Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 05:24:45 -0600 (MDT) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20020613 APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, June 13, 2002 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- J.Schaefer E.Turner, J.Schaefer DIS-II 20:35 22:25 M.Strauss X.Fan, Iskra DIS-II --:-- --:-- E.Colbert SPIcam --:-- --:-- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- PU02/R 21:16 23:16 0 0 0 0 0 1.0 0 0 0 DD04/R 23:16 01:00 2.0 0.8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 JH02/R 01:00 04:51 3.9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J. Dembicky Everything checked out tonight with no problems to speak of. We opened the enclosure after the observers finished their cal lamps, around 21:15. I did a quick focus and had the observers on their way. A front was passing thru and the seeing was rather poor at >2.0 arc sec. The humidity also started to shoot up after 21:00 with cirrus clouds and flashes of distant lightning. The first set of observers finished early and gave the remaining time to the second set. Unfortunately the humidity and wind produced very poor seeing and no good science was obtained. At 23:30, with nothing useful coming out of the telescope, the dust counts started rising as well and I closed the telescope. The humidity also shot over the limit shortly thereafter. My third observer for the night was a NO SHOW! Since the humidity and Dust levels were above closure limit, I decided to wait to contact the observer until conditions improved enough for us to open (This never happened for the remainder of the night). Still this is no excuse for the observer not showing up. Camron called us here at APO around 02:30 to report spotting a fire down below us (about a mile) and for us to get bearings on it's location. We called the appropriate people (USFS, 911, Bruce, Mark). At 04:00 the fire had about doubled in size and we were estimating it a couple hundred feet across now (more than double the size we saw earlier). At around 04:30 USFS arrived at the fire location and are initially reporting it at 1-2 acres in size. As of 05:10, 3 or 4 firefighters are on the scene and an addition type 2 crew has been ordered. The fire seems to be a ground fire with some torching of the trees. High humidity, a splattering of rain drops, and a wind blowing westward are helping contain the fire. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 21:15 DISslit -80(1157) 94 65 19.2/23.4 84 13 none 1.07 22:37 DISslit -80(973) -98 70 16.1/18.6 76 21 none 2.43 22:52 NA2gdr 1695(55695) -96 68 15.9/18.1 62 21 none 2.39 --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 18:01 79 24 13 251 (WSW) 429 Mst. Clr none 19:01 77 22 8 266 (W) 441 Clear none 20:01 71 20 4 21 (NNE) 488 Clear none 21:01 67 34 8 90 (E) 884 Clear none 22:01 63 47 21 76 (ENE) 1003 Cirrus none 23:01 60 52 19 86 (E) 1110 Cirrus none 00:01 58 52 18 79 (ENE) 2735 Cirrus Humidity 01:01 55 53 21 80 (E) 3280 Mst. Clr Humidity 02:01 54 52 17 81 (E) 1704 Mst. Clr Humidity 03:01 56 50 14 118 (ESE) 1757 Mst. Clr Humidity 04:01 52 51 22 80 (E) 2211 Pt. Cldy Humidity 05:01 52 51 30 71 (ENE) 976 Fog Fog 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: 2.82 Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv4.1 Current TCC version: 2.6.4