From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20050502 Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 06:38:32 -0600 (MDT) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Monday, May 2, 2005 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- R.Covarrubias R.Covarrubias DIS 20:25 00:43 B.Balick N.Smith NIC,Ech,DIS 01:05 05:35 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UW03/R 20:44 01:00 0 0 0 0 4.3 0 0 0 0 UW09/O 01:00 05:16 0 0 0.3 0 2.4 1.6 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Before sunset, the sky was heavily clouded, but a cloud edge came in just after the sun went down, and we were able to open during twilight. First half had mostly clear skies and excellent seeing (0.8 arcseconds on the DIS slitviewer, which has poor optics). Everything worked fairly well, except that the DIS slitmask wheel failed 2 moves out of about 15 commanded moves; this is a known problem and was corrected quickly and easily. After midnight, the wind shifted somewhat to the east of south and humidity began to rise, but seeing only deteriorated a little. After the program change, things became more difficult. I had trouble seeing bright stars with NIC-FPS, and I was concerned that the filter wheel(s) might be lost, so I ran the recenterall script written by Stephane Beland. Afterward, I still had trouble seeing the stars, so I went to one much brighter and there it was. Possibly the now degraded seeing (2 arcseconds once we focused) made the stars look much dimmer, or perhaps the stars I chose were very faint in the IR. The instrument may not have had a problem at all. Since the seeing was so crummy, we soon switched over to the echelle, which worked perfectly, and then back to DIS, only to discover that seeing had improved again -- I got 0.69 arcseconds when focusing the DIS slitviewer, possibly an instrument record. However, DIS itself was showing severe pattern noise on the red side, the worst I've seen so far and possibly enough to make the red spectra useless. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFNVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- UW09 N I/H 01:05 01:25 NIC FWs lost? (maybe not) ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:33 DISslit -175(936) 221 69 5.9/7.6 255 5 - 0.81 20:35 NA2gdr -1897(21102) 222 69 6.0/7.5 249 5 R 0.59 01:31 NICFPS 135(1518) 23 49 3.1/3.3 166 11 FeII 2.1 02:04 Echelle -50(158) 153 42 3.7/3.2 169 3 NF2 1.8 03:55 DISslit -25(1003) 69 57 5.1/5.0 182 11 - 0.69 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 44 26 2 256 (WSW) 455 cloudy none 17:01 45 31 4 260 (W) 371 cloudy none 18:01 44 31 6 205 (SSW) 329 cloudy none 19:01 45 28 6 255 (WSW) 839 mstly cldy none 20:01 42 27 7 264 (W) 783 ptly cldy none 21:01 43 26 5 285 (WNW) 821 ptly cldy none 22:01 43 26 4 261 (W) 887 mstly clr none 23:01 40 27 2 188 (S) 877 clear none 00:01 38 28 4 178 (S) 670 clear none 01:01 37 27 7 168 (SSE) 658 clear none 02:01 39 23 9 180 (S) 755 clear none 03:01 41 24 11 180 (S) 788 ptly cldy none 04:01 39 24 10 168 (SSE) 852 ptly cldy none 05:01 39 24 9 178 (S) 880 clear none 06:01 39 27 7 182 (S) 923 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 0.94