From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20011017 Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 06:35:15 -0600 (MDT) APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, October 17th, 2001 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- K.Sembach D.Bowen,T.Tripp DIS-low 19:20 20:45 22:15 23:03 00:15 00:55 B.Pindor B.Pindor DIS-low 00:56 05:45 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- JH01/R 19:21 01:00 1.1 0 1.7 0 2.7 0.1 0 0 0 PU01/R 01:00 06:16 0.5 0 0.8 0 4.0 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: J. Barentine Delayed opening until 19:20 because of high dust, so the observers took cals between 18:42 and that time. Cirrus was present around sunset but disappeared rapidly after the sun went down. Then, 45 minutes later, clouds came swooping in from the north, heading east, but didn't hamper science very much. Object images began to show signs of chip warming around 21:20 and it became clear why: I had inanely neglected to reconnect DIS' LN2 dewar after moving it. Russet was logged in remotely at the time and had me attempt to call Mark, who didn't answer. She then instructed me to go ahead and reconnect it anyway, thinking that with the DIS upgrade immininent it was an acceptable risk. DIS was cool enough by 22:15 to take new biases and flats to make sure nothing was awry. Biases and flats taken at that time were normal and the observers were back on-sky by 22:25. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R. McMillan DIS appeared to cool safely, with the chips remaining warmer than the dewars at all times. There was no sign of either residual charge or condensate on the chips when we got back to observing. Second half had patchy cirrus and excellent seeing. The clouds were fairly thick before midnight, and the observers were unable to get any science for a while. We took advantage of the lull to check the telescope's collimation, which looked fine. The observing went smoothly except for the clouds and some worse-than-usual variations in the guider background, which caused it to have trouble recognizing some guide stars. At 04:45 the observer reported that his previous exposure had excessive counts in the blue. I found that the blue chip was warm again, because the fill line had apparently come loose by itself after several successful fills earlier. Only halfway warm, it cooled quickly and we got back to observing by 05:15. However, the clouds were getting thicker and the observer had run out of bright targets, so no science was achieved after about 05:45. ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:04 DIS-slit -150(670) 210 61 11.5/12.9 242 10 -- 1.05 20:09 NA2Gdr -2251(52997) 210 61 11.4/12.7 260 12 R 0.78 22:00 DIS-slit 0(820) 200 46 11.4/11.6 237 11 -- 1.05 22:14 NA2Gdr -172(55499) 202 45 11.6/11.5 234 12 R 1.16 01:07 DISslit 0(866) 203 65 11.8/12.0 281 12 - 0.83 --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 63 26 12 250 (WSW) 2542 PtlyCldy none 17:01 60 26 11 261 (W) 2336 PtlyCldy none 18:01 54 25 8 262 (W) 2708 PtlyCldy none 19:01 52 27 8 249 (WSW) 2126 PtlyCldy none 20:01 53 27 11 225 (SW) 1781 PtlyCldy none 21:01 53 27 14 236 (SW) 1490 PtlyCldy none 22:01 52 28 9 235 (SW) 1433 MstlyCldy none 23:01 53 25 12 266 (W) 1165 MstlyCldy none 00:01 54 20 15 271 (W) 1169 PtlyCldy none 01:01 53 21 15 274 (W) 1193 ptly cldy none 02:01 52 22 14 269 (W) 1220 ptly cldy none 03:01 52 24 13 267 (W) 1361 ptly cldy none 04:01 51 26 12 256 (WSW) 1370 ptly cldy none 05:01 50 25 12 243 (WSW) 1137 ptly cldy none 06:01 48 24 10 253 (WSW) 851 ptly cldy 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 > 1u per 0.1 cubic feet. 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 Ctrlv4.1b2. Current TCC version: 2.5.5 Current MC version: v1_7_3.