From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20031128 Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 06:18:33 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Friday, November 28, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- D.Lamb D.York DIS 17:40 00:00 D.York D.York echelle, DIS 00:00 06:10 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- UC02/R 17:54 00:00 0 0 0 0 1.9 4.2 0 0 0 UC04/R 00:00 05:49 0 0 0 0 5.8 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st half Observing Specialist: W.Ketzeback First half went smoothly. The warmer temperatures and the modifications to the secondary motors have helped in the sense that I have not seen any abnormal motions of the secondary actuators. There were a couple small image jumps seen while I was tweaking focus throughout the night. We had two occurances were the observer paused their integration for a short while to let clouds pass and the guide star to reappear. Both time were less than 5 minutes so no down time was counted for loss to weather. 2nd half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Second half remained warmish and mostly clear. No trouble with the secondary actuators. I did have difficulty finding a good focus with DIS despite apparently good seeing, and the numbers were a bit strange when I finally settled on a focus. Possibly the warming of the secondary actuators is having an effect on image quality. Starting at 22:42 MST, the observer reported considerable difficulty keeping his target on the DIS slit. There had been no bad magnesensor measurements (a common cause of poor tracking), and the drift was mostly in the direction of azimuth. At the same time, I saw some wobbles on the azimuth dataq. The telescope was at an altitude of about 82 degrees and an azimuth of 150 (TCC convention), approaching a northern transit that would take it almost up to 85 degrees (this was done with permission of the observing specialists). Once I had eliminated most other likely causes of poor tracking, I told the observer to move to lower altitude. As it happened, the next object was near southern transit at an altitude of 78 degrees, and the tracking was fine for those observations. The telescope behaved fairly well for the remainder of the night, although pointing was rather poor (probably related to the recent difficulties with the secondary mirror). We had a little trouble with the guider background dropping to zero, but the guide star at the time was bright enough to centroid anyway, and the background came back up before we went to the next target. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:14 dis-slit 0(788) 191 76 3.4/3.5 354 6 - 1.0 18:20 NA2gdr 2279(46279) 196 76 3.6/3.5 358 6 R 0.9 23:46 Echelle 16(-198) 174 78 4.4/3.5 279 5 ND2 0.88 01:49 DISslit -200(605) 45 52 4.0/2.8 280 3 - 1.2 01:52 NA2gdr 921(44921) 45 52 3.9/2.8 245 1 R 0.87 -------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 39 -7 3 0 (N) 210 prtly cldy cirrus 17:01 38 -11 4 2 (N) 150 prtly cldy cirrus 18:01 37 -4 6 0 (N) 318 prtly cldy cirrus 19:01 42 -7 0 243 (WSW) 161 prtly cldy cirrus 20:01 42 -5 4 175 (S) 160 prtly cldy cirrus 21:01 40 -7 0 199 (SSW) 143 prtly cldy cirrus 22:01 40 -7 1 310 (NW) 105 prtly cldy cirrus 23:01 41 -7 4 273 (W) 66 cirrus none 00:01 39 -8 2 257 (WSW) 57 mstly clr none 01:01 38 -9 5 258 (WSW) 64 clear none 02:01 39 -9 4 274 (W) 59 clear none 03:01 40 -8 5 357 (N) 24 clear none 04:01 43 -6 7 276 (W) 84 clear none 05:01 42 -6 6 277 (W) 41 clear none 06:01 42 -6 4 271 (W) 37 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 Telescope drives operational. Current Remark version: 2.85b Current guide software version: guider v4.1b4 Current TCC version: 2.7.2 Current TUI version: TUI-0.76