From: "Noel Camron Hastings" Subject: Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 05:50:17 -0700 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, March 15th, 2001 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Pindor B.Pindor DIS-Low 18:09 00:04 P.Szkody P.Szkody DIS-High 00:06 05:44 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- PU01/R 19:05 00:10 0 0 0 0 5.1 0 0 0 0 UW06/R 00:10 05:19 0 0 0 0 0.5 4.6 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: Noel Camron Hastings Opened telescope at 18:41 to begin cooling after the first program finished cals. Jon Brinkman tried to fix the IRSC by replacing the chopper wheel with a new one we had in reserve, but afterwards the contrast was so low the IRSC was unusable. We tried to fix it as best we could but the night got dark too fast. Dan Long tried an experiment with blocking the mirrors and we confirmed that it is seeing sky, but for some reason it appears to not be subtracting its reference correctly. The telescope has been pointing exceptionally well the last two nights. Tonight there was a problem with constant image oscillation in the guider camera on the order of 1-2 arcsecs. Could not identify the cause. The PMSS was stable and the axis motors all looked happy. Craig and I looked at M1 and M2 and could not find anything abnormal. It did not stop science, just made the night a lot longer. I went over some of the DIMM operations stuff with Mike Harvanik of Sloan. He was successful in getting DIMM running again tonight to help get the cobwebs out of it. It was working fine, but and odd thing with the interface to the web. It was plotting tonight's new DIMM data over the last full night of data, about 3 months ago. This made the plot worthless. It was as if IDL did not erase the plot before starting the new plot. This is evident in the flux measurements which show you when we started DIMM. Second half of the night went very smoothly. The seeing stabilized around 1.0" and the oscillations stopped. --------------- INSTRUMENT FOCUS LOG ---------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:52 DIS Slit 150(695) -029 66 -0.0/+1.1 31 9 none 1.62" 18:56 NA2 Gdr +10(695) -030 65 -0.1/+0.9 33 10 R 1.61" 19:56 DIS Slit +50(519) 28 85 -0.3/-0.3 56 10 none 0.97" 19:58 NA2 Gdr +10(695) 23 85 -0.3/-0.3 75 9 R 0.92" 23:10 DIS Slit -20(512) 154 54 -1.2/-1.6 161 1 none 1.35" ------------- WEATHER CONDITIONS ------------ Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 33 -1 3 282 (WNW) 291 clear none 17:01 33 -1 0 313 (NW) 293 clear none 18:01 30 -2 0 248 (WSW) 291 clear none 19:01 29 -3 8 46 (NE) 303 clear? none 20:01 31 -5 11 63 (ENE) 365 clear? none 21:01 31 -7 0 151 (SSE) 334 clear? none 22:01 31 -4 6 168 (SSE) 361 clear? none 23:01 30 -5 3 131 (SE) 365 clear? none 00:01 31 -8 7 300 (WNW) 423 clear? none 01:01 31 -9 6 262 (W) 422 clear? none 02:01 30 -11 7 224 (SW) 458 clear? none 03:01 30 -10 6 249 (WSW) 379 clear? none 04:01 30 -10 8 221 (SW) 383 clear? none 05:01 29 -11 9 179 (S) 351 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 > 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 Ctrlv3.0b27. Current TCC version: 2.5.1 Current MC version: v1_7_3.