From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20031130 Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2003 06:32:12 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Sunday, November 30, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- G.de Silva G.de Silva Echelle 17:40 00:00 B.Moorthy B.Moorthy DIS 00:00 03:51 R.Kron G.Richards DIS 03:52 05:40 B.Gillespie R.McMillan SH 05:40 05:55 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- DD01/R 17:54 00:00 0 0 0 0 0 6.1 0 0 0 NM05/R 00:00 03:50 0 0 0 0 3.6 0.2 0 0 0 DD03/R 03:50 05:40 0 0 0 0 1.8 0 0 0 0 EN02/O/D 05:40 05:50 0 0 0 0 0.2 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: J.Barentine Quiet first half. No sign of 2dry actuator problems, though the air temperature was high enough to not expect that. Around 21:00 the Sloanies reported smelling smoke in the air outside; a check of the wind direction pointed toward Sunspot as the likely source. Conditions were good but seeing was fair and variable. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Second half remained mostly clear (I would say clear, but the cloud camera showed some haze passing by, so it wasn't quite photometric), with poor to bad seeing. John had mentioned that collimation looked quite bad when he focused the echelle at the beginning of the night. During the instrument change, I inspected another unfocused donut and found that it looked a little better than what John had seen at the beginning of the night, but still very poor. So I asked the last observer of the night to end just a few minutes early so I could get some Shack-Hartmann data in twilight. The data confirmed that collimation was off; I didn't correct it since the telescope is about to be taken apart, but I will be considering what could have caused it to deteriorate so badly. We also had one more example of difficulty tracking on targets high in the north. I'm hoping that a good pointing model (which we will have to obtain in any case after the work on the secondary) will fix the problem. ------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 17:56 NA2gdr 0(44000) 186 80 11.9/12.1 17 20 ND1 1.12 19:38 NA2gdr 0(44000) 69 68 11.6/11.8 47 14 ND1 0.82 00:10 DISslit -150(854) -16 58 7.5/7.8 70 20 - 1.82 00:32 NA2gdr 1985(45985) -1 70 7.4/7.6 70 18 R 1.7 -------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 54 18 16 25 (NNE) 46 Clear none 17:01 53 16 12 42 (NE) 129 Clear none 18:01 54 18 20 19 (NNE) 36 Clear none 19:01 54 20 10 25 (NNE) 29 Clear none 20:01 52 18 15 54 (NE) 34 Clear none 21:01 50 23 20 55 (NE) 178 Clear none 22:01 49 23 23 55 (NE) 815 Clear none 23:01 47 20 20 64 (ENE) 240 Clear none 00:01 46 18 19 68 (ENE) 167 Clear none 01:01 48 19 16 52 (NE) 101 mstly clr none 02:01 44 14 18 68 (ENE) 161 mstly clr none 03:01 46 15 13 79 (ENE) 133 mstly clr none 04:01 45 12 11 93 (E) 208 mstly clr none 05:01 44 11 11 83 (E) 219 mstly clr none 06:01 44 12 11 104 (ESE) 186 mstly clr 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