From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20031209 Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 06:57:57 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Tuesday, December 9, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Gillespie J.Barentine,R.McMillan DIS 18:40 20:20 SPIcam 20:30 23:50 G.Stringfellow Echelle 00:00 03:15 R.McMillan S-H 03:15 05:15 G.Stringfellow Echelle 05:15 06:30 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/O 17:55 05:57 0 0 0 0 0 12.0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialists: J.Barentine and R.McMillan Opened around 17:30 as dusk was falling with clear skies, moderate winds and cold (about -5 C) temperatures. Seeing during first half wasn't so great on account of the wind direction coming from nearly due north. First we verified the spatial scale and offset orientation for DIS, long overdue information, by creating separate instrument blocks for the red and blue sides of DIS in imaging mode. We derived scales of 0.42 arcsec/pix on the blue side and 0.39 arcsec/pix on the red side; these values and the offset orientations will be added to the web documentation for DIS. A bit after 20:00 we switched to SPIcam and commenced gathering more data for Jeff Morgan's no-pinhole scattered light tests to verify the quality of optics baffling. During the next four hours, as the data were taken, the air temperature went on a little excursion that brought it up as high as about 2 C as the winds diminished and humidity fell to about 10 percent. At midnight we switched to Echelle for some on-sky training of Guy Stringfellow. This episode was sandwiched nicely between the SPIcam tests and Shack-Hartmann observations later in the night. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Clear skies, good to moderate seeing. Shack-Hartmann altitude sweeping (and correction for an apparent secondary pop since the top end was reassembled) and feasibility tests on a video-grab experiment. Then some more echelle work, during which we found a target apparently in outburst! ------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 00:11 Echelle -54(-118) 117 84 -0.6/-0.7 359 8 clear 1.35 03:27 S-H 200(1499) 127 57 2.5/2.1 295 10 - good 05:15 Echelle -120(37) 243 29 0.3/1.0 265 5 ND2 1.08 -------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 25 14 0 124 (SE) 215 Clear none 17:01 22 13 6 40 (NE) 200 Clear none 18:01 26 -5 20 20 (NNE) 96 Clear none 19:01 26 -8 28 20 (NNE) 66 Clear none 20:01 26 -7 19 24 (NNE) 114 Clear none 21:01 28 -11 23 16 (NNE) 67 Clear none 22:01 34 -15 14 12 (NNE) 112 Clear none 23:01 35 -13 8 345 (NNW) 43 Clear none 00:01 28 -14 2 247 (WSW) 56 Clear none 01:01 33 -15 10 333 (NNW) 85 clear none 02:01 37 -11 10 285 (WNW) 76 clear none 03:01 38 -10 11 301 (WNW) 75 clear none 04:01 35 -13 12 289 (WNW) 38 clear none 05:01 34 -14 6 251 (WSW) 33 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-0.76