From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20061221 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 07:23:23 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, December 21, 2006 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- D.Bowen D.Bowen DIS 17:30 --:-- D.York D.York,H-W.Chen DIS,SPIcam 22:00 23:50 Q.Hart Q.Hart DIS 00:00 06:14 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- PU05/R 17:59 00:00 0 0 0 0 4.8 0.2 0 0 0 UC08/R/D 22:00 00:00 0 0 0 0 2.0 0 0 0 0 CU02/R 00:00 06:04 0 0 0 0 6.1 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st half Observing Specialist: G.Saurage Spoke too soon about the DIS slitviewer shutter: It had some trouble getting warmed up tonight (see dcam images 14 through 35 or so). Every other image was a closed shutter. I put the guider in manual mode and set the exposures to 10 sec. After about 7 to 10 of these it seemed to be exercised, so I tried to get the telescope focused. Longer exposures helped, but the problem with longer exposures is that at the beginning of the night when the sky is still bright and you are trying to run a focus script long exposures are not particularly desired. Then after it had been working fine for a while it began sticking again (dcam images 76 through 85 or so) with 30 sec exposures. There was little we could do except keep taking exposures. I'd say it took about 15-20 minutes to get the first object centered and guiding, since every other 30 sec exposure was blank. Then it seemed to work normally the rest of 1st half. Then my observer reported a DIS exposure failed. This is the same failure that I saw last week with DIS. A simple dis home shutter did not work. I had to log into dis icc and issue a dis stop and start, then dis init before all the errors would clear. This was during twilight so no time was really lost since we were waiting for it to be dark enough to focus anyway. However, it does seem like there may be a relation between turning on/off lamps and this DIS exposure failure since each time this has happened it was the action immediately preceding the failure. At 20:44 Don York called about a GRB. He made arrangements with Dave Bowen to trade his time tonight for tomorrow. We took two spectra with DIS. Then switched to SPIcam. 2nd half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Second half remained clear, with poor seeing. A patch of warmer air around midnight made focus go a bit odd, but in the conditions it was hardly noticeable. Everything worked well, including the slitviewer shutter. ------- 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:05 DISslit -132(-510) 342 51 -4.3 -3.0 -5.6 -3.4 -0.6 -- 1.3 00:25 DISslit 50(-280) -45 51 -2.7 -2.29 -2.95 -3.10 -1.7 - 1.7 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:01 24 18 10 53 (NE) 240 clear none 17:01 24 11 11 25 (NNE) 160 clear none 18:01 24 14 20 22 (NNE) 133 clear none 19:01 24 15 13 22 (NNE) 130 clear none 20:01 25 16 18 14 (NNE) 129 clear none 21:01 27 16 15 29 (NNE) 121 clear none 22:01 28 14 8 8 (N) 114 clear none 23:01 27 15 9 38 (NE) 62 clear none 00:01 30 13 9 338 (NNW) 58 clear none 01:01 29 13 9 317 (NW) 29 clear none 02:01 30 13 18 332 (NNW) 69 clear none 03:01 31 13 17 339 (NNW) 47 clear none 04:01 29 14 12 4 (N) 69 clear none 05:01 28 14 12 359 (N) 68 clear none 06:01 29 8 9 1 (N) 78 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