From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20031227 Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2003 05:12:29 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, December 27, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- D.York J.Dembicky SPIcam 17:20 18:20 D.York Echelle 18:20 23:58 R.Kron L.Grodnicki DIS --:-- --:-- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- UC04/R 18:02 00:00 0 0 0 0.2 2.0 3.7 0 0 0 UC03/R 00:00 06:06 0 0 6.1 0 0 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky I opened the enclosure around 17:10 to start cooling. The plan was to try and get some 2237 Lens data and then hand the telescope over to Don. I got Flats and Biases and by 17:55 I started a focus sweep. Unfortunately the seeing was >1.5 arc sec so I mounted DIS for the observers. No Lens data was written because none was taken other than flats and biases. Don decided to go with the Echelle, due to the poor seeing. Don reported not being able to find a bright star at 21:14. I did a quick check of the field and then an altitude magnasensor dump and found an arc minute error in the readings. A couple slews with the telescope fixed the problem quickly and we only lost about 12 mins of sky time. A very cold night with outside air temp reading around -11C 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan The 2.5m was closed at around 23:30 due to multiple cold-related failures as the outside air temperature dropped below -12C. We were able to keep going a little longer, but at the program change from Echelle to DIS we experienced several failures of our own. The most serious were sticking of the secondary C actuator and the DIS high gratings getting stuck at 0 tilt. Minor problems included more magnesensor errors, inaccurate reports of eyelid positions, the telescope temperature sensors bottoming out, and failure of the mouse on the dome Mac. At that point, I declared the night over. Daystaff will be in tomorrow to work on the secondary. Between 02:00 and 03:00 we had high humidity and snowlike precipitation (actually precipitating from a height not so far above ground, while stars were still visible overhead). On the bright side, the azimuth drives appeared to cope with the weather quite nicely. And the echelle shutter, which has also had cold-related problems in the past, was fine. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- UC04 E T/H 21:12 21:24 Bad alt magnasensor reading UC03 D T/H 00:00 06:06 Multiple cold-related failures ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 17:59 SPIcam -90(557) 224 52 -8.9/-7.5 267 15 r' 1.97 18:28 Echelle -67(-459) 186 71 -9.2/-8.6 269 15 ND1 1.84 20:01 Echelle -48(-483) 3 61 -10.1/-10.3 290 32 ND2 1.85 -------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 20 -3 26 268 (W) 637 Clear none 17:01 19 -4 14 255 (WSW) 1069 Clear none 18:01 16 -1 15 273 (W) 763 Clear none 19:01 15 1 22 274 (W) 638 Mst. Clr none 20:01 14 2 30 283 (WNW) 599 Clear none 21:01 13 3 21 277 (W) 719 Clear none 22:01 12 2 22 289 (WNW) 791 Clear none 23:01 12 2 13 291 (WNW) 710 Clear none 00:01 10 3 16 301 (WNW) 678 mstly clr none 01:01 9 1 11 347 (NNW) 523 mstly clr frost 02:01 7 5 7 3 (N) 455 mstly clr snow 03:01 6 0 15 358 (N) 225 mstly clr frost 04:01 5 -2 22 7 (N) 240 mstly clr frost 05:01 4 -4 18 351 (N) 128 mstly clr frost 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