Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 06:48:00 -0600 (MDT) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20030915 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Tuesday, September 15, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- E.Turner J.Dembicky SPIcam 19:35 20:55 D.York DIS 20:55 01:00 J.Walawender J.Walawender, J.Bally GrIm 01:00 06:30 T.Ruhland, D.Licht, N.Moeckel INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- PU06/R 20:03 01:00 0 0 0 0 2.0 3.0 0 0 0 CU02/O 01:00 05:54 0 0 0 0.5 0 4.4 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky Started cooling the enclosure around 18:00. I talked with Don York on the phone about doing the Lens program at the start of the night (since I would need to get twilight flats) and he was agreeable. I got my flats (although the last g' was a bit long) and then slewed to the 2237 target to focus. Seeing was around 0.9 arc sec when I started but variable. After focusing the telescope (I was already at the target) and then doing a rotation of +7 deg I started the Lens Short script. I examined the first couple of images to make sure things looked right and something was amiss. It seems that the foreground galaxy was way off to the left of the field (it appeared on the 3rd image on the left side). I stopped the script to re-center the galaxy (which took a few minutes) and noticed that the focus had degraded again (now around 1.5 arc sec). After trying to center the galaxy and focus I decided that the seeing was just too poor to really get anything useful, and it was already 45 mins past the end of twilight, I decided to give the telescope back to Don for his nights work. I didn't bother scp'ing the data to Princeton since there really was no lens data taken tonight. I mounted DIS and focused for Don (seeing was around 0.9 arc sec again but still a bit variable. He was also looking at a higher elevation in the sky) The first half observer reported that the pointing was consistently off for DIS tonight. At the instrument swap we put an eyepiece on the telescope again and looked at Mars, Uranus, Neptune, and NGC 604. We finished with the visual work around 01:20 and started back with Grim. We moved to the first star and found the pointing to be off as well. After checking a couple of stars we decided it best to implement the previous pointing model that John B did on Aug 25 which seemed to work better with NA2 instruments. This seemed to improve the telescope pointing somewhat but still not perfect. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CU02 G T/S 01:30 02:00 pointing very poor?? ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:23 SPIcam -110(1418) 107 30 14.2/16.4 189 9 r' 1.2 21:05 DISslit 100(1115) 137 60 14.4/15.6 188 12 clear 0.9 02:25 GrIm-f/5 100(1137) 85 59 12.7/13.6 183 8 Ks 0.64 -------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 17:01 65 35 4 276 (W) 479 Mst. Clr none 18:01 64 36 7 269 (W) 480 Mst. Clr none 19:01 59 34 9 212 (SSW) 400 Mst. Clr none 20:01 58 34 9 186 (S) 501 Clear none 21:01 58 34 10 184 (S) 533 Clear none 22:01 57 35 16 177 (S) 442 Clear none 23:01 58 33 10 181 (S) 440 Clear none 00:01 58 33 11 189 (S) 494 Clear none 01:01 57 33 11 187 (S) 491 Clear none 02:01 56 32 13 189 (S) 364 Clear none 03:01 56 32 6 216 (SW) 302 Clear none 04:01 55 34 7 186 (S) 253 Clear none 05:01 55 34 13 193 (SSW) 206 Clear none 06:01 54 35 12 195 (SSW) 175 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 Telescope drives operational. Current Remark version: 2.85b Current guide software version: guider? what guider? Current TCC version: 2.7.1 Current TUI version: TTUI