Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 06:30:43 -0700 (MST) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20051110 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, November 10, 2005 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- C.Anderson C.Anderson,J.Helmboldt, CorMASS 22:15 23:45 R.McMillan I.Ivans I.Ivans Echelle 00:00 06:00 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NM04/W 18:00 23:55 0 0 0 4.2 0 1.7 0 0 0 PU05/R 23:55 05:35 0 0 0 0 3.8 1.9 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Daytime investigation of the azimuth drives after last night's tracking difficulties revealed slippage on one of the drives. It was removed, cleaned, re-shimmed, and re-installed during the afternoon and early evening. After the reinstallation, Jon Davis and I spent some time checking performance on-sky. We obtained round images in most parts of the sky, but not all. Although the motor did not appear to be slipping, tracking was still poor for objects transiting at high altitude, where the azimuth moves rapidly. It appeared that vibrations from the azimuth motors were feeding into the PMSS and causing rapid, irregular motions. We adjusted the drive tuning parameters without seeing much improvement. Eventually we decided to go over to science with the caveat that we should avoid transits at high altitude, and persistent motor problems might require a shutdown. A short pointing model had to be aborted because of azimuth problems at slew speed. We adjusted the velocity scale and cleared that up, then resumed the short pointing model. The results appeared reasonable, and we started science rather belatedly. The CorMASS program was a complex and demanding one on Mars, which proved to saturate the spectrograph in the minimum exposure time. We stopped down the dome shutter to about 10 inches and were able to get a little bit of data that might or might not be useful, but at least we refined the observing method and we can take another stab at it next week. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky No problems 2nd half. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- NM04 V T/H 18:00 22:15 Az drive work b/c of slippage ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 00:16 Echelle 100(207) 332 53 9.5/8.9 181 10 ND2 0.69 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 56 27 9 213 (SSW) 1864 mstly clr none 17:01 51 26 6 188 (S) 1815 mstly clr none 18:01 48 27 9 131 (SE) 1833 mstly clr none 19:01 48 27 5 99 (E) 1900 mstly clr none 20:01 50 23 1 168 (SSE) 1244 mstly clr none 21:01 50 25 7 180 (S) 1368 mstly clr none 22:01 46 25 4 104 (ESE) 1222 clear none 23:01 49 28 7 166 (SSE) 1281 clear none 00:01 50 27 11 183 (S) 1308 clear none 01:01 48 28 10 180 (S) 1287 Mst. Clr none 02:01 48 28 12 192 (SSW) 1099 Pt. Cldy none 03:01 48 32 16 206 (SSW) 1200 Cirrus none 04:01 48 30 16 185 (S) 1142 Cirrus none 05:01 48 33 14 183 (S) 1247 Cirrus none 06:01 47 33 20 209 (SSW) 1244 Cirrus 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 TCC version: 2.7.3.2 Current TUI version: TUI 1.1