Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2003 05:39:17 -0600 (MDT) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20030614 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, June 14, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- V.Woolf G.Wallerstein Echelle 20:05 00:50 J.Lutz J.Lutz Echelle 00:50 05:13 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- UW09/R 21:16 01:00 0 0 0 0 0 3.7 0 0 0 UW08/R 01:00 04:51 0 0 0 1.0 0 2.9 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky I opened and started cooling the telescope around 19:00. During checkout I again had problems with the tertiary clamp not engaging. Russet stepped me thru the process and no time was lost. At 03:30 the observer reported that she couldn't move the star onto the slit since it was too bright. I looked at an image and tried to put the ND3 filter in place (since the star was around 7 mag) which the observer said was in place. After a couple of minutes of trying the other filters I noticed that the brightness of the star did not change and suspected the filter may not be moving. John Barentine went up into the enclosure to see if the filter was moving when I commanded it (which it was) and I then noticed that the problem was that the guide camera had locked up (I should have known since this has recently became a problem). I restarted the slitviewer computer, did a set inst, and took an image and all looked well. Then I shift clicked the star to center it in the slit for the observer and took another image. This time the star moved to the upper left corner, almost off the frame. After consulting with John as to possible problems he felt it may be a tip-tilt problem or something had moved on the tertiary, I wasn't so sure. We ran a script of Russets and did a tip-tilt coef adjustment, but this time things went from bad to worse as now we didn't see our target star at all. We then slewed to a bright star (Vega) to try to find out where the telescope was pointing and it fell almost directly on the slit (hmmm...). I then had the observer slew back to their target star and it landed nearly dead on the slit. I then did a small offset (not shift-click) and it moved correctly. Then I did a shift click to drop the star back in the slit and again it made a wild offset and put the star in the upper left corner. I had Julie slew back to her star again (worse case is she could at least to manual offsets to center the star in the slit instead of shift-click) and this time checked to make sure the autoguider would at least work. I started the autoguider and it seemed to make small offsets but the star would not move into the slit after each offset. We then called Russet next as something was really screwy. After she checked a few things to make sure the tertiary hadn't rotated (from the start of the night problems). She then had me take a slitview image to try to do an offset from near the slit, that was when I noticed that the camera had died again!!! This was probably when we couldn't see the image moving from the autoguider. I restarted the camera, took an image, did a shift click and again the offset was really screwy, Arghh!!! After some head scratching Russet suggested that I restart my Remark and try again. Finally it worked! Lessons learned, Until the slitview camera gets fixed check to make sure it is acutally working and not locked up. It will still display an image that looks "normal" even though it doesn't take one. If there is a shift click problem try restarting Remark and see if that clears it. Russet also suggested doing a sync after any set inst. The guider crashed about 4 or 5 times tonight. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- UW08 E I/H 03:30 03:50 slitviewer ICC died UW08 E I/S 03:50 04:30 shift+click misbehaving ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:38 Echelle -74(146) 173 54 15.0/18.4 84 14 ND2 1.79 00:53 Echelle -40(-44) 280 54 12.4/12.9 88 18 ND2 1.94 --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 18:01 69 25 10 283 (WNW) 868 Mst. Clr none 19:01 67 24 7 264 (W) 753 Mst. Clr none 20:01 64 20 5 267 (W) 842 Mst. Clr none 21:01 59 35 17 112 (ESE) 990 Pt. Cldy none 22:01 57 37 14 98 (E) 1038 Pt. Cldy none 23:01 56 40 13 89 (E) 1007 Pt. Cldy none 00:01 56 40 11 89 (E) 1025 Pt. Cldy none 01:01 55 41 21 75 (ENE) 944 Mst. Clr none 02:01 50 41 15 79 (ENE) 1098 Mst. Clr none 03:01 48 42 23 73 (ENE) 974 Mst. Clr none 04:01 49 39 11 86 (E) 766 Clear none 05:01 52 36 6 98 (E) 889 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: 2.7.0 Current TUI version: 0.66