From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20011221 Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 07:10:59 -0700 (MST) APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Friday, December 21st, 2001 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- D.Bowen D.Bowen,R.Kim SPIcam 21:55 23:40 E.Colbert E.Colbert SPIcam 23:55 04:00 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- PU04/R 17:59 00:00 0.3 4.6 0 0.3 0.2 0.6 0 0 0 JH06/R 00:00 06:04 2.1 0 0 0 4.0 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: J.Barentine The evening started out with a serious dust event which began around 16:00 acompanied by sustained winds of 30 MPH with gusts above 45. Wind continued to blow after dark even though dust counts were back into an acceptable range by 20:00. We finally opened at 21:55 when winds dropped consistently below the closure limit. The first focus run on SPICam gave a value far off from what was expected; Russet arrived and suspected problems with secondary mirror actuators. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Second half was partly cloudy, with very poor seeing during the clear periods. There were borderline high winds until almost midnight, and the Sloan observers mentioned some blowing snow, but none of it seemed to be reaching the height of the 3.5m catwalk. After midnight the wind calmed slightly, but the seeing remained poor. The suspected problem with the secondary turned out to be a combination of confusion on my part and the telescope's being grossly out of equilibrium (not only was the dome opened late, but the fans had been off earlier in the evening because of high dust counts). We spent a little while trying to diagnose secondary problems, and counted that time as lost to equipment even though it turned out the secondary was actually fine. By the time we were ready to get back to observing, the focus had moved around 500 steps with the cooling of the telescope. The observers imaged a few fields, but weren't able to get much of use because of the horrible seeing. They quit early and let the second half observer get started. I counted much of the open time as lost to weather, since it was not really usable. The second half observer had some success despite the seeing, until clouds started to move in around 03:30. I closed at 04:00 when the clouds grew thicker, but opened for a little while after 06:00 to let the observer get some flats. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG/INST FAILURE MODE TIME S/E/G/D/O TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION -------------------------------------------------------------------- PU04/S T/H 22:40 23:00 Supposed sec prob; bad focus ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 22:25 SPIcam -750(-380) r' 23:10 SPIcam -200(150) 251 29 -5.8/-5.0 295 29 r' 3.4 00:03 SPIcam 0(222) 341 50 -6.7/-6.2 311 13 g' 3.5 01:47 SPIcam 50(222) 315 44 -7.4/-7.7 17 17 g' 2.2 --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 39 12 38 224 (SW) 4844 clear dust 17:01 39 0 29 259 (W) 30976 clear dust 18:01 31 10 27 277 (W) 6066 clear dust 19:01 30 7 32 283 (WNW) 3835 clear blowing snow 20:01 27 1 19 275 (W) 1038 clear blowing snow 21:01 26 -10 32 294 (WNW) 886 clear blowing snow 22:01 23 -2 26 306 (NW) 315 clear none 23:01 22 -2 10 311 (NW) 120 clear none 00:01 20 3 20 287 (WNW) 559 clear none 02:01 20 4 7 3 (N) 112 mstly clr none 03:01 19 6 11 22 (NNE) 162 ptly cldy none 04:01 19 2 8 342 (NNW) 125 mstly cldy none 05:01 19 7 13 348 (NNW) 93 mstly cldy none 06:01 18 8 22 21 (NNE) 130 mstly cldy none 07:01 18 9 15 34 (NE) 108 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.