Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20030429 Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 05:57:16 -0600 (MDT) From: bketzeba@apo.nmsu.edu (Bill Ketzeback) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Tueday, April 29, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- J.Hennawi B.Pindor,M.Strauss DIS 19:10 00:30 00:45 05:30 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- PU03/R 20:41 05:20 0 0 0.3 0 8.4 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: W.Ketzeback High dust counts, winds and cloudcover is what I faced when I arrived at the site this afternoon. Because of these I did not open for cooling until a few minutes before the end of twilight. Seeing wasnt too bad for a great portion of the night even though much of the first half was high clouds (clumpy cirrus). Because of this the guider was having trouble locking on to a guide star. Shortly after midnight the skies became photometric and seeing was also somewhat improved. At 00:30, I noticed that there were some star trails in the guider and the observer became very vocal about what he was seeing in the slitviewer. Without the TUI (which was broken today) I had some difficulty tracking down what exactly was going on. Was the rotator unwrapping? Was the telescope running away? Finally I determined that the telescope stopped tracking. I never did discover why. I checked to make sure the telescope had not collided with the building or a brownout set a stop button. Finally I reinitialized all the axis drives, slewed the telescope a significant distance and got the observer back to collecting data. I did make a note in the 'nlog' for the daystaff to investigate what might have happened around that time. The rest of the night went well and the observers were very productive. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PU03 D T/H 00:30 00:45 Tel stopped tracking (overcurrent) ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 21:04 dis-slit -55(796) 194 70 10.3/11.6 267 18 - 1.1 21:07 NA2gdr -68(40931) 196 70 10.3/11.5 253 22 R 0.95 23:58 dis-slit -70(720) -12852 8.8/9.0 263 23 - 1.49 00:01 NA2gdr 2000(43000) -12751 8.8/9.1 262 21 R 1.25 --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 54 18 17 243 (WSW) 1138 mstly cldy none 17:01 62 23 19 203 (SSW) 1421 mstly cldy none 18:01 54 23 27 235 (SW) 2899 mstly cldy none 19:01 55 20 27 256 (WSW) 1874 mstly cldy none 20:01 51 19 24 246 (WSW) 2047 prtly cldy none 21:01 51 18 17 250 (WSW) 1666 prtly cldy none 22:01 50 18 17 262 (W) 1636 prtly cldy none 23:01 49 17 23 267 (W) 1420 clear none 00:01 48 17 18 268 (W) 1563 clear none 01:01 46 18 21 265 (W) 1348 clear none 02:01 45 17 15 262 (W) 1471 clear none 03:01 44 16 21 269 (W) 1525 clear none 04:01 43 14 23 262 (W) 1501 clear none 05:01 42 14 24 266 (W) 1215 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: 2.80b Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv4.1b4 Current TCC version: 2.6.8 Current TUI version: 0.65