Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 06:02:01 -0600 (MDT) From: Jack Dembicky Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20061011 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, October 11, 2006 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Klaene J.Dembicky SPIcam 18:38 21:00 Fastcam3 21:00 02:30 SPIcam 02:30 06:00 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/O 19:28 06:12 0 0 0 0 2.5 8.2 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky Opened dome around 17:15 to facilitate cooling. I took some images with SPIcam while I waited for the telescope to cool down. I noticed last night that an out of focus star had a mis-centered hole (secondary shadow) in it. Tonight I played with Fastcam a bit and found that there is a sweet spot on the camera/lens system where the telescope is best collimated. I grabbed a single image of this position (1000x1000 image). I offset the later stars to near this position. Focus was still off around -1300 steps. It was also more difficult to find focus (seeing was more variable than last night). FASTCAM 3 log... I captured the Status, Sky, Focal Plane, and Weather screens on Jeppe under /dembicky/Fastcam061012. Table below is kind of redundant, but helpful for me to keep track of what I did. It was a bit challengening to find suitable brightness stars ( > 4.5 mag) near the places Bill wanted, but I did the best I could. Time Obj AZ ALT Wind Speed ~0 WRT wind 21:50 epsilon Cyg 22:02 beta Cyg -94 53 267 11 22:11 zeta Aquilae -81 40 255 16 ~45 WRT wind 22:22 Theta Aquilae -54 41 254 18 22:31 epsilon Delphini -64 52 263 10 22:45 alpha Pegasi -2 73 265 16 (these got messed up by me moving some files during capture) 22:52 alpha Pegasi2 -6 73 266 10 23:04 epsilon Pegasi -51 58 268 11 23:12 zeta Pegasi -31 65 268 11 ~90 WRT wind 23:19 theta Piscium -6 64 266 10 23:30 omega2 Aquarii -2 43 272 10 very faint (4.5 mag star) 23:47 gamma Pegasi 6 72 267 9 ~180 WRT wind 23:59 delta Arietis 82 50 272 12 (50fps, stopped) 00:00 delta Arietis1 82 50 272 12 00:10 41 Arietis 89 59 280 15 (clouds) 00:27 41 Arietis2 86 63 286 16 00:39 gamma Trianguli 99 74 296 17 We had some clouds move thru around 01:00 which distorted the seeing a bit, so I decided to wait till things improved. Seeing looked much better around 01:45. Fastcam Focus tests 01:45 alpha Per 145 68 317 13 -1325 (in focus) 01:52 alpha Per-25 -1300 (+25 out of focus) 02:00 alpha Per-50 150 69 347 9 -1275 (+50 out of focus) 02:08 alpha Per+25 152 70 351 10 -1350 (-25 out of focus) 02:15 alpha Per+50 156 71 358 15 -1375 (-50 out of focus) 02:22 alpha Per1 158 71 324 9 -1325 (in focus) After the Fastcam data I switched back to SPIcam. I noticed the Az drive was pretty noisy during a couple slews. I rechecked the Az velocity scale (tonight it changed to 573 @ 7C). This was a change from last night (583 @ 5C). I changed the value to 573. The Az motors looked better after the change on long slews. I noticed that the mirror seemed to now be upset, load cells with lots of noise on a non-moving (track mount moved) telescope. I slewed to about 70 and things calmed down (0,70). I was sitting there watching the Dataq when I noticed the T-Cell go from calm to quite upset for no reason, I did see the Alt Motor Current start (which may be the root cause of the mirror becoming upset, the telescope was tracking, track 0,70 mount command had been issued). I checked the velecoty scale for the Alt and the number matched what I found yesterday (so it wasn't that). While the telescope at at 60 deg (after an axis init but no track mount) the T cell stayed happy. I did a track 0,60 mount and things still stayed stable with the mirror. I then issued a track 0,70 mount, where the telescope was when I noticed the T cell become upset before. Things stayed well behaved there as well (I watched for a few mins). Wind was out of the N at 0 deg and the telescope was facing due South, so I don't think it was a gust of wind). No idea why the mirror became unstable and I couldn't re-create the problem either. I tried to get several focus measurements with SPIcam for Russet, but once again the temperature seemed pretty stable thru the night. I noticed the Az drive again a little upset, so I checked the velocity scale again to see if anything had changed, sure enough the velocity scale changed again (585 @ 6.8C). ARGHHH!!! I set it to 579 (average between the two values it seems to bounce between). ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 19:19 SPIcam 75(231) 22 77 6.5 8.0 6.9 7.1 6.6 R 0.66 19:22 NA2gdr -2568(30431) -26 30 6.6 7.9 6.8 7.0 6.5 R 1.0 21:18 Fastcam3 -1350(1194) 95 55 7.2 6.8 6.2 6.6 6.6 -- 1.2 01:42 Fastcam3 -1325(1191) 145 67 7.4 6.8 6.2 6.7 7.0 -- 1.0 02:51 SPIcam 100(248) 171 73 7.6 7.1 6.4 7.0 7.4 R 0.84 03:03 NA2gdr -2536(30463) 50 42 7.5 7.0 6.4 6.8 6.8 R 1.1 03:38 SPIcam 75(326) 67 45 7.8 6.9 6.3 6.6 6.9 R 1.1 05:50 SPIcam 75(-1000) 84 31 6.9 6.5 6.0 6.2 6.4 R 1.6 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 47 31 11 338 (NNW) 339 clear none 17:00 47 31 12 307 (NW) 403 clear none 18:00 47 32 10 284 (WNW) 375 clear none 19:00 44 33 9 277 (W) 402 clear none 20:00 45 32 12 282 (WNW) 347 clear none 21:00 44 34 12 271 (W) 395 clear none 22:00 45 33 10 272 (W) 399 Pt. Cldy none 23:00 45 32 12 266 (W) 384 Pt. Cldy none 00:00 45 28 13 274 (W) 312 Pt. Cldy none 01:00 46 29 16 301 (WNW) 310 Pt. Cldy none 02:00 45 28 6 4 (N) 310 Pt. Cldy none 03:00 46 21 9 341 (NNW) 328 Pt. Cldy none 04:00 46 21 12 347 (NNW) 338 clear none 05:00 45 19 10 355 (N) 732 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 TCC version: 2.8.5 Current TUI version: TUI 1.2