From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20061002 Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 06:57:41 -0600 (MDT) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Monday, October 2, 2006 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Mottini G.Wallerstein Echelle 19:05 01:10 J.Holtzman J.Holtzman Echelle 01:10 06:15 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- UW12/R 19:40 01:10 0 0 0 0 0 5.5 0 0 0 NM05/R 01:10 06:06 0 0 0 0 3.2 1.7 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: G.Saurage At dusk Echelle temps read -121, -118. Everything seemed to be working properly. Darks were getting ~1300 counts. Biases looked right. We moved right into science. Mostly clear skies at sunset matured into a virtually perfect 1st half weather-wise. Spectacular seeing, sometimes down around 0.5". Just a note: There are various cleaning materials all along the wall of the dome on the NA1 side. Don't trip or put your foot in a bucket of water. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Second half was clear with continued good seeing (not spectacular). An echelle ThAr that I had taken during the afternoon when it first got down to operating temperatures showed the best ratio of peak-to-interorder light that I've ever recorded, indicating a very clean chip. This will probably get down to more normal levels within a few weeks or months, but now that we know that warming the chip with the dewar cold can help reduce contamination, we can try doing that regularly to prevennt buildup. I went up to the dome to monitor one echelle fill, which progressed normally and ended with the correct full-dewar noises. A later fill in twilight also took the right amount of time and sounded fine over the intercom. I spent a while trying to analyze focus data from the last couple of weeks, but all I got were scattergrams with a focus range of nearly 1 mm! Data over a wider range of temperatures will help, so we'll just have to wait for a change in the weather. I also took advantage of the good seeing conditions to get a few data points at low altitude in morning twilight. ------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 19:26 Echelle -200(-727) -25 60 13.4 16.0 14.8 14.5 13.8 -- 0.8 21:18 Echelle -125(-738) -48 55 13.2 13.7 13.3 13.6 13.2 -- 0.7 01:21 Echelle -90(-870) 266 39 12.8 11.9 11.2 11.7 11.7 ND1 0.9 03:15 Echelle -25(-817) 165 80 13.1 11.8 11.5 12.0 11.8 ND1 0.9 06:24 Echelle -75(-806) 358 32 12.4 11.8 11.2 11.9 12.0 ND2 1.4 06:31 Echelle -50(-789) 260 36 12.4 11.8 11.3 11.9 11.9 ND2 0.9 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 67 36 13 230 (SW) 529 mstly clr none 17:00 60 31 5 258 (WSW) 511 mstly clr none 18:00 61 34 8 264 (W) 531 mstly clr none 19:00 56 33 6 267 (W) 575 clear none 20:00 56 32 7 263 (W) 637 clear none 21:00 56 34 5 254 (WSW) 753 clear none 22:00 56 34 6 240 (WSW) 755 clear none 23:00 56 34 5 253 (WSW) 760 clear none 00:00 54 34 3 201 (SSW) 711 clear none 01:00 55 34 5 193 (SSW) 716 clear none 02:00 55 35 3 224 (SW) 637 clear none 03:00 55 35 6 265 (W) 588 clear none 04:00 55 35 4 246 (WSW) 658 clear none 05:00 55 35 6 243 (WSW) 645 clear none 06:00 53 35 6 215 (SW) 635 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: 2.8.4 Current TUI version: TUI 1.2