From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20000731 Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 06:10:09 -0600 (MDT) MONDAY JULY 31 2000 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY OBSERVING LOG ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH Gillespie McMillan S-H 7/31 20:50 21:40 Golimowski Golimowski, DIS 7/31 21:40 00:58 Tsvetanov Hameed Hameed,Hoopes SPIcam 8/1 01:10 05:18 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RS/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B EN02/S/D 21:01 21:40 0 - 0 - 0.7 - 0 0 - DD02/R 21:40 01:10 0 - 0 - 3.5 - 0 0 - NM04/R 01:10 01:45 0 - 0 - 0.6 - 0 0 - EN02/S/D 01:45 02:35 0 - 0 - 0.8 - 0 0 - NM04/R 02:35 05:18 0 - 0 - 2.7 - 0 0 - (note: times listed include instrument change time) ACTIVITY LOG (* means a trouble report has been issued or appended to) Observing Specialist: McMillan A productive night for both engineering and science, with good weather and mostly good behavior on the part of the telescope and instruments. The dome was opened on schedule, and we were able to use the entire night. Patchy clouds during first half disappeared almost completely after midnight. The first half hour (and a little more) of the night was pre-empted for some followup Shack-Hartmann work. As feared, the collimation on the previous nights was so poor that most of the Shack-Hartmann data were unusable. The major concern with this is not simply that the collimation is bad, but that the reason for the change in collimation between Tuesday and Friday of last week is unknown. Tonight's tests were specifically intended to look for unexpected shifts when the telescope was moved. The data acquisition went well, and we'll see if the images prove useful for diagnosis. The DIS observing went fairly smoothly, although the pointing was sometimes too accurate and objects came up under the slit. The seeing, which had seemed quite good by eye on the Shack-Hartmann video camera, turned out to be mediocre with DIS after the collimation was restored to default values. After focusing on the slitviewer, I moved the focus up 130 steps to bring it to the correct focus for the instrument, as suggested by last night's focus tests. Unfortunately, all the targets were either very faint or at very high airmass, so it was hard to confirm that this procedure produced the best spectra. There were a few difficulties with SPIcam control hanging up, but in both cases it was unclear whether it was an instrument problem or user (or observing specialist) error. During test images, there was an interesting effect where the "corduroy" noise changed strength and frequency significantly during three adjacent biases while the instrument was parked and nothing was going on except a DIS readout; compare stest0731.0001, 0002, and 0003. Once SPIcam got going, the observers took a focus image and were unhappy with the collimation. I explained that if I changed the collimation, the pointing and tracking would be poor unless I took the time for a quick pointing model. The observers generously donated 50 minutes of their time for a 30-point model, making it possible to change the default collimation. The time taken for the pointing model was accounted to engineering. After the new model was applied, pointing seemed to be good and image quality was much improved. The effects of the collimation change are evident in the focus log below, and in comparison of the focus images taken before (hameed.0003) and after (hameed.0005) the adjustment. The seeing remained subarcsecond until 04:30, then started to get worse, but the improved image quality was still apparent. This improvement will help subsequent observers as well, unless there is another sudden shift in the secondary. OBSERVER COMMENTS FOCUS LOG Time Instrument Focus Az El #Temp Dir MPH filt FWHM " 20:40 S-H 50(1976) 1 32 13.2/16.5 112 13 -- ?? 21:30 DISslit -130(1043) -137 49 12.8/14.2 112 15 -- 1.46 01:40 SPIcam 50( ) 83 1.11 02:40 SPIcam -50(928) -122 83 13.9/13.4 50 9 661 0.59 #First temp is air, second temp is telescope. WEATHER Wind Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Precip. 18:01 64 39 10 76 (ENE) 311 ptly cldy none 19:01 60 37 3 84 (E) 301 ptly cldy none 20:01 59 36 9 87 (E) 307 ptly cldy none 21:01 55 42 11 94 (E) 807 mstly clr none 22:01 55 43 14 97 (E) 806 mstly clr none 23:01 54 43 15 108 (ESE) 828 ptly cldy none 00:01 54 42 10 86 (E) 736 mstly clr none 01:01 57 36 14 56 (NE) 415 mstly clr none 02:01 57 36 10 68 (ENE) 421 mstly clr none 03:01 56 36 6 64 (ENE) 438 mstly clr none 04:01 56 36 1 349 (NNW) 408 ptly cldy none 05:01 56 37 6 2 (N) 443 ptly cldy none 06:01 55 38 9 5 (N) 518 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: 2.62. Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv3.0b27. Current TCC version is 2.4.0b1. Current MC version: v1_7_3. - Russet McMillan