Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 07:43:51 -0600 (MDT) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20010831 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Friday, August 31th, 2001 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- S.Hawley S.Hawley, S.Anderson DIS-low 19:50 20:45 P.Szkody DIS-high 00:32 01:05 J.Holtzman J.Dembicky DIS --:-- --:-- T.Stephens, D.Stephens GrIm 01:55 07:40 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- DD03/R 20:24 01:00 0 3.7 0 0 0 0.9 0 0 0 DD04/R 01:00 05:43 0 0.9 0 0 0.3 3.5 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J. Dembicky Opened the enclosure at 19:10. After some pesky clouds made focusing interesting, we finally did get started with DIS on the first standard star around 20:34. Humidity started climbing fast and I decided to close the mirror covers for a couple mins at 20:45 when it hit 83% (just to be safe, enclosure was still open). I closed a few mins later, 20:50, as the humidity approached 85% with lots of clouds in the sky. It started raining at 21:17. Quit around 21:40 but the clouds remained. We almost opened at 00:00 but the humidity started rising again (75% to 80% change in 2 mins) and the clouds just didn't seem to want to move out none too fast either. We hovered just below (84%) the humidity closure limit for 10 mins, but the weather looked to be improving and rain did not seem immenent so I decided to go ahead and open the enclosure (and keep an eye on the humidity) We managed to open around 00:25 and I did a quick focus for Paula to get her on the sky for the remaining few minutes left. Unfortunately the clouds saw me open the enclosure and decided to re-appear overhead. She did manage to capture a few photons. The UW folks had a problem running the slitview program remotely tonight. They needed to delete an old key for their known_host file and then things worked. Other institutions may also need to do this with the upgrade of Tycho over the summer shutdown. I was not able to do the Throughput measurements with DIS since we had clouds at the switchover time. I gave the time to the next program (well, same DD program time). The 2nd half started under somewhat cloudy skies with hopes of improving conditions, even though we had high humidity. Clouds prevented us from being able to focus until 01:55. The skies cleared up nicely by 03:00 and stayed that way for the remainder of the evening. ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 08:00 DISslit -450(721) 171 60 13.3/15.0 255 6 none 1.12 08:08 NA2gdr 1998(57998) 174 60 13.2/15.1 267 6 V 1.09 00:40 DISslit -340(673) -51 60 10.0/11.4 71 13 none 1.66 01:55 GRIM-f/10 -350(781) 282 44 9.4/10.5 124 2 J 1.65 --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 58 43 3 83 (E) 120 Cloudy none 17:01 58 43 9 63 (ENE) 160 Cloudy none 18:01 62 41 8 277 (W) 199 Mst. Cldy none 19:01 59 44 5 266 (W) 224 Pt. Cldy none 20:01 56 43 3 244 (WSW) 224 Mst. Cldy none 21:01 50 46 16 2 (N) 1533 Cloudy Lt. Rain 22:01 51 43 9 9 (N) 247 Mst. Cldy none 23:01 55 41 11 77 (ENE) 456 Mst. Cldy none 00:01 52 43 17 72 (ENE) 421 Pt. Cldy none 01:01 50 45 8 82 (E) 329 Pt. Cldy none 02:01 50 44 3 81 (E) 283 Mst. Clr none 03:01 52 42 4 181 (S) 244 Clear none 04:01 53 42 4 183 (S) 230 Clear none 05:01 52 42 4 203 (SSW) 268 Clear none 06:01 51 42 3 210 (SSW) 263 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: 2.5.5 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 _______________________________________________ apo-staff@mail.apo.nmsu.edu - On-site APO staff and visitors http://mail.apo.nmsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/apo-staff