Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20060122 Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 07:49:54 -0700 (MST) From: bketzeba@apo.nmsu.edu (Bill Ketzeback) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Sunday, January 22, 2006 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- F.Hearty F.Hearty,N.Cunningham, DIS 15:30 20:35 E.Ellingson,A.Bender, NICFPS 20:55 00:05 B.Keeney D.Lamb F.Hearty NICFPS 00:10 01:40 G.Gyuk G.Gyuk,M.Hammergren, DIS 01:55 05:00 A.Puckett G.Wallerstein W.Ketzeback Echelle 05:20 06:30 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CU01/R 18:23 00:10 0 0 0 0 5.8 0 0 0 0 UC03/R 00:10 05:38 0 0 0 1.0 1.0 3.5 0 0 0 UW13/W 05:38 06:07 0 0 0 0 0 0.5 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: B.Ketzeback Seeing was moderate the first half of the night. Not bad considering the wind was out of the east. Second half, cirrus moved in shortly after the moon rose. The first half observer elected to start with DIS and then switch to NIC after a few hours. Many of the NIC images still appear elongated in the azimuth direction. I spent quite a bit of time trying to determine if the elongation is somehow correlated with the dither script. Many of the zero pointings appear perfectly round however often the other images in the dither pattern appear to have minimal to serious elongation. I wasnt able to come to a firm conclusion at this time. There is no real evidence of why there might be trailing in the dataq display. I also have not seen such severe elongation in the other instruments at NA2. I was bothered to see several times "Acceleration Limited" messages for 1 or more axes while the camera was integrating on a field. This message would appear infrequently. The first hour and a half of second half kept NIC on the telescope for an informal/internal UC trade to chase a GRB afterglow. Thankyou Fred Hearty for staying and taking the data. Everything seemed to be going smoothly for the second group of DIS users tonight until 0500 when a 1200 second exposure ended but failed to readout. I tried several things to recover the image however the icc had lost its connection to TUI/hub and to the mcnode. I tried several different tricks to try to reestablish a connection short of rebooting the icc without luck. The computer guys might still be able to salvage the exposure and there was not much time left for UC03 so I declared the last 15 minutes as unusable due to equipment problems. I then started the service observing project for G.Wallerstein. With the extra cirrus, exposure times were difficult to guess however I was able to get all the objects he requested before it became to bright. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- UC03 D I/H 04:40 05:40 Could not reestablish connection to icc ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:08 dis-slit -215(235) 189 78 -2.9/-0.4 87 8 - 1.34 18:14 NA2gdr -8796(22303) 195 78 -3.1/-0.7 93 7 R+nd2 0.93 20:06 nicfps 50(776) 206 56 -5.3/-4.5 91 11 MK-H 0.9 20:57 NA2gdr -3453(39546) 225 49 -4.3/-5.1 112 13 R 1.14 21:24 nicfps 100(804) 178 52 -4.6/-5.2 112 11 MK-Ks 1.27 21:27 NA2gdr -2500(40500) 179 52 -4.6/-5.1 114 15 R 1.93 22:09 nicfps 150(861) 196 52 -3.8/-5.1 116 7 MK-Ks 1.27 23:43 nicfps 150(902) 227 41 -4.1/-5.1 89 6 MK-Ks 1.01 02:02 dis-slit 25(286) -37 73 -3.8/-4.9 120 6 - 1.06 05:36 Echelle 62(-409) -173 53 -2.8/-4.5 182 4 nd2 1.02 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 35 10 6 238 (WSW) 1236 clear none 17:01 30 9 1 197 (SSW) 1259 clear none 18:01 27 12 9 113 (ESE) 1150 clear none 19:01 25 12 9 88 (E) 1092 clear none 20:01 23 12 9 92 (E) 1094 clear none 21:01 24 12 11 113 (ESE) 1165 clear none 22:01 25 10 9 110 (ESE) 1242 clear none 23:01 24 8 7 86 (E) 1111 clear none 00:01 25 2 2 126 (SE) 862 clear none 01:01 26 5 3 168 (SSE) 1021 clear none 02:01 25 6 5 125 (SE) 1096 mstly cldy cirrus 03:01 26 7 5 179 (S) 1119 mstly cldy cirrus 04:01 26 5 4 167 (SSE) 1080 mstly cldy cirrus 05:01 27 2 4 174 (S) 995 mstly cldy cirrus 06:01 28 2 7 217 (SW) 924 mstly cldy cirrus 07:01 24 6 7 180 (S) 941 mstly cldy cirrus 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: 2.8 Current TUI version: TUI 1.1