Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 06:21:15 -0600 (MDT) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20010519 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, May 19th, 2001 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- D.York P.Palunas, V.Kulkarni GFP 20:05 04:30 E.Turner J.Dembicky SPIcam 04:30 05:59 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- UC01/O 20:58 04:30 0 0 0 0 7.5 0 0 0 0 PU05/O 04:30 05:00 0 0 0 0 0.2 0.3 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: Jack Dembicky I started cooling fans and opened the louvers at 18:00 tonight. Opened the enclosure at 19:45 since the skies starting to look promising for capturing some photons tonight. Povilus started flats around 20:05 under cirrus skies. Clouds thickened around 20:20 and Povilus decided to let Bob Lowenstien have a go with some tests for the echelle autoguider since nothing useful could be done with the GFP under these conditions. He handed the instrument over at 20:33 and I moved the telescope to a bright star (Arcturus) for Bob. The clouds quickly filled that part of the sky so we went to another star (Regulus) and could at least still see it thru the clouds. The clouds cleared out by 21:40 and the GFP group took the instrument back. Seeing was about 1.5 arc sec. When we adjusted the instrument focus at 00:36 the GFP was getting around 1 arc sec and the guider was between 0.66 and 0.9 arc sec!! The seeing from the guider was generally sub arc sec until around 02:30 when it started to rise to around 1.4 arc sec. It was variable for the rest of the night and ranged from 1.2 to 2.0 arc sec. Insturment was handed over to me for the PU05 program at 04:22 and we had the instrument switched to SPIcam by 04:33. Seeing was about 1.41 arc sec in r'. --------------- INSTRUMENT FOCUS LOG ---------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 22:05 GFP 75 (1096) 202 65 6.7/7.4 263 17 4300A 1.4 22:12 NA2gdr -172(63827) 208 64 6.7/7.2 272 14 none 1.56 00:36 GFP 70 205 65 6.6/6.3 291 17 4300A 1.0 03:05 GFP 25(956) 339 71 5.7/5.6 293 17 4300A 1.3 04:36 SPIcam -10(973) 113 36 5.9/5.9 283 19 r' 1.41 ------------- WEATHER CONDITIONS ------------ Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 50 39 17 302 (WNW) 2312 Cloudy Sprinkles 17:01 53 37 16 277 (W) 799 Cloudy none 18:01 53 31 14 249 (WSW) 485 Pt. Cldy none 19:01 52 28 16 254 (WSW) 611 Pt. Cldy none 20:01 49 28 18 271 (W) 551 Pt. Cldy none 21:01 47 35 21 263 (W) 1917 Pt. Cldy none 22:01 44 38 15 262 (W) 1304 Clear none 23:01 44 35 14 267 (W) 889 Clear none 00:01 43 36 18 258 (WSW) 598 Clear none 01:01 43 34 22 286 (WNW) 528 Clear none 02:01 43 34 21 284 (WNW) 511 Clear none 03:01 42 35 17 291 (WNW) 367 Clear none 04:01 44 32 17 298 (WNW) 369 Clear none 05:01 43 33 21 295 (WNW) 388 Clear none 06:01 42 33 18 295 (WNW) 366 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.