From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20050310 Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 06:18:39 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, March 10, 2005 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- E.Turner R.McMillan SPIcam 18:30 21:50 J.Holtzman J.Holtzman DIS 00:10 05:25 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PU03/W 19:01 00:10 1.3 0 0 0 3.9 0 0 0 0 NM06/R 00:10 05:27 0 0 0 0 5.2 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan The enclosure was opened for cooling nearly an hour before sunset under clear skies. Seeing was moderate at first, and I managed to observe several targets for the lens program. During gaps when no targets were well-placed in the sky, I did some engineering in lieu of a backup program. Starting around 21:30 the east wind rose sharply and the seeing became terrible. There was no hope of getting usable science out of those conditions. I did a little more engineering but eventually ran out of tasks that could be done with 5 arcsecond seeing. Pointing performance should be much better for the near future, but it was impossible to check collimation under the conditions. During second half, seeing remained bad, but it did occasionally dip below 3 arcseconds. Since the observing targets were diffuse anyway, this didn't make science completely impossible, although it did slow down the gathering of photons a little. Everything worked perfectly all night, except for the seeing. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFNVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:50 SPIcam -25(1216) 65 63 5.2/7.0 111 12 r' 1.18 18:51 NA2gdr -2822(34177) 65 64 5.1/6.8 88 10 R 1.16 00:15 DISslit -50(778) 41 56 0.1/0.4 84 13 - 3.5 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 47 24 9 325 (NW) 962 clear none 17:01 49 24 5 273 (W) 798 clear none 18:01 44 22 5 297 (WNW) 759 clear none 19:01 41 24 10 85 (E) 647 clear none 20:01 39 24 11 88 (E) 1396 clear none 21:01 37 24 11 77 (ENE) 1448 clear none 22:01 36 24 21 73 (ENE) 1378 clear none 23:01 34 22 20 74 (ENE) 1312 clear none 00:01 32 22 18 79 (ENE) 1221 clear none 01:01 31 22 23 72 (ENE) 1102 clear none 02:01 29 21 25 70 (ENE) 1149 clear none 03:01 28 19 27 73 (ENE) 1078 clear none 04:01 27 18 17 70 (ENE) 947 clear none 05:01 26 17 13 75 (ENE) 923 clear none 06:01 33 21 1 30 (NNE) 966 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 0.94b2