From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20010826 Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 06:07:13 -0600 (MDT) APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Sunday, August 26th, 2001 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Gillespie R.McMillan S-H,SPIcam, 20:15 06:20 Echslit INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/O 20:31 05:39 0 0 0 0 4.6 4.5 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: Russet McMillan A nice clear night, apparently photometric much of the time, but the weather was not perfect; the humidity came up near the limits several times, the wind was moderately high, and the seeing was poor. I started with Shack-Hartmann tests: first a thermal test of the telescope's cooling while tracking a single star for two and a half hours, then an altitude sweep. All of these tests were hampered by variable seeing, and I think none of the data taken below 50 degrees altitude will be usable. In the course of these tests, however, I did manage to make some observations of the telescope's tracking consistency (which was excellent) and behavior during several transits. I saw no sign of the altitude drifting problems we've occasionally seen at transit. I changed to SPIcam for some throughput tests, since Mike Harvanek told me the PT was reporting photometric conditions. These tests went fairly well, and I observed a range of airmasses. I looked for focus offsets among the new guider filters. Because of the variable seeing, I didn't try to run the automatic focus routines but instead ran the guider and watched the FWHM for many images at each focus value. As far as I could tell within the limits of the seeing, all the filters are roughly parfocal including the Clear and ND2 filters. Next I tested repeatability of tertiary rotation from NA2 to NA1 at different altitudes. The results were adequate but not wonderful; there's some improvement over the pre-shutdown behavior, but the difference is only significant at lower altitudes. At moderate and high altitudes, the consistency is pretty much the same as before, good to about 10-15 arcsec. During these tests I observed several more transits, all completely trouble-free. ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:26 S-H 300(2176) 24 64 15.6/18.0 46 19 - ?? 01:12 SPIcam 50(1410) -173 57 14.6/14.2 36 11 R 1.83 02:18 NA2gdr 3500(63500) 183 63 14.1/13.9 356 11 R 1.9 02:22 NA2gdr 4000(64000) 185 63 13.9/13.9 358 7 I 2.1 02:26 NA2gdr 4000(64000) 187 63 14.1/13.9 15 11 Clear 1.8 02:29 NA2gdr 4000(64000) 188 63 13.4/13.9 114 1 V 1.8 02:34 NA2gdr 4000(66100) 193 64 13.8/13.9 17 6 Red+ND2 1.9 --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 18:01 67 47 1 185 (S) 637 ptly cldy none 19:01 60 49 14 58 (ENE) 470 mstly clr none 20:01 58 49 20 60 (ENE) 466 clear none 21:01 60 41 17 47 (NE) 358 clear none 22:01 57 45 20 59 (ENE) 386 clear none 23:01 58 40 17 52 (NE) 393 clear none 00:01 58 40 13 51 (NE) 358 clear none 01:01 59 39 13 29 (NNE) 442 clear none 02:01 57 38 11 55 (NE) 336 clear none 03:01 56 38 5 15 (NNE) 393 clear none 04:01 55 40 11 359 (N) 335 clear none 05:01 56 41 12 13 (NNE) 421 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.