Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2003 06:30:51 -0700 (MST) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20031224 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Tuesday, December 24, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- G.Stringfellow G.Stringfellow Echelle 17:00 19:00 21:30 00:03 D.Bowen D.Bowen, B.Frye DIS 00:03 06:20 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- CU05/R 18:01 00:00 2.5 0 0 0 3.0 0.5 0 0 0 PU03/R 00:00 06:05 0 0 0.5 0 5.6 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky Opened the enclosure for cooling around 17:10. Clouds cleared out around 18:00 and then came back with a vengence around 19:00. Nancy Chanover wanted to try to grab some Mars images with GrIm at 19:55, as the Mars Explorer was going to do a burn and may be visible from Earth. Unfortunately the clouds would not cooperate and the planet came and went in the imager. We weren't sure if we actually saw something or not on one frame. The clouds departed around 21:20 and I opened back up and we started Echelle observations again. I handed the telescope over to the 2nd half observer at around Midnight and did a quick focus of DIS and the NA2 guider for them. Around 04:55 the telescope was no longer pointing correctly (the observers told me they could not find their objects.). I did a tcc_alt MS.DUMP in the TCC but nothing looked too amiss, so I tried a pointing correction. I couldn't acquire a star in the guider. I then attempted to slew to a SAO star and image it thru the DISslit viewer. Nothing bright in the field. I then decided to slew the telescope to a high altitude (both doing a major slew in ALT and AZ), then try to acquire a bright SAO star in the slitviewer. That didn't work (nothing in the field). I did another tcc_alt MS.DUMP, nothing looked too out of the ordinary so I decided to just do an axis stop, kill the drives, do a set inst=dis then restart the telescope drives and do a couple slews (along with the MS.DUMP for the ALT.). I was then able to re-acquire an SAO star in the slitviewer and proceeded to do a pointing error (as the star was low in the slitview camera). That seemed to fix the problem. The observers reported no problems after and better pointing. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PU03 D T/H 04:55 05:25 Telescope Pointing went bad ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:24 Echelle -198(-35) 97 26 -1.7/0.4 263 10 ND2 2.05 21:28 Echelle -22(-154) 343 69 -2.8/-2.7 284 3 ND1 1.43 23:21 Echelle -48(-206) 204 64 -3.3/-3.5 318 7 ND1 0.97 00:15 DISslit -25(596) 251 67 -3.0/-3.6 344 10 none 0.84 00:15 NA2gdr 2400(44599) 251 67 -2.9/-3.7 2 11 R 0.77 -------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 36 8 8 281 (W) 636 Mst. Cldy none 17:01 31 12 10 287 (WNW) 596 Mst. Cldy none 18:01 30 17 12 226 (SW) 271 Pt. Cldy none 19:01 30 18 14 240 (WSW) 294 Mst. Cldy none 20:01 28 19 9 257 (WSW) 249 Cloudy none 21:01 28 18 7 269 (W) 404 Pt. Cldy none 22:01 27 20 10 276 (W) 244 Clear none 23:01 27 20 9 322 (NW) 295 Clear none 00:01 26 20 6 5 (N) 243 Clear none 01:01 27 21 14 324 (NW) 286 Clear none 02:01 28 21 8 0 (N) 253 Clear none 03:01 30 21 11 322 (NW) 197 Clear none 04:01 30 17 10 323 (NW) 232 Clear none 05:01 30 17 14 306 (NW) 0 Clear none 06:01 29 17 13 321 (NW) 205 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