From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20000907 Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2000 06:26:36 -0600 (MDT) APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, September 7th, 2000 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT DATE START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Gillespie R.McMillan, various 9/07 20:00 05:50 R.Loewenstein INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/O 20:14 05:49 0 0 0 0 3.9 5.7 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist, 1st & 2nd shift: Russet McMillan Despite some threatening clouds around sunset, we were able to open before the end of twilight and get a great deal of useful work done. The weather was clear for a large portion of the night. Seeing was extremely variable; when we were using instruments that permitted seeing measurements, values ranged from 1.3 to 2.5 arcseconds. On the Shack-Hartmann video camera, many rapid-timescale seeing flares were apparent, especially when the wind picked up. After 04:00, the seeing improved dramatically, giving better than 0.7 arcseconds on echelle slitviewer images. We spent several hours alternating between Shack-Hartmann tests to characterize the cooling of the optics and tests of the echelle autoguiding software. Significant progress was made on the autoguiding; some further tests are still needed on especially faint and bright targets, but practical implementation shouldn't be too far away. Once the telescope had cooled to below the air temperature, I did an altitude sweep with the Shack-Hartmann, getting down to an altitude of approximately 35 degrees before I felt the seeing was too poor for the data to be useful. I followed this up with some guider throughput measurements and tests of the position of the boresight on the echelle. Through all the tests, the telescope and all instruments behaved perfectly. --------------- OBSERVER'S COMMENTS ---------------- --------------- INSTRUMENT FOCUS LOG ---------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El #Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:15 S-H -50( ) 215 63 16.2/19.4 76 17 -- ?? 20:30 Echelle -63(378) 220 62 16.2/19.1 74 18 ND2 1.30 20:55 S-H -20(1843) 224 62 16.2/18.3 82 19 -- ?? 00:15 S-H 70(1799) -42 64 15.1/14.9 83 18 -- ?? 02:10 NA2Gdr 2734(59934) 1 38 15.0/15.0 115 17 R 2.5? (The guider was focused with DIS selected and a secondary focus of +100(1355)) ------------- WEATHER CONDITIONS ------------ Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 17:01 72 35 9 141 (SE) 587 ptly cldy rain? 18:01 61 40 14 73 (ENE) 745 ptly cldy none 19:01 62 38 22 71 (ENE) 475 ptly cldy none 20:01 61 36 16 76 (ENE) 555 ptly cldy none 21:01 61 36 12 81 (E) 601 mstly clr none 22:01 59 39 22 83 (E) 760 mstly clr none 23:01 59 39 18 91 (E) 806 ptly cldy none 00:01 59 38 14 94 (E) 919 mstly clr none 01:01 60 38 16 112 (ESE) 1130 clear none 02:01 59 38 10 103 (ESE) 1260 clear none 03:01 57 39 12 84 (E) 1048 clear none 04:01 57 39 14 111 (ESE) 1287 clear none 05:01 59 39 8 108 (ESE) 1708 clear none 06:01 58 40 13 138 (SE) 1963 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. -- Russet McMillan