From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20010825 Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 06:05:45 -0600 (MDT) APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, August 25th, 2001 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Gillespie R.McMillan,J.Davis DIS, S-H, 02:00 05:40 NA2Gdr, Echslit INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/O 20:32 05:39 1.6 3.8 0 0 3.7 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: Russet McMillan During checkout, I had some trouble with GRIM (solved by power-cycling the instrument once) and the new guider software on the Mac (solved by unplugging the Mac to reboot it). The weather was bad during first half, with very high winds, high humidity, and sprinkles of rain. The rain stopped and skies started to clear around midnight, but the humidity remained high for a while. I wasn't able to open until just before 02:00. There wasn't time to start a full set of Shack-Hartmann tests, but I started with a quick focus check. After last night's focus was so far off, Jon Davis removed a spacer from the Shack-Hartmann mount to shorten the light path. We thought the spacer removed was too large and a smaller spacer might have to be inserted instead, but with no spacer in place, the focus came out nicely in line with the other instruments, at mid-range for the secondary. I moved on to the next set of tests: instrument blocks for DIS and the echelle. I also used DIS to check the collimation, since the telescope was exposed to sunlight today; everything looked fine. I focused DIS both in imaging mode and on the slitviewer to confirm that they were comparable. I got poor agreement at first, but those measurements weren't ideal because the seeing was quite variable and the telescope was out of equilibrium. Later the disagreement was reduced as far as the aberrations of the slitviewer could show. Next I switched to the echelle and did half an instrument block (the grid only). I tested some of the features of the new Remark, including a short test of autoguiding. All looked reasonable. I switched to the Shack-Hartmann long enough to confirm the new focus values and establish the orientation of the instrument in its new mounting position. I held cardboard in front of the primary mirror while Scot Kleinman pressed the expose button for me. Because of the quaternary mirror, the orientation is flipped right/left from its previous position. Lastly, I mounted GRIM and did our final instrument block. This time I corrected a 180 degree rotation that was institutionalized many years ago, so GRIM now has the canonical sky orientation with north at the top in f/5, but this means its offset directions will be changed. I will update the documentation on the web. DIS has the same incorrect years-old 180-degree rotation, but I put off correcting that one since we will be changing chips soon in any case; for now, DIS has the same offsets as it used to. Aside from a check of the rotational center of the echelle (low priority and time consuming), the instrument blocks are now up to date for all of our regular instruments. ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 02:07 S-H -1150(1682)* 111 80 11.0/13.2 78 10 - ?? 02:28 DIS(red) -50(1119) 86 58 12.4/12.8 64 4 - 2.14 02:28 DIS(blue) -50(1119) 86 58 12.4/12.8 64 4 - 2.41 02:38 DISslit 50(1215) 87 61 14.3/12.8 30 0 - 2.17 02:45 NA2gdr -2990(53009) 88 62 15.0/12.9 160 0 R 1.44 03:13 DIS(red) 150(1311) 92 68 14.0/13.1 210 6 - 1.03 03:13 DIS(blue) 150(1311) 92 68 14.0/13.1 210 6 - 1.37 03:24 DISslit 150(1309) 93 70 13.9/13.2 183 5 - 1.66 03:34 NA2gdr 801(56801) 95 73 14.2/13.2 209 7 V 1.56 03:36 Echelle 200(424) 99 53 14.1/13.3 231 2 ND2 1.10 04:07 S-H 200(1878) 100 53 14.1/13.3 231 2 - ?? 04:56 GrIm2(f/5) 50(1343) 145 63 14.5/13.7 282 3 J 0.82 * The zero-point focus for this instrument was changed after measurement --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 18:01 74 33 11 248 (WSW) 281 ptly cldy none 19:01 70 33 6 267 (W) 326 ptly cldy none 20:01 67 34 0 230 (SW) 366 mstly cldy none 21:01 62 43 24 22 (NNE) 447 cloudy rain 22:01 50 49 39 73 (ENE) 394 cloudy sprinkles 23:01 50 48 23 71 (ENE) 420 cloudy sprinkles 00:01 50 48 13 76 (ENE) 449 mstly cldy none 01:01 49 47 12 77 (ENE) 453 ptly cldy none 02:01 52 45 9 72 (ENE) 370 mstly clr none 03:01 57 41 4 211 (SSW) 536 mstly clr none 04:01 58 41 1 223 (SW) 508 mstly clr none 05:01 58 41 3 279 (W) 539 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: 2.5.4 Current MC version: v1_7_3.