Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 06:28:54 -0700 (MST) From: John Barentine Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20011106 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Tuesday, November 6, 2001 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Gillespie J.Barentine, R.McMillan SPICam 17:40 21:25 DIS-low 21:45 04:30 SPICam 04:35 06:10 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- EN02/O 18:03 05:31 0.5 4.6 0 0 3.4 3.0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialists: J. Barentine, R. McMillan Opened at 17:35 under partly cloudy skies after a mostly overcast day earlier. Cooling of the enclosure was started late because of high humidity up until around sunset; louvers were opened and fans started at 17:00 with opening about a half-hour later. Seeing looked good early on but went downhill around 19:10. Conditions were variable until around 21:00 when we began the guider focus vs. rotator angle test. Closed at 21:25 due to humidity creeping up toward the limit at which point we swiched to DIS for focus tests. Humidity went over the limit around 23:00 and reached saturation around midnight even though the sky was clearing. Humidity dropped back into the safe zone around 02:00 and appeared to stabilize. I reopened at 02:35 to do a pointing model. After the pointing model finished around 04:30, I remounted SPICam to spend the remainder of the night familiarizing myself with its use. The cloud camera was behaving badly in an intermittent way after 00:00. I thought it was due to condensation and closed the camera around 01:30, but upon reopening after the humidity had dropped, it still gave problems. Other Observing Specialist: R. McMillan We didn't obtain SPIcam flats vs. rotation because I have such images saved and because opening during twilight would affect our cooling tests. We delayed opening until it was dark enough to focus and did some fairly successful tests of focus vs. temperature as the telescope cooled, although we did have trouble with the period of bad seeing. These tests also served as a comparison of guider image quality vs. SPIcam; the results appear to confirm my sense that when properly focused, the guider obtains seeing measurements very comparable to SPIcam despite its on-axis position. Just as the telescope reached equilibrium and we were ready to start focus vs. temperature tests with the fans off, the humidity became threatening. We were barely able to squeeze in some checks of guider focus vs. rotation before it was necessary to close -- these were not very conclusive as only five positions could be checked, and the seeing was variable. We mounted DIS and checked the collimator focus, which seemed adequate on the red side and excellent on the blue side. I didn't think it was worth messing with at present, but explained how the process would work. ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 17:53 SPIcam -50(739) 75 67 4.8/7.2 206 10 r' 1.05 18:02 NA2gdr 1293(62293) 75 69 4.9/7.1 199 9 R 1.31 18:10 NA2gdr 2500(63500) 75 70 4.8/6.9 216 10 R 1.14 18:16 SPIcam -100(660) 75 71 4.7/6.8 245 10 r' 1.18 18:20 NA2gdr 1739(62739) 75 72 4.7/6.8 225 9 R 1.14 18:32 SPIcam -100(659) 75 62 4.7/6.5 223 9 r' 0.90 18:35 NA2gdr 1856(62856) 75 63 4.7/6.4 226 11 R 0.97 18:50 SPIcam -110(627) 75 66 4.6/6.2 233 10 r' 0.92 18:52 NA2gdr 1340(62340) 75 67 4.4/6.1 222 9 R 0.91 19:06 SPIcam -75(642) 75 69 4.5/6.0 234 8 r' 0.80 19:10 NA2gdr 2571(63571) 75 70 4.6/5.8 240 10 R 0.87 19:18 NA2gdr 2286(63286) 75 72 4.7/5.8 240 8 R 1.50 19:24 SPIcam -125(580) 75 74 4.8/5.7 222 11 r' 1.31 19:27 SPIcam -125(580) 75 74 4.8/5.7 222 11 r' 2.19 19:31 NA2gdr 1447(62447) 75 74 4.6/5.6 215 10 R 1.71 19:46 SPIcam -75(612) 73 77 4.5/5.4 225 9 r' 1.25 19:48 NA2gdr 2038(63038) 73 78 4.4/5.4 233 10 R 1.29 20:18 SPIcam -50(636) 52 64 4.7/5.0 208 9 r' 1.72 20:19 NA2gdr 1592(62592) 52 64 4.7/5.1 213 9 R 1.53 20:38 SPIcam -30(644) 49 67 4.4/4.9 186 9 r' 1.35 20:42 NA2gdr 1974(62974) 48 68 4.5/4.8 189 8 R 1.06 20:57 SPIcam -50(606) 45 70 4.1/4.5 201 8 r' 0.98 20:59 NA2gdr 1546(62546) 44 70 4.2/4.5 195 7 R 1.09 21:08 NA2gdr 906(61906) 41 72 4.1/4.5 186 7 rot+180 1.75 21:13 NA2gdr 1510(62510) 39 72 4.0/4.5 188 7 rot+135 1.86 21:16 NA2gdr 754(61754) 38 73 3.9/4.4 190 9 rot+90 1.65 21:20 NA2gdr 2271(63271) 37 73 3.9/4.4 198 11 rot0 1.17 21:23 NA2gdr 1923(62923) 35 74 3.9/4.3 186 8 rot-90 1.13 02:45 NA2gdr -3606(57393) 154 32 3.8/3.4 274 10 R 1.08 --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 40 38 2 260 (W) 1029 mstly cldy none 17:01 42 33 5 230 (SW) 220 ptly cldy none 18:01 41 33 8 203 (SSW) 146 mstly clr none 19:01 41 32 7 207 (SSW) 237 mstly clr none 20:01 41 33 9 215 (SW) 212 ptly cldy none 21:01 39 34 9 191 (S) 240 mstly clr none 22:01 39 36 9 199 (SSW) 218 mstly clr none 23:01 39 38 9 201 (SSW) 262 ptly cldy none 00:01 38 38 11 236 (SW) 11023 ptly cldy fog 01:01 37 37 9 267 (W) 1361 mstly clr none 02:01 39 35 12 282 (WNW) 456 mstly clr 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.