Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 05:52:32 -0600 (MDT) From: John Barentine Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20040405 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Monday, April 5, 2004 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Strauss X.Fan SPIcam --:-- --:-- B.Gillespie J.Dembicky, J.Barentine DIS --:-- --:-- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- PU04/R 20:21 01:00 0 4.7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 EN01/O 01:00 05:50 0 4.8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialists: J.Barentine, J.Dembicky (remote) 3-6 inches of wet white stuff fell today, that pretty much told the story of how tonight was going to go. John Barentine came in to do instrument fills as well as help with the engineering tasks for tonight (not much since we couldn't open). I ran the telescope (Engineering tasks) remotely, since the roads were not in the best of shape for driving up on a cold night, and had John assist for anything onsite that needed to be done (ie. move DIS to the telescope). Since there was no hope for the first half observer to get any data I started doing tonights engineering tasks (the ones I could accomplish with the dome closed) at the start of the evening. I started the evening out by taking about 20 bias frames with DIS to check out the new cable for the blue side (to see how much/if any noise was present). Images taken dtest20040406.0002 - 0021 - bias images Results - Images looked good with no discernable artifacts present (just random noise). John next started the Echelle guider loop to test the CEU and see if we could get it to crash. I would have started it remotely but I don't have a mac to run Remark on (since guider control for the Echelle is not yet implemented in TUI). I worked on 3.5m web pages from here at home (TUI documentation and DIS documentation) and John worked on other engineering tasks. (added by JCB:) 1) Craig took a series of fifty DIS biases each earlier in the day before and after swapping the clock cable. On inspection, the summed biases taken after the swap showed a much lower amplitude, structured signal than those taken before. To check this, we took Fourier transforms of the images and looked at their power spectra in IDL. The analysis revealed the continued presence of power in the same frequency as observed before the swap, but diminished by a factor of ten. Clearly the cable swap diminished the pattern noise but did not eliminate it. Images are in /export/images/APO/doblue. 2) Collected data for a characterization of the DIS chips. It's been a while since anyone did this, so I took biases and flats for both red and blue chips. Flats were taken with a combination of the bright and dim quartz lamps, as the blue output of the lamps is fairly weak. Images are in /export/images/APO and are labeled pretty obviously. RED CHIP Gain = 1.183 +/- 0.005 e-/ADU Linearity (correlation coefficient, R^2) = 0.999 Nonlinear above 60K DN Saturates @ 65K DN Read Noise = 3.615 +/- 0.502 e-/pix BLUE CHIP Gain = 1.250 +/- 0.005 e-/ADU Linearity (R^2) = 0.999 Nonlinear above 60K DN Saturates @ 65K DN Read Noise = 3.493 +/- 0.176 e-/pix Plots, etc. will follow in a message to the mailing lists. 3) In an effort to test the new Echelle guide camera CEU, I started a long series of 1 second, windowed guider exposures, to, in Craig's words, try to "break it." The exposure sequence ran all night without failure. I left it running when I left around 06:00. ------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 32 32 0 173 (S) 1376 MstlyCldy none 17:01 33 30 5 174 (S) 462 MstlyCldy none 18:01 34 33 2 258 (WSW) 318 MstlyCldy none 19:01 32 29 1 303 (WNW) 307 MstlyCldy none 20:01 31 30 7 22 (NNE) 164 MstlyCldy none 21:01 31 28 1 60 (ENE) 295 MstlyCldy none 22:01 30 29 2 336 (NNW) 187 MstlyCldy none 23:01 30 30 7 268 (W) 1098 MstlyCldy fog 00:01 30 30 12 303 (WNW) 2225 MstlyCldy fog 01:01 31 31 15 308 (NW) 1222 MstlyCldy fog 02:01 31 31 15 305 (NW) 882 MstlyCldy fog 03:01 31 31 7 303 (WNW) 782 MstlyCldy fog 04:01 30 30 8 312 (NW) 5634 MstlyCldy fog 05:01 30 29 9 327 (NNW) 370 MstlyCldy 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-0.842