Date: Sat, 8 May 2004 04:17:44 -0600 (MDT) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20040507 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Friday, May 7, 2004 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- N.Chanover N.Chanover Grim 19:40 21:45 M.Skrutskie J.Wilson CorMass --:-- --:-- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- NM01/O 19:50 22:00 0 0 0 0 1.2 0 1.0 0 0 DD02/O 22:00 05:10 1.7 5.5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky Some clouds at the very start of the night, but they drifted off shortly after sunset. I opened the enclosure around 18:40 tonight to start cooling. About 20 large military air transport ship flew over the observatory (banking and heading S) around 18:30 tonight. Very cool and very loud as they flew low and directly over the observatory. The telescope pointing was excellent tonight with Grim at f/10 (as commented by our first observer tonight). Nancy finished a couple mins ahead of schedule and I mounted CorMass. Pointing was not as good for some reason tonight. I checked with Russet's na2point program and things looked fine (error was small) and the pointing correction star was near center of the guider. Unfortunately clouds started rolling in and we were not able to get enough sky to figure out what the problem was. I think the stars were close to the field (we could see them slew by as I moved from star to star) but just far enough away to make things frustrating, and then of course the clouds didn't help matters. We had several sucker holes move thru during the course of the night, but nothing that I felt comfortable opening (and they only lasted maybe 15 mins before more clouds came rolling thru. We gave up around 03:45 as it looked like the cloud pattern was here to stay until the end of the night. Nothing obvious looked mounted wrong when I took CorMass off this morning so I am not sure why pointing was off slightly, especially since our pointing correction stars were almost exactly centered. ------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:03 Grim f/10 225(1704) 104 39 107 8 13.6/15.9 Kcont 0.63 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 61 22 13 306 (NW) 1162 Cloudy none 17:01 61 19 14 276 (W) 1096 Mst. Cldy none 18:01 63 18 11 257 (WSW) 1007 Pt. Cldy none 19:01 64 18 11 262 (W) 1002 Pt. Cldy none 20:01 56 28 7 90 (E) 902 Mst. Clr none 21:01 55 27 10 86 (E) 1028 Mst. Clr none 22:01 55 26 7 89 (E) 1060 Mst. Cldy none 23:01 56 25 6 119 (ESE) 1186 Mst. Cldy none 00:01 56 24 5 142 (SE) 1374 Mst. Cldy none 01:01 57 22 5 178 (S) 1271 Mst. Cldy none 02:01 57 23 9 176 (S) 1254 Mst. Cldy none 03:01 54 26 6 164 (SSE) 1165 Cloudy none 04:01 53 26 7 178 (S) 1259 Cloudy 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-0.843