATH     EQUIP      OBS    DAY   NOTUSED
I/RS/DN    START FINISH   D    B    D    B    D    B   USE   D    B
EN02/S/D   21:03  05:16  6.9   -    0    -   1.3   -    0    -    0
(note: times listed include instrument change time)
                              ACTIVITY LOG
(* means a trouble report has been issued or appended to)
Observing Specialist: McMillan
Scheduled science was pre-empted so that we could do a few last
engineering tests which have been delayed by weather.  Conditions were
poor again tonight, with a thunderstorm passing through around
midnight.  After the storm passed and the skies started to clear,
smoke from the nearby controlled burns began to pose a problem.  These
fires are supposedly all out, but perhaps the strong wind gusts
associated with the storm caused something to kick up.  The rapid and
extreme changes in particle counts (1000-5000 in five minutes, then
back) made it difficult to judge closing conditions.  Humidity was
also pushing the closure limit, although that was slightly easier to
deal with since the telescope never cooled to air temperature.
I used the closed time to do a rough focus of the DIS slitviewer on
the slit; it should be usable now, although not perfect.  I also
calibrated the DIS gratings and did a few tests of repeatability of
grating motions, which seems much improved (although the tests were
limited).  The newest version of Remark seemed to deal well with DIS.
I opened at 02:25 when the clouds began to clear away.  During the
partly-cloudly period, I put a star on the boresight at DIS, then
obtained tip/tilt values for the tertiary at NA1 and entered these
into the file.  * The "not a full step" error was still appearing for
tertiary actuators B and C, although they seemed to be moving
correctly and caused no problem.  I did one confirmation test of the
the tip/tilt values for both the echelle and the Shack-Hartmann, both
of which seemed excellent.
By stretching the closure rules for humidity and particle counts, I
was able to get Shack-Hartmann data at five altitudes with a warm
telescope (I did turn on the telex fans in spite of the smoke threat).
I'm not certain these will be usable, since it seemed on the video
camera that the collimation was quite far out, judging from the
asymmetrical focus donuts.  I hoped to have time to improve it by eye
and take another set of data points, but the particle counts spiked up
to 5000 again, so I closed at 03:45.  Humidity kept the telescope
closed for the remainder of the night.
In summary, three of the most pressing engineering tasks were
addressed tonight, but they were done hastily because of the weather
threats and might need to be refined at a later point.
		            OBSERVER COMMENTS
                                FOCUS LOG
Time	Instrument   Focus    Az  El    #Temp    Dir MPH  filt  FWHM "
03:00   S-H          270
#First temp is air, second temp is telescope.
                                 WEATHER
                               Wind
     Time   Temp F Dewp F  MPH  Direction    Dust      Sky      Precip.
     18:01    64    42      9    86  (E)      481   ptly cldy    none
     19:01    62    43     13    78  (ENE)    498   ptly cldy    none
     20:01    59    47     18    86  (E)     1102  mstly cldy    none
     21:01    58    44     16    63  (ENE)    785    cloudy      none
     22:01    57    49     28    75  (ENE)   1722    cloudy      rain
     23:01    56    50      4   151  (SSE)   1170    cloudy      rain
     00:01    52    45     14    81  (E)      768    cloudy      none
     01:01    52    46     19    67  (ENE)   6865    cloudy      none
     02:01    53    47     12    83  (E)     1980  mstly cldy    none
     03:01    52    49      8    85  (E)     1079   ptly cldy    none
     04:01    51    48      7    84  (E)     1326   mstly clr    none
     05:01    51    49      0    45  (NE)    1712   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
(2.62 in testing).  Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv3.0b27.
Current TCC version: 2.4.0.  Current MC version: 1.7.3.
- Russet McMillan