From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20020301 Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2002 06:32:58 -0700 (MST) APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Friday, March 1, 2002 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- D.York J.Mitchell SPICam --:-- --:-- G.Wallerstein G.Wallerstein Echelle --:-- --:-- S.Anderson A.Miceli SPICam 04:30 06:10 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- UC09/R 17:54 18:54 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UW04/R 18:54 00:10 2.1 3.2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 UW01/R 00:10 05:37 0 4.4 0 0 0 1.0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: J.Barentine High winds (gusting to near 50 MPH) and high dust counts in the late afternoon prevented opening on time for the Adler program. Both dust and winds remained high after sunset and prevented opening for the Adler program. George gave up about 21:20 and ceded the rest of his time to Scott. The rain sensor tripped at 21:30 when something like sleet began to fall. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Light snow continued to blow around until nearly midnight, even after the clouds started to clear. There wasn't enough snow to make it necessary to run the snow program, however. After midnight the sky cleared, but the wind and dust remained high. The wind would drop down for a while and then pop up to more than 40 mph, while the dust was difficult to measure with the tower dust counter, but appeared to be hovering near the limit. After 04:00, the dust and wind finally seemed to be staying down, and the observer said he could make use of 1 hour on the sky, so I opened at 04:20. The telescope was grossly out of equilibrium at first, since the fans were only turned on at about 04:10. I tweaked the focus between exposures by a combination of guessing and watching the guider (confirmed by checking data images). The focus measurements I made might be useful for tracking the telescope's behavior while cooling. The seeing also improved steadily while the telescope came closer to equilibrium. During morning twilight, the wind shifted to the east, the seeing began to puff up again, and the humidity rose steeply, so apparently we made good use of the short window in the weather. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG/INST FAILURE MODE TIME S/E/G/D/O TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 04:33 SPIcam -550(-437) 68 71 -8.5/-5.3 265 11 r' 2.12 04:37 NA2gdr -422(60577) 67 72 -8.7/-5.6 264 10 R 1.98 04:56 SPIcam -500(-423) 7 67 -8.8/-6.5 274 8 r' 2.25 05:03 SPIcam -450(-390) 5 68 -8.9/-6.7 273 10 r' 1.95 05:14 SPIcam -400(-358) 1 68 -9.4/-7.0 267 7 r' 1.61 05:21 SPIcam -350(-321) -2 68 -9.7/-7.3 262 6 r' 1.38 05:36 SPIcam -325(-313) -7 67 -10.0/-7.7 255 5 i' 1.35 05:46 SPIcam -300(-301) -11 67 -10.1/-7.9 225 2 i' 1.29 --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 38 9 37 263 (W) 1888 PtlyCldy none 17:01 39 5 27 265 (W) 2034 PtlyCldy none 18:01 36 6 28 271 (W) 9267 PtlyCldy dust! 19:01 34 8 24 266 (W) 20786 PtlyCldy more dust! 20:01 33 10 26 285 (WNW) 3237 PtlyCldy none 21:01 31 12 19 277 (W) 3817 PtlyCldy lt snow 22:01 29 13 21 284 (WNW) 1289 PtlyCldy lt snow 23:01 27 17 27 289 (WNW) 976 PtlyCldy lt snow 00:01 25 12 20 273 (W) 1187 ptly cldy lt snow? 01:01 24 9 16 278 (W) 1729 mstly clr none? 02:01 22 7 20 273 (W) 1860 mstly clr none 03:01 20 4 14 265 (W) 1584 mstly clr none 04:01 18 4 14 260 (W) 1361 clear none 05:01 16 5 13 284 (WNW) 1305 clear none 06:01 14 6 5 282 (WNW) 1065 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: 2.80b Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv4.1b2 Current TCC version: 2.5.5 Current MC version: v1_7_3