From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20030518 Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 05:45:12 -0600 (MDT) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Sunday, May 18, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- G.Wallerstein G.Wallerstein Echelle 19:50 00:55 G.Wolf-Chase R.Evans,A.Harper GRIM 01:00 04:25 E.Turner R.McMillan SPIcam 04:35 05:15 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- UW10/R 20:58 01:00 0 0 0 0 2.4 1.7 0 0 0 UC04/R 01:00 04:31 0 0 0 0 0 3.5 0 0 0 PU04/R 04:31 05:01 0 0 0 0 0 0.5 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Not quite a sinecure, but certainly an improvement over last night. We had widespread cirrus during first half clearing up second half, with seeing ranging from mediocre to decent (just barely under an arcsecond with GRIM). The echelle slitviewer Mac crashed once, during checkout (sorry, I forgot to note it in the MC!). Once we got on the sky, the slitviewer behaved very well, autoguiding on 13th magnitude objects through clouds with 20-second exposures. The observer had a little trouble when his slitviewer control window disappeared, but it was close to the end of his time so I just took over the guiding myself rather than trying to restart to fix the problem. GRIM dropped no quads tonight! The dither.tcl script apparently had the same problem as last night even when the observer properly set his priority beforehand (which was supposedly the problem). Fortunately, I saw the warning sign and managed to stop the observer before crashing the MC. I edited the program and got the observer on his merry way. There followed some extensive discussions about pointing, pointing corrections, focus, astigmatism, coma, mirror twitches, and tracking drift, but among all these complex issues nothing actually impeded observing. The tracking drift was much smaller than last night after a change in observer behavior. I observed for PU04 after failing to do so last night; that program went smoothly. I and the Sloan observers noted an occasional smoky smell in the morning air (wind from the NNW -- possibly sending us a message from the fire in the Gila mountains). ------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:51 Echelle -73(329) 93 37 17.0/18.2 273 14 Clear 1.6 01:11 GrIm2(f/5) 125(1238) 106 38 14.3/15.4 273 13 K' 1.04 01:13 NA2gdr 817(48817) 107 39 14.4/15.4 295 17 R 1.1 04:37 SPIcam -50(1235) 111 35 13.7/13.3 311 13 r' 1.25 --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 71 24 26 270 (W) 761 cirrus none 17:01 71 25 14 261 (W) 665 cirrus none 18:01 69 22 22 268 (W) 796 cirrus none 19:01 66 20 21 249 (WSW) 812 cirrus none 20:01 65 16 21 271 (W) 1035 cirrus none 21:01 62 16 13 271 (W) 1123 cirrus none 22:01 62 16 18 291 (WNW) 1239 cirrus none 23:01 62 17 12 271 (W) 1204 cirrus none 00:01 61 19 14 287 (WNW) 1246 cirrus none 01:01 59 20 19 293 (WNW) 1262 mstly clr none 02:01 57 23 14 329 (NNW) 1379 mstly clr none 03:01 58 22 6 8 (N) 1507 clear none 04:01 56 22 14 329 (NNW) 1842 clear none 05:01 56 22 10 335 (NNW) 1688 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: 2.85b Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv4.1b4 Current TCC version: 2.6.8 Current TUI version: 0.66