Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 05:34:14 -0600 (MDT) From: John Barentine Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20040615 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Tuesday, June 15, 2004 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- D.Golimowski K.Chiu GRIM 20:53 22:35 DIS 22:58 05:03 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- JH03/R 21:17 04:51 0 0 0 0 7.5 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Barentine The Dog Fire continued to burn, (no, we're not toasting puppies -- this forest fire takes its name from a nearby canyon) several miles west of APO, into the evening; one could smell smoke in the air in the late afternoon, but by dark the fire seemed at least partially contained. Dust counts did not rise high enough to prevent us from opening. The night was largely clear, but there were repeating periods of light cloud throughout the night. Toward 23:00 it was thick enough that we were briefly concerned about rain, but there were no nearby returns on radar. Seeing was generally good, winds low, and temperatures mild. There was some trouble with the NA2 guider; I'm told that work was done during the daytime on Tuesday, and I noticed rather astigmatic star images most of tonight; for reference, see almost any image taken tonight stored in tycho:/export/images/guider. The images were elongated consistently along a line from about 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock in angle; I didn't run the camera far enough out of focus in the opposite direction to see whether it actually was astigmatism. This problem caused severe difficulties in guiding, even when brightish stars were in the field. Seems like something may have been bumped, optically... ------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 22:14 NA2gdr -716(47283) 156 56 17.9/19.1 245 9 R 0.77 22:56 DISslit -25(1598) 196 76 17.9/18.6 254 9 - 0.84 22:58 NA2gdr -780(46219) 198 76 18.1/18.6 255 8 R 0.75 01:36 DISslit -15(1566) 266 74 17.2/17.5 284 5 - 0.68 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 78 31 17 236 (SW) 1855 PtlyCldy none 17:01 72 26 13 238 (WSW) 1741 PtlyCldy none 18:01 73 28 13 272 (W) 1760 PtlyCldy none 19:01 72 25 15 264 (W) 1694 PtlyCldy none 20:01 68 21 14 264 (W) 1576 PtlyCldy none 21:01 66 19 12 244 (WSW) 1945 PtlyCldy none 22:01 65 19 10 219 (SW) 1815 MstlyCldy none 23:01 65 18 7 245 (WSW) 1729 MstlyCldy none 00:01 63 18 7 303 (WNW) 1163 PtlyCldy none 01:01 64 18 7 288 (WNW) 740 PtlyCldy none 02:01 63 18 5 277 (W) 903 PtlyCldy none 03:01 63 17 8 277 (W) 770 MstlyClr none 04:01 62 17 5 260 (W) 763 MstlyClr none 05:01 61 16 1 187 (S) 838 MstlyClr 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-0.85