From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20051109 Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 06:07:06 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, November 9, 2005 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- F.Hearty F.Hearty,Q.Hart NIC 18:00 23:45 L.Hebb L.Hebb SPIcam 00:10 06:05 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CU03/R 18:01 23:55 0 1.0 0 0 0 4.9 0 0 0 JH04/R 23:55 05:34 0 0 0.1 0 4.8 0.7 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan First half had widespread cirrus and very good seeing (as low as 0.49 arcsec in some images). The observer gave most of his twilight time to experiments with an autofocus script for NIC-FPS. In addition, some of the evening time was useless because of clouds, even though the telescope was open the whole night. There was some evidence of image elongation in the azimuth direction again, possibly indicating a return of tracking problems. At the time of the instrument changeover, we discovered that the NIC-FPS ion pump was at maximum, with the high load light sometimes on, sometimes off. I turned off the electronics to the instrument, and it will probably have to be pumped during daytime. The reason for the sudden spike is unclear, but may have to do with turning the instrument upside down during observations. During second half, the cirrus thinned off until the last few hours of the night were photometric. More image elongation was apparent, especially when following a target through a high southern transit (altitude ~80). Once the object was past transit, tracking improved. SPIcam had one timeout while reading an image, which cost a few minutes of time although the exposures weren't very long. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- JH04 S I/S 03:42 03:46 SPIcam read timed out ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 17:54 NICFPS 15(1541) 232 45 10.8/13.3 158 2 H2 0.65 00:27 SPIcam 100(1179) 95 57 9.7/9.7 107 9 i' 0.95 00:33 NA2gdr -2701(30298)96 58 9.8/9.9 109 8 R 1.0 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 55 26 5 206 (SSW) 1113 mstly cldy none 17:01 53 25 1 204 (SSW) 1206 mstly cldy none 18:01 52 25 3 111 (ESE) 1240 mstly cldy none 19:01 51 25 7 112 (ESE) 1298 mstly cldy none 20:01 50 24 8 110 (ESE) 1243 mstly cldy none 21:01 50 24 7 110 (ESE) 1246 ptly cldy none 22:01 50 24 10 110 (ESE) 1510 ptly cldy none 23:01 51 25 6 109 (ESE) 1219 ptly cldy none 00:01 50 24 7 109 (ESE) 1175 ptly cldy none 01:01 50 23 8 139 (SE) 1260 ptly cldy none 02:01 50 23 6 176 (S) 1157 ptly cldy none 03:01 50 21 11 146 (SE) 1047 mstly clr none 04:01 49 22 8 147 (SSE) 1120 mstly clr none 05:01 48 23 7 175 (S) 1124 clear none 06:01 47 24 8 163 (SSE) 1135 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 TCC version: 2.7.3.2 Current TUI version: TUI 1.1