Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 06:03:38 -0600 (MDT) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20050716 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, July 16, 2005 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- J.Holtzman P.Lim Echelle 19:50 01:04 E.Turner J.Dembicky SPIcam 03:15 05:45 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NM08/R 21:13 01:00 0 0 0 0.3 0 3.5 0 0 0 PU02/O 01:00 05:06 0.9 1.0 0 0 2.2 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky We had clouds before sunset but during twilight they somewhat disappated, although never completely cleared out. I had the dome open and cooling around 20:00 and we were on the sky after the observer finished her cals. From Radar it looked like we had a slow moving system to our N that might cause some problems, so I kept a close eye on the radar and outside conditions. Flow was a bit unusual from the N to S. Is this the new Colorado monsoon??? Slitview locked up (timed out, but not the normal way of crashing on slitty). Took about 20 mins to fix and a call to Craig, since the obvious fixes didn't seem to be working. The observer did have some problem with her TUI not displaying images. Craig had her e-mail him some of the error messages and forwarded to the appropriate places. Might have been a package that wasn't installed/mis-installed on her Linux box. I started the 2nd half program around 01:04, I gave the 1st half observer a few extra minutes. I focused and seeing was around 1.25-1.35. Moved to the first lens (one setting the soonest) and started a sequence. It made it thru the first 2 filters and in came the clouds from the North. I wasn't really sure what the clouds held, since IR showed a big cold cloud, but I didn't see radar returns, of course we are kind of blind in that direction too, so I opted to halt the sequence and close the telescope until the weather improved. The last 2 filters I had taken, only the field star was now visible. Althought I didn't really think there was rain, but I have been fooled before, I opted to close since I could not get anything scientifically useful with these clouds overhead. The sky overhead looked like it improved enough to attempt observations again around 03:00. I opened and tried again to get something useful scientifically, of course the clouds thickened in the area I was trying to observe in as soon as I slewed to the field. I aborted the first exposure set after about 10 mins when I could no longer see any stars in the fields. I then opted to get something overhead and see if the clouds would leave me alone there, Nope! Again, I got my first set of images (3 colors) and on the 2nd set the clouds started moving overhead now. I did manage to get 2 objects thru the clouds during the later part of the 2nd half of the night. ------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 21:00 Echelle 175(598) 69 62 16.6/17.0 168 10 ND2 1.05 23:10 Echelle 8(372) -136 70 14.9/15.9 142 15 ND1 1.5 01:10 SPIcam 0(1264) 67 64 14.8/14.6 264 1 J 1.35 01:19 NA2gdr -1865(27134) 64 65 14.7/14.6 268 5 R 0.95 03:24 SPIcam 100(1372) 49 72 15.4/15.1 274 6 J 1.0 03:29 NA2gdr -158(28841) -124 29 15.7/15.1 276 5 clear 1.1 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 19:01 62 46 13 137 (SE) 590 Cloudy none 20:01 62 45 15 141 (SE) 578 Mst. Cldy none 21:01 62 44 11 155 (SSE) 595 Pt. Cldy none 22:01 61 44 9 170 (S) 568 Pt. Cldy none 23:01 59 45 13 141 (SE) 626 Pt. Cldy none 00:01 58 44 11 135 (SE) 609 Pt. Cldy none 01:01 58 44 5 134 (SE) 608 Mst. Cldy none 02:01 61 44 6 325 (NW) 548 Mst. Cldy none 03:01 61 44 5 276 (W) 597 Pt. Cldy none 04:01 59 44 5 266 (W) 610 Pt. Cldy none 05:01 59 44 5 262 (W) 585 Pt. Cldy 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 1.0b1