From: "Camron Hastings" Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20000802 Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 06:37:29 -0600 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, Aug 2nd, 2000 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Gillespie C.Hastings DIS/Slit 8/02 20:10 21:40 & D.Long J.Hayes D.Long DIS 8/02 21:40 01:01 P.Hodge D.Zucker SPIcam 8/03 01:13 06:25 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/RD 20:59 21:40 - 0 - 0 - 0.7 0 - 0 NM09/O 21:40 01:10 0 0 0 0 2.9 0.6 0 0 0 UW07/O 01:10 05:20 0 - 0 - 4.2 - 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist, 1st & 2nd Shift: Camron Hastings Opened the dome at 20:25 to allow for cooling. During the afternoon Dan and I worked on DIS slit viewer focus. We succeeded in focusing and realigning the slit camera. We took the first part of NM09 to work on this and tested it against mirror focus in DIS and found our new focus position to be nearly exact. If anything, slit focus may be 10-20 steps below instrument focus During this work I found that the instrument focus varied slightly from red to blue camera. I may need to refocus the collimators again and this may account for the *small* variance in slit to instrument focus. As it stands, the slit camera focus is nearly exact, so that can be used for instrument focus. The temperature regulation of the slit camera was found to be maxed out at 100% this afternoon. It appears that it is too warm in the day to leave it on with a setpoint of -35 degrees. Once open, in the evening, it can maintain that temp at about 93% cooler drive, which seems good. I recommend leaving the setpoint at -35, but turning off the temp regulation when not actively being used. This will also avoid pumping unnecessary heat into the dome. The telescope pointed well for NM09's program and tracking behaved well. The guider had trouble getting seeing measurements as good as the instruments. Images tended to look a bit elongated in some instrument frames, perhaps showing collimation problems, but minor. The TCC and MC seemed to behave well, as did the new REMARK version 2.62, which has been used with DIS and Echelle thoroughly without trouble. One minor MC bug that Craig fixed within 30 seconds! John Briggs came in tonight and worked on simultaneous DIMM data with DIMM2 at many different altitudes and stars with good results. DIMM seemed to track our seeing all night with results consistent with the 3.5m instruments. ****** OBSERVER COMMENTS ****** D.Long(NM09): It went well once we got DIS mounted on the echelle port! :) It was fun being the astronomer rather than the operator for once! --------------- INSTRUMENT FOCUS LOG ----------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El #Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 21:07 DIS-Mirror 060(1426) 181 66 18.3/19.8 131 11 none 1.16" 21:30 DIS-Slit 060(1426) -08 61 17.6/19.1 142 09 none 0.92" 01:16 SPIcam -100(0994) 109 80 15.5/15.9 131 17 H-alpha 0.71" 01:27 NA2-Gdr -0667(0994) 025 37 15.5/15.8 143 18 none 1.32" ------------- WEATHER CONDITIONS ------------ Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 68 44 7 262 (W) 762 cloudy none 17:01 68 44 6 184 (S) 722 cloudy none 18:01 71 43 5 260 (W) 639 ptly cldy none 19:01 69 42 5 243 (WSW) 624 ptly cldy none 20:01 66 42 0 260 (W) 710 clear none 21:01 64 40 9 149 (SSE) 661 clear none 22:01 62 38 7 119 (ESE) 658 clear none 23:01 62 37 13 135 (SE) 624 clear none 00:01 61 34 16 134 (SE) 554 clear none 01:01 60 32 16 138 (SE) 596 clear none 02:01 58 34 15 128 (SE) 918 clear none 03:01 59 34 5 101 (E) 742 clear none 04:01 61 37 1 257 (WSW) 852 clear none 05:01 61 36 7 218 (SW) 796 clear none 06:01 62 36 3 195 (SSW) 813 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: 2.62.Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv3.0b27. Current TCC version is 2.4.0b1 Current MC version: v1_7_3. ------------------------------------------ Camron Hastings @ Apache Point Observatory http://users.apo.nmsu.edu/~hastings