From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20050114 Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 07:06:47 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Friday, January 14, 2005 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- S.Bates J.Holtzman DIS 20:15 23:20 E.Turner R.McMillan SPIcam 23:35 04:30 M.Klaene R.McMillan SPIcam,Na2Gdr 04:30 05:30 E.Turner R.McMillan SPIcam 05:30 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NM01/R 18:16 00:10 0.5 2.0 0 0 1.3 2.1 0 0 0 PU03/O 00:10 04:30 0 0 0 0 4.3 0 0 0 0 EN01/O/D 04:30 05:30 0 0 0 0 1.0 0 0 0 0 PU03/O 05:30 06:09 0 0 0 0 0.7 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky Thicker cirrus clouds prevented us from opening before sunset but conditions seemed to improve during twilight and I was able to open around 18:10 with very marginal conditions, but it appeared little threat of precipitation. After focusing Jon was able to find his 17th mag target so we were a go for the first program of the night. Seeing was excellent on the guider with guidestars in the 0.5 arc sec range. Too good and the guider was having problems discriminating between guidestars and hot pixels (and the guidestars were faint as well). I tried Russets goodseeing but no dice. Not that it mattered much because clouds grew worse as I tried acquiring a guidestar for Jon and we had to pause midway into his exposure. We attempted again around 20:25 and decided to just shoot thru the murk. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan The first half observer handed the telescope over a little early because he couldn't get anything more in the weather conditions; I listed that time as lost to weather. Second half started out with cirrus and excellent seeing, then progessed over the next few hours to photometric and poor seeing. The former conditions were better for the science program. When there was a lull mid-morning with no targets to observe under the seeing conditions, I did a little engineering to investigate a possible problem Jon Holtzman noticed in the guider instrument block. This was easily tracked down and fixed, then I returned to observing -- but unfortunately the seeing conditions made the late-morning data questionable. ------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:17 DISslit -200(723) 54 71 1.6/3.4 272 7 none 0.81 18:19 NA2gdr --5101(25898) 53 71 1.7/3.4 272 8 R 0.73 23:56 SPIcam 10(1022) 37 55 1.3/1.1 353 5 r' 0.83 00:01 NA2gdr -2349(34650)36 56 1.1/1.0 322 7 R 0.73 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 37 -3 1 289 (WNW) Cloudy none 17:01 36 -29 4 290 (WNW) Cloudy none 18:01 35 -20 6 315 (NW) Cloudy none 19:01 36 -25 3 273 (W) Mst. Cldy none 20:01 36 -30 2 271 (W) Mst. Cldy none 21:01 36 -27 2 278 (W) Mst. Cldy none 22:01 36 -26 3 261 (W) Mst. Cldy none 23:01 35 -26 5 266 (W) Mst. Cldy none 00:01 34 -25 5 312 (NW) cirrus none 01:01 34 -25 5 274 (W) cirrus none 02:01 33 -24 6 286 (WNW) cirrus none 03:01 34 -26 8 277 (W) cirrus none 04:01 35 -27 8 307 (NW) mstly clr none 05:01 34 -28 8 329 (NNW) clear none 06:01 34 -20 7 339 (NNW) clear none 07:01 35 -14 2 60 (ENE) 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. Note: The Tower Dust counter appears to be down at this time TELESCOPE STATUS Telescope drives operational. Current Remark version: 2.85b Current TCC version: 2.7.2 Current TUI version: TUI 0.932