From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20040129 Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 07:47:16 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, January 29, 2004 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- C.Rockosi C.Rockosi Echelle 17:30 18:28 20:28 00:12 M.Strauss J.Hennawi DIS 00:20 06:20 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- UW08/R 18:28 00:15 0 0 0 2.0 0 3.8 0 0 0 PU05/R 00:15 06:04 0 0 0 0 4.5 1.3 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: W.Ketzeback Beautiful weather first half with moderate seeing conditions. When the observer finished cals I went to focus and noticed immediately that pointing was very poor. Slewing to a very bright star and then Venus I was able to determine that the pointing was off by 1.5 arc minutes in each axis. Realizing something was seriously wrong I consulted with Craig after considering all the obvious causes (magnasensors, wrong instrument defined, nontracking motors, etc) about suspicious looking values for the C actuator for the Tertiary. He confirmed that the actuator did not complete the move to the commanded location but stopped half way. We then consulted Jon Davis because of the recent difficulties with the Secondary and Tertiary actuators in cold weather conditions. Since it really wasnt all that cold (-2C) he felt it would be okay to do small moves and then to home the mirror. Craig and I had no troubles either moving the actuators or homing the mirror. I then restored the tilts back to the original values from the start of the night. There was some tweaking of the pointing required after I focused but the rest of the night went rather smoothly. Connie did note seeing the repeat of a bug in the echelle ICC where pausing an exposure for more than 32 seconds will cause her exposure not to readout properly until a 'stop' was issued. Since this was something we have seen before I am not counting any lost time for equipment failure since she recognized it right away and didnt loose on sky time. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Second half was clear, with generally poor seeing (1.5-2.5 arcseconds). The tertiary made the transition back to NA2 with no trouble, and everything worked perfectly for the remainder of the night. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- UW08 E T/H 18:28 20:28 Tert Actuator-C stuck UW08 E T/S --:-- --:-- echelle pause bug ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:38 Echelle 0(-108) -41 65 -1.9/-2.2 10 14 nd1 1.22 21:43 Echelle 60(-69) 69 69 -1.9/-2.5 54 8 clear 1.74 23:27 Echelle 68(-74) -2 78 -1.6/-2.5 325 12 clear 1.56 -------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 30 11 7 275 (W) - clear none 17:01 31 12 5 307 (NW) - clear none 18:01 29 12 11 354 (N) - clear none 19:01 28 12 1 12 (NNE) - clear none 20:01 29 11 13 7 (N) - clear none 21:01 29 11 10 36 (NE) - clear none 22:01 29 11 6 10 (N) - clear none 23:01 29 9 9 342 (NNW) - clear none 00:01 29 8 11 325 (NW) - 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 v4.1b4 Current TCC version: 2.7.2 Current TUI version: TUI-0.82