From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20031215 Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 06:12:17 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Monday, December 15, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- A.West K.Covey, N.Silvestri DIS 19:30 00:00 S.Snedden S.Snedden DIS 00:00 05:50 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- UW02/R 17:57 00:00 1.5 0 0 0 4.0 0.6 0 0 0 NM10/O 00:00 06:01 0 0 0 0 0 6.0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky Wind gusts kept us closed until 19:30. Very poor seeing for the first half, ranging from 2.2 arc sec to 4.0+ arc sec. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Our coldest night so far this season, and everything worked -- mostly. The telescope temperatures bottomed out at their minimum values. And the tower dust counter stopped working. And the secondary did twitch a little on two focus moves, indicating that it still isn't impervious to cold. But the misbehavior wasn't nearly as bad as what we saw around Thanksgiving, and didn't cause any difficulty for observing. We shouldn't see too many nights as cold as this, we hope. Seeing was really dreadful for most of the morning, with the guider actually measuring PSFs as large as 8 arcseconds. Around 05:00, though, the seeing improved to better than 2 arcsec as wind dropped and shifted to the NW. So the observer, who had been planning to quit early because of the horrible seeing, decided to go right up to twilight after all. ------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 19:45 DISslit -250(186) 295 65 -9.6/-8.0 358 5 none 3.21 19:53 NA2gdr 1000(45000) 294 63 -9.7/-8.4 87 3 R 3.5 21:33 DISslit -130(203) 171 77 -10.2/-10.1 352 17 none 2.38 21:39 NA2gdr 1500(45500) 178 77 -10.2/-10.1 3 21 R 2.60 -------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 19 -12 30 316 (NW) 5061 Clear Dust 17:01 17 -11 14 326 (NW) 431 Clear Windy 18:01 16 -8 22 311 (NW) 471 Clear Windy 19:01 15 -8 6 256 (WSW) 246 Clear none 20:01 15 -5 7 322 (NW) 166 Clear none 21:01 14 -1 19 303 (WNW) 246 Clear none 22:01 14 -2 8 351 (N) 721 Clear none 23:01 14 -1 18 20 (NNE) 0 clear none 00:01 13 -1 21 20 (NNE) 0 clear none 01:01 12 0 9 5 (N) 0 clear none 02:01 12 -1 10 73 (ENE) 0 clear none 03:01 12 -1 8 82 (E) 0 clear none 04:01 13 -1 2 59 (ENE) 0 clear none 05:01 13 -2 5 354 (N) 0 clear none 06:01 13 1 2 343 (NNW) 0 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-0.77