From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20040823 Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 06:19:10 -0600 (MDT) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Monday, August 23, 2004 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Gillespie R.McMillan,C.Loomis, SPIcam,NA2gdr, 20:30 05:55 B.Ketzeback,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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- EN02/O 20:34 05:37 0.6 0 0 0 4.7 3.8 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan, B.Ketzeback, J.Barentine Our stretch of beautiful weather was broken tonight by high clouds ranging from thin to impenetrable, although seeing was still quite good for much of the night. Our stretch of good luck was broken by several non-critical problems. Our stretch of cleverness was broken by several incidents of operator stupidity which confused and magnified the minor problems. All in all, much more typical post-shutdown behavior than the previous few nights. Non-critical guider problem: at the end of last night, I realized that the probable cause for good telescope/instrument pointing but bad guider pointing had to be a shift in guider optics (possibly when I mis-mounted DIS on Saturday evening, after the guider instrument block and pointing models had been done). Mark found one of the guider mirrors slightly off and adjusted it back. However, we then found that BOTH the telescope pointing and the guider pointing were off, so it was hard to be sure whether or not the guider was back to its Friday configuration. Non-critical DIS problem: We adjusted and re-checked the DIS internal focuses, and in the process discovered an anomaly. The slitviewer, blue and red spectrographs, and blue-side imaging all agreed on what the focus should be, but the red-side images wanted the secondary moved +100 microns. We could only guess that the red mirror must be somewhat out of position, but it looked fine when we inspected it. Perhaps the daystaff could try re-seating the mirror. This is an annoying and perplexing problem, but it shouldn't have too much impact on science because imaging mode with DIS is used infrequently. Combination stupidity and two minor telescope focus problems: Shortly after midnight, I discovered that the best focus for the guider had changed by 10,000 steps. In combination with the previous difficulties with the guider optics, I found this alarming enough to wake up Jon Davis. We inspected all the guider optics and remapped the stage, finding nothing apparently wrong. On the way back downstairs, I noticed that the cooling fans were off. It turned out I had made a typo a few hours earlier and turned off the cooling fans, causing the telescope focus to go very wonky and in turn affecting the guider focus. This error was compounded by a bug in the script which kludges around the missing telescope temperature sensors, and the two mistakes together entirely accounted for the focus oddities. Once we got the focus normalized and the telescope more-or-less in equilibrium, I took a new guider instrument block (yes, it did change), which was complicated by weird behavior from the instrument block fitting program. Then I took a pointing model, which was complicated by a combination of clouds and weird behavior from the guider filter wheel (how do you deal with varying clouds? change filters! But not tonight). The first attempt at a pointing model was actually aborted because of clouds. Because of the complications, these simple tasks took up the remainder of the night, but fortunately, they did get finished. ------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 21:33 dis-slit 30(1230) 218 74 13.6/0.0 263 9 - 0.88 00:41 SPIcam 200(1626) 207 47 13.3/0.0 273 10 R 0.69 01:24 SPIcam 50(1631) 220 42 13.1/0.0 274 13 R 0.83 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 65 33 11 302 (WNW) mstly cldy none 17:01 65 33 16 265 (W) mstly cldy none 18:01 62 34 13 260 (W) mstly cldy none 19:01 60 36 15 248 (WSW) mstly cldy none 20:01 58 37 13 269 (W) cirrus none 21:01 57 37 8 256 (WSW) mstly clr none 22:01 57 37 8 283 (WNW) cirrus none 23:01 56 36 9 277 (W) cirrus none 00:01 56 35 7 274 (W) cirrus none 01:01 56 36 8 271 (W) cirrus none 02:01 55 37 13 292 (WNW) ptly cldy none 03:01 55 37 16 298 (WNW) mstly cldy none 04:01 55 37 12 293 (WNW) mstly cldy none 05:01 54 37 10 296 (WNW) mstly cldy none 06:01 55 37 11 319 (NW) mstly 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 90b2