From: "Noel Camron Hastings" Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20011031 Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 05:50:22 -0700 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Tuesday, October 30th, 2001 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- E.Turner R.McMillan SPIcam 17:35 18:45 C.Stubbs A.Miceli,B.Lawton SPIcam 18:49 05:41 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- PU05/O 18:08 18:53 0 0 0 0 0 0.7 0 0 0 UW05/R 18:53 05:26 0 0 0 0 0 10.6 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: Russet McMillan The telescope was opened before sunset to widespread cirrus with occasional thicker clouds. SPIcam, which was fine during checkout, failed communications with the TCC when it was time to begin observations. Twilight flats and lens photometry were obtained despite the need to make offsets and focus changes by hand, with incomplete information written to the image headers. By the time the lens program was finished, Craig had solved the problem and the UW observers got a normally-functioning instrument. Everything went smoothly after that. The seeing was very good at the start of the night, with just a few spikes up to 1.3 arcsec as the evening continued. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: Camron Hastings The clouds were completely uniform and illuminated by the moon when second half started, but UW was somehow getting data. We stayed open and all systems ran well. All the images I saw obtained tonight were amazingly flat with even sky illumination and background counts of ~28k! They are the best 290+ flat images I have seen with SPIcam in a long time due to the odd sky conditions and extremely even and bright illumination. Too bad they are 3x3, or they would be the best additions to the flat library we could get! ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:17 SPIcam -150(918) 133 51 11.4/12.7 194 14 r' 0.86" 19:20 SPIcam - 50(937) 218 72 11.6/12.0 205 16 r' 0.83" 00:45 SPIcam - 25(873) 42 47 10.1/10.9 215 16 r' 1.03" 00:51 NA2 Gdr 3290(64287) 42 48 9.8/10.5 190 11 R 1.27" --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 57 31 14 220 (SW) 412 ptly cldy none 17:01 54 30 14 214 (SW) 349 cirrus none 18:01 52 30 12 216 (SW) 448 cirrus none 19:01 53 31 12 191 (S) 447 ptly cldy none 20:01 53 32 15 201 (SSW) 560 cirrus none 21:01 53 31 11 178 (S) 529 cirrus none 22:01 53 30 6 206 (SSW) 572 cirrus none 23:01 53 30 12 195 (SSW) 402 cirrus none 00:01 51 30 13 212 (SSW) 402 cirrus none 01:01 50 29 16 200 (SSW) 346 cirrus none 02:01 49 29 15 196 (SSW) 355 cirrus none 03:01 49 30 15 208 (SSW) 394 cirrus none 04:01 50 30 19 209 (SSW) 498 cirrus none 05:01 49 30 13 185 (S) 575 cirrus 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.