Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 04:21:10 -0600 (MDT) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20040602 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, June 2, 2004 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Gillespie J.Dembicky, R.McMillan FastCam 20:30 02:00 B.Ketzeback, C.Loomis Echelle S-H INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/O 21:10 04:53 0 2.9 0 0 0 4.8 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky I started cooling the dome and opened the enclosure around 19:15 tonight under partly cloudy (but hopefully clearing skies). First order of buisness was to zero the rotator (adjusted by 0.228). I then found a guidestar with the echelle for Craig and he started testing autoguiding using TUI. We then switched to FastCam around 20:45 and we found a bright star (Arcturus) and Russet proceeded to adjust the tertiary tip-tilts. We focused the camera and took data for an intrument block, as well as orientating the instrument wrt altiutde. Tests on the camera showed limiting magnitude of the camera and focus was critical in getting a image displayed on the screen (signal level). We found the limiting magnitude to be around 6.8 mag was the limit of the camera (after focusing and at 60 fps). Craig did more Echelle guider testing Russels centroiding code on the ech slitviewer. Tried bright (8 w/ND3) and dim (14.6) stars and things worked well. Some trail tests which also appeared to work. Data was gathered and saved for future reductions. Russet then started collimation tests with the Shack-Hartmann, as clouds started making their way in here from the NE. She made a fairly large correction to the pointing. I did my DIS grating calibration checkout (as I hadn't done this earlier) while the clouds closed us down. It was a very slow moving system that teased us with clear sky to our W but completly overcast overhead and everywhere else. No chance of getting a pointing model thru this much (and thick) cloud cover and no chance of DIS throughput measurements either. The dust levels went over the limits (>5K) around 03:45 and the skies were pretty much cloudy with not much chance of improvement in the next hour, so I gave up and called it a 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:34 Echelle -45(911) 101 61 18.9/21.1 284 4 ND1 0.97 21:47 fastcam -600(1343) 136 65 18.7/19.9 273 6 none 1.0 01:32 S-H -100(2199) 223 60 17.3/17.4 186 10 - 1.0 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 18:01 72 25 7 252 (WSW) 1069 Mst. Cldy none 19:01 70 25 12 211 (SSW) 1151 Pt. Cldy none 20:01 68 21 3 263 (W) 1222 Pt. Cldy none 21:01 66 19 6 273 (W) 1244 Mst. Clr none 22:01 66 19 9 296 (WNW) 1229 Clear none 23:01 65 22 7 189 (S) 1531 Clear none 00:01 63 28 11 197 (SSW) 1926 Clear none 01:01 63 29 13 178 (S) 1925 Pt. Cldy none 02:01 64 30 12 192 (SSW) 1892 Mst. Cldy none 03:01 63 29 10 189 (S) 1879 Cloudy none 04:01 54 32 11 87 (E) 4880 Cloudy dust 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