Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 06:09:04 -0700 (MST) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20040106 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Tuesday, January 6, 2004 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Gillespie J.Dembicky SPIcam 17:40 20:45 S.Friedman S.Friedman Echelle 20:45 02:15 B.Gillespie J.Dembicky, R.McMillan S-H 02:15 05:45 SPIcam INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/O 18:09 20:45 0 0 0 0 0 2.6 0 0 0 JH02/R 20:45 02:15 0 0 0 0 0 5.5 0 0 0 EN01/O 02:15 06:09 0 0 0 0 0 3.9 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky Opened and started cooling around 17:00 tonight. Some clouds low in the N/NW but clear over us. The first task on tonights Engineering agenda was to zero the NA2 rotator. Zero Rotator Results: Needed to move the rotator 0.003 degrees (MOVE 0.003 in the TCC) to get it level. Next up was to try out the new eyepiece mount for the telescope and check focus. 3.5m Eyepiece Results: Instrument set to SPIcam for tests (tip/tilts of the tertiary) I slewed to Saturn, Mars, Venus, Neptune, Uranus, Moon. All objects were in the FOV, though slightly off from center Focus was best when I set it to -800. The adjustable focus on the eyepiece (Rotating the eyepiece) is a fairly fine focus adjustment. Some coma was visible in the brighter planets, but it may have been a seeing effect since some were fairly low in the sky. I did notice it in the brighter planets moreso than the fainter ones. Neptune did not show it (and it was fairly low). The moon was WAY too big for the FOV of the eyepiece. I also spotted 4 or 5 moons of Uranus. I think the eyepiece is removable with one small set screw, it appears to be an old binocular eyepiece and a higher quality eyepiece may prove more satisfactory (less coma). I would have compared it to my 31mm Nagler, tha we have used before on the telescope via a tripod holder, but didn't have it with me. Overall the planets all appeared fuzzy, but that may also be due to seeing. I then focused SPIcam (about 20 mins later) and found the focus was around +100 with seeing around 1.2-1.4 arc sec. Maybe eyepiece, Maybe seeing? Hard to tell. Maybe I'll put the eyepiece back on later if the seeing goes sub-arc second (and I am between programs) to see if things look better. Next up the Pointing Model. I forgot to focus the NA2 guider before I started this but I examined the first image and focus looked OK where it was at, 1.4 arc sec. and I didn't want to manually try go tweaking it while the pointing model was collecitng data. I didn't like the way the pointing model looked so I didn't implement it for Scotts program coming on next. I will let Russet look at it later, when she comes in for the 2nd half and make the call of implementing it or not. I focused the echelle and then handed the telescope over to Scott around 20:30. Seeing was around 1 arc sec. I also did a pointing correction for him. Scott moved the mirror to Calibration but for some reason it got lost (or didn't move from source). When he noticed that his images looked strange I did a sync on my machine and noticed that the current status was listed as 'unknown'. I moved the mirror a couple time, it cleared the state after the first move, and had him restart his cals to see if that improved things (I left it in calibration) At 00:45 Russet came in and implemented a secondary auto-collimation and position correction. We let Scott continue to take data to test out if the guiding had problems. There was one problem at the start, but Russet quickly fixed it and then let Scott autoguide. Scott finished around 02:15 and I turned the telescope over to Russet to get some Shack-Hartmann images to improve our collimation. Russet finished that work then did another pointing model At 05:05 Russet informed me that a GRB went off yesterday and there might be an optical counterpart. The GRB was at -46 dec. We decided to go for it with SPIcam, afterall it was still 10 degrees above our horizon, and we were mostly done with any more engineering tasks that could be completed for the night. ------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:20 Eyepiece-SPIcam -800 -- -- --/-- -- -- none -- 18:42 SPIcam 100(1171) 117 62 2.4/3.0 184 8 V 1.17 20:24 Echelle 33(135) 135 70 3.5/3.0 210 9 ND3 1.03 02:25 S-H 220(1482) 7 61 1.7/1.5 207 15 none OK 05:14 SPIcam 0() 184 10 1.9/1.5 223 10 r' 2.6 -------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 41 26 7 199 (SSW) 0 Mst. Clr none 17:01 39 25 5 196 (SSW) 0 Mst. Clr none 18:01 35 25 4 179 (S) 0 Mst. Clr none 19:01 38 25 3 175 (S) 0 Mst. Clr none 20:01 39 24 8 199 (SSW) 0 Mst. Clr none 21:01 38 24 6 194 (SSW) 0 Pt. Cldy none 22:01 38 24 7 196 (SSW) 0 Pt. Cldy none 23:01 38 20 5 226 (SW) 0 Pt. Cldy none 00:01 37 22 8 221 (SW) 0 Pt. Cldy none 01:01 34 25 10 182 (S) 0 Pt. Cldy none 02:01 35 24 12 191 (S) 0 Pt. Cldy none 03:01 35 25 13 204 (SSW) 0 Mst. Clr none 04:01 36 24 15 217 (SW) 0 Mst. Clr none 05:01 35 26 14 215 (SW) 0 Mst. Clr none 06:01 36 25 16 240 (WSW) 0 Mst. Clr 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-0.80