From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20030517 Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 05:38:48 -0600 (MDT) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, May 17, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- R.Covarrubias A.Miceli SPIcam 20:15 00:55 G.Wolf-Chase R.Evans,A.Harper GRIM 01:05 05:30 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- UW03/R 20:57 01:00 0 0 0 0 1.3 2.8 0 0 0 UC04/R 01:00 05:02 0 0 0 0.7 0 3.3 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Tonight was insufficiently boring. I would like to request something more peaceful for tomorrow night. Checkout went all right until I discovered that GRIM was giving bad images on all four quadrants, which required half a dozen instrument power cycles and three computer reboots. At least 20 minutes of exercise three times a week is recommended by the NIH, but I don't think this is what they had in mind. At the same time, there was a current spike on the DIS ion pump, which later resolved itself, but not without causing some excitement. When we got on the sky, the guider Mac had a response problem and needed a restart to get it going again. First half observations went smoothly enough, observing through cirrus with good seeing at the beginning of the evening degrading toward midnight. Once we started using GRIM we discovered that the dither script was causing the MC to crash. We had to find an alternate script to use. I couldn't see any mistake in the syntax of the original script that should have caused a problem. We settled down to observing with reasonable success using the new script, although GRIM kept dropping a quad in some images, then getting it back a few images later. At one point, the observers complained of either bad pointing or a drift in pointing, but I was unable to pinpoint the cause without taking more time away from observations. It may have been a user error or poor communication; a pointing check using the guider looked fine at the time of the first complaint. Distracted by the discussions of pointing and an increased incidence of images with bad quadrants, I forgot about the service observing program until twilight had already started -- and then I realized it wasn't even scheduled until twilight had already started. There appears to be an error in the printed schedules; the raw schedule says that PU04 should start 30 minutes before morning twilight, but the printed schedules have it starting at the beginning of twilight and continuing for 30 minutes from there, which would be far too bright for spicam observations. By the time I realized this, it was too late to make the instrument change and get any useful observations at all, so I let the observers continue working with GRIM. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- UC04 G I/S 01:30 02:10 dither.tcl crashes MC ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 21:00 SPIcam -100(1342) 34 51 17.4/18.2 192 13 r' 0.97 21:19 NA2gdr 2000(51000) -62 58 17.6/17.9 186 12 R 0.85 01:19 GrIm2(f/5) 0(1143) 107 39 16.1/16.2 192 12 H 1.28 --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 73 26 17 245 (WSW) 849 ptly cldy none 17:01 69 23 14 204 (SSW) 914 ptly cldy none 18:01 67 20 15 241 (WSW) 852 ptly cldy none 19:01 65 18 11 196 (SSW) 1082 ptly cldy none 20:01 63 16 14 215 (SW) 1182 ptly cldy none 21:01 63 17 14 191 (S) 1306 ptly cldy none 22:01 64 18 13 189 (S) 1159 mstly clr none 23:01 64 17 13 193 (SSW) 1517 mstly clr none 00:01 63 17 12 170 (S) 1384 mstly clr none 01:01 57 27 13 183 (S) 1165 cirrus none 02:01 62 16 14 206 (SSW) 1112 cirrus none 03:01 61 18 17 199 (SSW) 968 mstly clr none 04:01 60 24 19 203 (SSW) 1152 cirrus none 05:01 61 16 15 211 (SSW) 1049 cirrus 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: 2.85b Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv4.1b4 Current TCC version: 2.6.8 Current TUI version: 0.66