Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2001 05:58:02 -0600 (MDT) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20010713 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Friday, July 13th, 2001 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- E.Colbert E.Colbert, A.Ptak SPIcam 19:55 23:12 23:24 12:10 A.Nitta J.Hayes, B.McLean DIS-medium 02:12 05:15 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- JH02/O 21:15 01:00 0 0 0.9 0 2.8 0 0 0 0 NM04/R 01:00 05:03 0 0 0 1.2 0.2 2.7 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: Jack Dembicky Training E.Colbert, A.Ptak tonight for use of the 3.5m and instruments. Started cooling the enclosure with the fans at 19:15, opened enclosure/mirror covers at 19:40. Tonights observers noted that the center of SPIcam's chip is not the pointing center. The RA and Dec in the header file, for the object, correspond to the CRPIX1 and CRPIX2 values (629.2,557.9) in the header but not the actual physical center of the chip (512,512). This is probably a known condition but I was not aware of the slight discrepency. Tonights observers (and myself) tried observing NGC 4631 (RA 12:42:08.0 Dec 32:32:26.0 at 23:12, Mag 9.2. I checked the coords myself) tonight and it did not appear in SPIcam. I did a track/pterr correction but we still could not find the galaxy. They moved on to the next target (which it placed correctly on the chip) instead of having me spend more time trying to find the target. I don't know why we couldn't find the NGC target though. I did note that the pointing correction stars seemed much dimmer (did not use any filter on the guide camera to image them). This may be due to the new catalog of pointing correction stars that we are now using. At 12:10 we started having problems with the altitude drive going out of sync (tccpos/axepos) which became noticable a few minutes later and eventually shut down the drives. Craig (via phone) and I remapped the Alt drive mag sensors and got the 2nd half going (this took about 2 hrs to diagnose/solve). Craig is trying to figure out exactly what caused the problem. See remaing problems in Problem Log below. ---------------- PROBLEM LOG ---------------- Time Problem/Fix PR# ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 23:12 Could not find NGC 4631 with SPIcam - Did a track/pterr but did not fix the problem. 12:10 We started having problems with the telescope tracking 2001158 (it was not noticed until the exposure finished). The problem became obvious a few minutes later and Craig (on the phone) and I spent the next 2 hours remapping the magna sensors on the Alt drive. The Alt errors suddenly became too large and I could not move the telescope at that point. Remapping the Alt axis seemed to fix (temporarily???) the problem. Craig is trying to figure out exactly what went wrong with the drive. 04:55 Remote observer accidently started 1200s with DIS. They issued a Stop inst (which came thru and stopped the exposure from this end) but did not stop their Remark DIS window count down timer. They could not stop the timer (even by closing DIS on their Remark). I sugessted re-starting their Remark and that fixed the problem. They were using Remark V2.74. 05:05 Remote observers noticed what appeared to be a hair on the 2001159 r image (or r grating) of DIS when doing Bright Quartz Flats. Will investigate when I fill instruments in a few minutes. --- Did not see any hair on the gratings. I dusted them with canned air just in case though. ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:18 SPIcam -50(1388) 172 81 18.3/19.5 94 12 g' 1.06 20:28 NA2gdr 448(60448) 182 81 18.2/19.4 103 18 none 1.39 22:40 SPIcam 40(1528) 339 43 17.4/18.1 112 20 g' 1.66 22:50 NA2gdr 2064(62064) 338 42 17.4/18.1 109 18 none 1.96 02:16 DISslit 0(1241) 135 58 16.8/16.7 114 15 none 1.24 --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 18:01 73 33 9 90 (E) 828 Clear none 19:01 71 33 16 114 (ESE) 842 Clear none 20:01 68 34 8 105 (ESE) 938 Clear none 21:01 65 34 14 90 (E) 1054 Clear none 22:01 64 34 17 109 (ESE) 1217 Clear none 23:01 63 35 15 100 (E) 1341 Clear none 00:01 63 35 16 102 (ESE) 1571 Clear none 01:01 62 36 16 110 (ESE) 1966 Clear none 02:01 62 35 14 102 (ESE) 1672 Clear none 03:01 61 34 11 106 (ESE) 1774 Clear none 04:01 60 36 12 81 (E) 2261 Clear none 05:01 61 37 12 84 (E) 2660 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 Ctrlv4.1b2. Current TCC version: 2.5.4 Current MC version: v1_7_3. _______________________________________________ apo-staff@mail.apo.nmsu.edu - On-site APO staff and visitors http://mail.apo.nmsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/apo-staff