From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20041125 Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 06:28:17 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, November 25, 2004 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Gillespie B.Ketzeback,R.McMillan Guider 17:45 05:40 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/O 17:55 05:47 0 0 0 0 0 11.9 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st half Observing Specialist: B.Ketzeback Gobble, gobble, gobble... This afternoon D.Woods traveled to the site to shovel off the dome in time for clear photometric skies. We started the evening off with a new guider instrument block due to recent work on the Guider Mechanism. We followed that with some collimation data and a pointing model. All the while there was alot of cooking and feasting in the main kitchen by a number of other night staff who came in to celebrate Turkey Day with some of our on site visitors. As always, there were more leftovers than when we started cooking, it seemed. Everything was delicious! 2nd half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan The first round of collimation data, taken at 21:00, showed good collimation (minimal coma), but an unusually large amount of spherical aberration -- more than we've seen since before the skirt around the primary was removed. However, given the fact that the telescope hadn't been opened in many days, I thought it might be an equilibrium problem. After the pointing model (which came out nicely, showing little change from the previous model), I took another round of Shack-Hartmann data and found the spherical aberration somewhat reduced, although still larger than we usually see. It might be a good idea to examine the back of the primary and make sure none of the vent tubes are making contact with the glass. I went on to do some guider characterization that I believe will allow us to repeat the tests Jeff Morgan did on the PXL guider. The guiding on/off tests took several hours. Unfortunately, we did have some variations in seeing during these tests (good at the start, getting bad later on), which may have an effect on the outcome. I had planned to work on throughput and/or scattered light after the guider work, but unfortunately high clouds began to move in after 02:00 and interfered with all remaining engineering on the list. I puttered around with a few tasks of my own until twilight. I saw the "banded read-noise" problem on the DIS red side tonight. ------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:41 NA2gdr 500(39600) 181 67 3.5/4.6 321 12 R+nd3 0.75 20:59 S-H -250(1382) 171 65 1.2/3.4 303 8 - good 04:20 DISslit 0(863) 24 46 0.7/0.2 274 16 - 1.75 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 40 18 8 320 (NW) 12 clear none 17:01 40 13 16 300 (WNW) 21 clear none 18:01 40 13 17 323 (NW) 35 clear none 19:01 38 18 16 326 (NW) 40 clear none 20:01 39 17 16 309 (NW) 41 clear none 21:01 34 17 4 303 (WNW) 76 clear none 22:01 36 20 14 293 (WNW) 141 clear none 23:01 34 15 8 267 (W) 93 clear none 00:01 35 12 7 264 (W) 114 clear none 01:01 33 16 11 263 (W) 108 clear none 02:01 31 15 17 265 (W) 97 mstly clr none 03:01 33 14 9 275 (W) 190 mstly clr none 04:01 35 11 23 271 (W) 137 ptly cldy none 05:01 32 14 10 239 (WSW) 191 ptly cldy none 06:01 31 15 7 262 (W) 192 ptly cldy 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 TCC version: 2.7.2 Current TUI version: TUI 0.931