Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 07:05:15 -0600 (MDT) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20050624 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Friday, June 24, 2005 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Klaene J.Dembicky, J.Davis SPIcam, DIS 21:19 05:37 C.Loomis S-H INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EN02/O 21:19 04:53 0 0 0 0 1.8 5.8 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky It was cloudy at the start of the evening with virga seen to our south and east. I was a bit leary to open until it looked like the threat left. I let Tom continue working on APOLLO until about 21:15. I zero'ed the rotator (it was off by 0.143, and then -0.004 when I did a second quick check). I mounted SPIcam and at about 22:30 it looked like it was starting to improve reasonable enough to justify opening. We started out with adjusting the telescope collimation. Jon D. noticed that an LED on tertiary rotation clamp was lit up when he was under the telescope adjusting the collimation tonight. We worked on tweaking the collimation until around 00:40, when we had it close but poor seeing wasn't helping matters. At this point Craig did some on sky work with the DISslitviewer, with hopes of better seeing to come in an hour or so. We switched back to SPIcam to finish the collimation and pointing models at 01:50. The out of focus star images looked to have astigmatism so we switched to the the Shack-Hartmann, Jon moved the collimation screws out as it wasn't postive there wasn't some contact with the mirror. After a couple iterations of moving all the screws out we improved the astigmatism (and other variables). We switched back to SPIcam and took images on both sides of focus (both looked improved and acceptable). We then started a pointing model, unfortunately that was where our "luck" ran out. The telescope slewed to the first star and couldn't find the star. We found it just off the Field of View and attempted to implement a pointing correction. The next star failed, but the next couple worked, then every star started failing. Then Jeppe's mouse decided it didn't want to move in the X direction, this required a reboot. We decided to abort the pointing model since things were not going well and Jeppe needed to be rebooted anyhow, and to this time try a smaller more restricted model. It found the first four stars with no problem (and fairly well place in the guider image) then it started failing again. Twilight was now fast approaching and we, well Craig, checked the corrections and managed to get it fixed enough to get us 12 out of 16 points. We then went to implement small model, and had to remove one parameter to get it to fit the model. We implemented the model, slewed to a pointing correction star manually and nothing. Well, the second star (a bit higher) worked, and at this point we closed due to the sky getting too bright. So the main objective of tommorow's engineering will be to now get a larger pointing model for the telescope. ------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 23:25 SPIcam 125(1807) 52 71 17.4/19.3 138 15 r' 1.59 01:55 SPIcam 100(1730) 64 66 15.7/16.6 144 16 r' 1.12 02:32 S-H -25(2129) 48 73 15.7/15.8 132 20 none 03:44 SPIcam 225(1362) -16 77 15.7/15.7 154 15 r' 0.91 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 18:01 75 29 8 214 (SW) 723 Cloudy none 19:01 74 30 14 210 (SSW) 728 Cloudy none 20:01 69 30 9 131 (SE) 803 Cloudy none 21:01 68 30 4 257 (WSW) 852 Mst. Cldy none 22:01 66 30 6 222 (SW) 1055 Pt. Cldy none 23:01 63 31 5 183 (S) 1205 Pt. Cldy none 00:01 63 39 17 137 (SE) 776 Mst. Clr none 01:01 62 40 14 161 (SSE) 785 Clear none 02:01 60 40 15 138 (SE) 774 Clear none 03:01 60 41 18 146 (SE) 757 Clear none 04:01 61 39 10 158 (SSE) 707 Clear none 05:01 59 38 8 173 (S) 730 Clear none 06:01 60 36 8 119 (ESE) 791 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