From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20030309 Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 06:20:01 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Sunday, March 9, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- D.Tucker D.Tucker,S.Kent DIS II.5 18:35 20:30 21:20 23:50 T.Tripp T.Tripp,D.Bowen SPIcam 00:00 06:03 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- UC08/R 19:00 00:00 0 0 0 0.8 0 4.2 0 0 0 PU04/R 00:00 05:27 0 0 0 0 5.1 0.3 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: W.Ketzeback The first night of a work week tends to keep one on their toes. Tonight was crazy enought to live up to that. During checkout, I did a filter change for the second half user and a grating swap for the first half observer. These went well. During my afternoon checkout test slews I had Remark 2.82 crash on me for no apparent reason. When I attempted to calibrate the wavelength centers for DIS the instrument failed to take an exposure and said that the shutter status was open. After consulting Craig Loomis, the instrument seemed to operate properly again after homing the shutter. However, Craig was suspicious that something was not right and warned me to keep an eye on the shutter and ask the other Obs-Specs if they had recently made changes to the Slit Mask. I sent an email warning the Obs-Specs and inquired about recent work. The observer was logged on early enough to finish their cals well before the end of twilight. I was opened and we were focused several minutes prior to their offical start time. Then the troubles began. The observer was unable to get xlamps to work on their machine so I talked then through how to operate the lamps by the command line. Next they did not have an 8 bit display in their office so they could not use slitview. So I did offsets for them until they could relocate a terminal. The second object that I was centering for them they inadvertantly slewed. I took this as a runaway of the telescope! I hit the Emergency Stop button. Recovering from the miscommunication problem I discovered that the new Enclosure E-Stop switch worked beautifully (engaging I believe before the dome could coast into the telescope. pushing the telescope azimuth drives as it comes to a stop.) I needed to reset this manually on the intermediate level. The next object the observer slewed too high in altitude. I warned them about doing this but the Primary Mirror Support System seemed to be behaving OK so I let them start an exposure at 82.5 degrees altitude. Again I warned them not to stay on this object long. At 85 degrees the telescope quit tracking and I moved it back to a safe altitude. We were not back in buisness for long however. The observer reported they were experiencing the same problems with the shutter that I saw at checkout. I attempted to home the shutter again but it failed. I called Craig and he recommended I unmount the instrument and we troubleshoot. The shutter was indeed open when I unmounted DIS. The slitmask seemed to be meeting resistance between positions 3 and 4. I took the wheel off DIS and as I did the 2.0 arcsec slit (by chance) fell out of the wheel and into my hand. A miracle in the dark dome! Craig and I did some checks, I shimmed the loose slit and reinstalled the mask. We were back on the sky in 45 minutes. A quick refocusing and my observers were again collecting science photons. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Second half was successful and peaceful. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- UC08 D I/H 20:35 21:20 Shutter stuck open ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:51 dis-slit -325(414) -21 68 6.2/8.8 354 6 - 1.45 18:53 NA2gdr 0(41000) -22 68 6.2/8.8 354 6 R 1.35 21:37 dis-slit -150(455) -42 75 6.9/6.1 211 1 - 0.85 21:39 NA2gdr 355(41355) -43 75 6.9/6.1 219 1 R 0.7 00:18 SPIcam -150(675) -12 66 4.8/5.0 169 11 r' 0.95 00:23 NA2gdr 126(49126) -14 65 4.8/5.0 165 11 R 1.0 02:56 SPIcam -50(780) -13952 5.1/4.5 187 7 Hodge 0.93 --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 49 8 7 329 (NNW) 170 clear none 17:01 48 2 3 330 (NNW) 104 clear none 18:01 45 -2 5 334 (NNW) 138 clear none 19:01 43 2 9 356 (N) 141 clear none 20:01 43 2 6 351 (N) 150 clear none 21:01 44 1 1 338 (NNW) 152 clear none 22:01 44 2 4 181 (S) 144 clear none 23:01 43 1 1 100 (E) 145 clear none 00:01 42 -5 7 176 (S) 114 clear none 01:01 42 3 8 179 (S) 174 clear none 02:01 40 2 8 181 (S) 162 clear none 03:01 42 0 6 190 (S) 153 clear none 04:01 42 1 4 197 (SSW) 150 clear none 05:01 42 0 8 234 (SW) 140 clear none 06:01 42 0 6 259 (W) 135 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 Primary, secondary, and tertiary mirrors in place and collimated. Primary support system operational. Mirror ventilation system in place. Telescope drives operational. Current Remark version: 2.82 Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv4.1b2 Current TCC version: 2.6.8