From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20031228 Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 06:49:09 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Sunday, December 28, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- P.Szkody P.Szkody DIS 20:33 00:02 R.Kron L.Grodnicki DIS 00:10 06:15 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- UW05/R 18:03 00:00 0 0 0 2.5 1.0 2.5 0 0 0 UC03/R 00:00 06:07 0 0 0 0 6.1 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: B.Ketzeback Another VERY COLD night. The evening started with the DIS motors in bay 1 not being able to be moved to the cold weather. I moved the HIGH res gratings to bay 2 since those motors seemed to behave better in the past in cold conditions. Unfortunately the bay 2, blue (motor #3) failed as well in the cold. Jon Davis helped me warm the motor enough to calibrate the instrument. The secondary actuator motors were insulated and homed. The tertiary actuators were also homed but we had some difficulty with them freezing in position and needed to be warmed before they homed. We finally got on the observers first object by 2120. The rest of first half went smoothly despite the cold. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan At the program changeover, we very carefully eased the DIS gratings to their new tilts using non-standard low-level commands, which worked well. Sag coefficients were turned off for the tertiary, because it was having trouble moving earlier on and because we can operate with the tertiary in a fixed position with only minimal impact on quality. We can't operate with a fixed secondary, so I kept a close eye on its behavior throughout the night; it had no problems. We also had a hack in place to use the outside air temperature in place of the bottomed-out telescope temperature sensors, but it still took a certain amount of effort to track focus during a couple of temperature excursions. It never got quite as cold as the previous night. The entire night was photometric, with moderate to poor seeing. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- UW05 D T/H 18:03 20:33 M2,M3 cold weather problems ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 21:16 dis-slit -63(189) 202 79 -13.1/-10.4357 9 - 1.3 21:22 NA2gdr -139(46860) 208 78 -13.1/-10.4325 16 R 1.1 -------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 11 -10 11 316 (NW) 0 clear none 17:01 10 -10 15 355 (N) 0 clear none 18:01 9 -8 10 350 (N) 142 clear none 19:01 9 -8 12 323 (NW) 128 clear none 20:01 9 -8 7 340 (NNW) 122 clear none 21:01 9 -5 16 341 (NNW) 114 clear none 22:01 8 -4 2 39 (NE) 119 clear none 23:01 9 -4 16 355 (N) 106 clear none 00:01 9 -3 9 357 (N) 103 clear none 01:01 12 -11 19 355 (N) 42 clear none 02:01 11 -10 12 23 (NNE) 49 clear none 03:01 9 -7 25 25 (NNE) 89 clear none 04:01 11 -9 22 16 (NNE) 60 clear none 05:01 11 -11 8 7 (N) 64 clear none 06:01 14 -18 24 10 (N) 35 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-0.80