Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 07:06:30 -0600 (MDT) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20040915 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, September 15, 2004 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- D.York J.Barentine DIS 18:45 00:35 J.Hennawi J.Hennawi DIS 00:35 06:50 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- UC06/O 20:02 01:00 0 0 0.6 0 4.4 0 0 0 0 PU01/R 01:00 05:54 0 0 0 0 4.9 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky John noted that his spectra seemed out of focus tonight with DIS. We placed the mirrors in place and took an image and indeed the focus was off relative to a focused image on the slitviewer. John focused DIS via the mirrors and then we calculated the offset to necessary when focusing the Slitviewer camera to compensate for the remainder of the night. This time was accounted for as a hardware problem and not against the program. From plotting the FWHM value of the guider and the DIS image vs. focus position we really could only see about a 7-10 value difference in the minimums, which implied the best focuses were very close, not what we expected. I looked at previous slitview images and the images looked in focus with spectra out of focus. Our conclusions were that sometime during the exposure the telescope must have went out of focus using the results from above, although the slitview images sure didn't look out of focus. The next science image again showed a broad width in the spectrum, indicitive of an out of focus field. I had John take a DIS image as soon as the science exposure finished to check to see if DIS was indeed out of focus. The image looked in focus. We took a with the slitviewer and it was now out of focus. Very perplexing!!! The images were taken around 23:32-23:50 that showed the problem. I then examined the slitview images each separated in time by about 3 minutes. This revealed the star marching in the +x direction along the slit (explaining the broadening width of the spectral line). John was tracking in 90 deg horizon rotation along the paralactic angle. John switched 0 deg object rotationand noticed an improvement in the image. He thinks it may be related to the Horizon rotation, but he has used that mode before without problem. I then looked at some guider images taken with horizontal rotation and the stars nicely marched across the screen so this may suggest a guiding problem. Second half went smootly and we observed an asteroid (known) moving thru one of the disslit fields. Joe reported that the nubmers that Slitview gives for offseting the object in TUI are off in the Y direction about 1.5". He had to subtract 1.5 " from the given Y offset given by the slitviewer program . ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- UC06 D I/H 22:52 23:30 DIS focus off vs. DISslit. ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:00 DISslit -150(1533) 34 52 15.6/19.9 264 3 none 1.04 20:08 NA2gdr -1182(29817) 31 53 16.2/19.8 306 2 R 1.22 21:29 DISslit -200(1380) 17 56 15.2/17.9 93 2 none 0.96 21:32 NA2gdr -2461(28538) 16 56 15.3/17.7 87 5 R 0.84 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 69 31 18 268 (W) 832 Clear none 17:01 68 30 6 260 (W) 828 Clear none 18:01 71 31 10 265 (W) 748 Clear none 19:01 63 29 1 257 (WSW) 713 Clear none 20:01 60 29 2 275 (W) 622 Clear none 21:01 59 34 6 68 (ENE) 1372 Clear none 22:01 59 34 5 85 (E) 1370 Clear none 23:01 59 32 4 103 (ESE) 988 Clear none 00:01 59 33 12 131 (SE) 1429 Clear none 01:01 59 33 14 142 (SE) 1495 Clear none 02:01 59 30 8 180 (S) 1007 Clear none 03:01 59 30 7 199 (SSW) 749 Clear none 04:01 59 28 4 211 (SSW) 706 Clear none 05:01 58 30 1 191 (S) 718 Clear none 06:01 58 31 3 261 (W) 795 Clear 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 9.0b4