From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20000926 Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 06:42:10 -0600 (MDT) APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Tuesday, September 26th, 2000 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- D.York V.Kulkarni DIS-high 9/26 19:01 06:15 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- UC02/R 19:47 06:02 0 - 0.3 - 9.9 - 0 0 - note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist, 1st Shift: Noel Camron Hastings We opened at 20:33, nearly an hour late due to trouble with the remote observer's Remark interface and general problems while she took cals. One possible problem was that her Remark interface was setup with the h:mm:ss.s preference and when she put 60 seconds in for an exposure time Remark did not seem to like it. I have not had time to test this to see if it was the cause of some of her failures or not. We opened to a clear night with excellent seeing. Upon starting observations we had a guider failure even though we had tested it extensively earlier. It appears that there was a broken hardware element. Craig and I found it and fixed it within 12 minutes! Problem report submitted as the fix was temporary (duct tape!). We finally got on our object and these ran smooth from that point on. I made several pointing corrections tonight at various altitudes between 50 and 70 degrees of elevation with good results. I saw no guider shutter problems tonight. Observing Specialist, 2nd Shift: Russet McMillan Second half went very smoothly -- clear skies, good seeing. On one target, there were no available guide stars, and the tracking was noticeably worse over a two-hour period, but not unmanagable. Clearly, the guider is a big help when DIS is in use. --------------- OBSERVER COMMENTS ---------------- V. Kulkarni (UC02): had problems for the first 2 hours because of connection problems, exposure choking twice (though both times we understood later why). After all those problems were solved, things went smoothly for the last 7.5 to 8 hours or so. --------------- INSTRUMENT FOCUS LOG ---------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El #Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:42 DIS Slit -080(1041) 176 64 12.9/14.7 281 8 --- 0.89" 21:20 NA2 Gdr -4000(1039) 195 63 12.5/14.2 281 2 --- 0.83" ------------- WEATHER CONDITIONS ------------ Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 59 24 7 269 (W) 472 clear none 17:01 62 22 9 289 (WNW) 428 clear none 18:01 58 18 3 326 (NW) 538 clear none 19:01 55 17 4 345 (NNW) 963 photometric none 20:01 55 15 1 298 (WNW) 2126 photometric none 21:01 55 15 2 279 (W) 2179 photometric none 22:01 54 20 2 277 (W) 1474 photometric none 23:01 54 22 1 259 (W) 1193 photometric none 00:01 54 26 0 198 (SSW) 679 clear none 01:01 54 21 5 352 (N) 1857 clear none 02:01 53 19 2 357 (N) 1439 clear none 03:01 54 20 1 356 (N) 2164 clear none 04:01 53 24 1 349 (NNW) 1288 clear none 05:01 52 25 7 1 (N) 929 clear none 06:01 56 27 9 19 (NNE) 903 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. - Noel Camron Hastings, Russet McMillan