From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20000806 Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 04:54:38 -0600 (MDT) APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Sunday, Aug 6th, 2000 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- T.Oka D.York,B.McCall, Echelle 8/06 20:30 21:30 B.Loewenstein P.Szkody P.Szkody DIS 8/07 -- -- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- UC01/R 20:55 01:10 0.6 3.2 0 0.4 0 0 0 0 0 UW01/R 01:10 05:23 4.2 - 0 - 0 - 0 0 - note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: Russet McMillan The night was almost entirely clouded out except for a short period around sunset. Rain was frequently near, according to the radar, but we didn't get a drop of moisture to compensate us for the lost time. Everything worked well during checkout, except that * the hygrometer for the pressurization fans reads much higher humidity than the dewpoint sensor, and therefore the fans never turn on. The telescope was opened for cooling before sunset, and during twilight Bob Loewenstein did some testing of the new Remark version preparatory to testing his echelle autoguiding software. The countdown problem on the Obs1Mac was resolved, and a number of other bugs discussed. Initially (20:30-21:15), we had a very hard time finding a bright star to test the autoguiding, despite slewing to several widely separated parts of the sky. Suspicions that the clouds were thicker than believed, or the filter wheel was off, or the tertiary tip/tilts were wrong, were all disproved. At 21:15 I switched to DIS, confirmed the pointing at NA2, and then changed back to the echelle, and we were able to acquire stars. This seems to indicate a problem with the tertiary, but a search of the log by myself and Craig showed that all the recorded numbers were correct. The dome was closed at 21:30 due to clouds and nearby precipitation, so we had no chance to reproduce the pointing problem. There was also not enough time for Bob to make any progress on the autoguiding, and UC01 obtained no data. ****** OBSERVER COMMENTS ****** --------------- INSTRUMENT FOCUS LOG ----------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El #Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM" --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:50 Echelle 72(542) -123 25 14.7/15.7 162 8 ND3 1.55 ------------- WEATHER CONDITIONS ------------ Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 17:01 60 45 1 190 (S) 815 cloudy none 18:01 61 42 12 125 (SE) 953 cloudy none 19:01 62 44 0 216 (SW) 794 ptly cldy none 20:01 59 40 8 130 (SE) 810 ptly cldy none 21:01 59 41 3 172 (S) 828 ptly cldy none 22:01 58 43 9 140 (SE) 745 cloudy none 23:01 57 44 7 118 (ESE) 776 cloudy none 00:01 57 44 9 112 (ESE) 792 cloudy none 01:01 57 45 9 134 (SE) 893 cloudy none 02:01 56 45 16 133 (SE) 881 cloudy none 03:01 56 46 13 134 (SE) 633 cloudy none 04:01 55 46 12 144 (SE) 636 cloudy 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