From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20070215 Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:11:27 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, February 15, 2007 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- A.Connolly S.Schmidt SPIcam 18:05 23:45 R.Kron A.Puckett SPIcam 00:02 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------- UW08/R 18:43 00:00 0 0 0 0 5.3 0 0 0 0 UC01/R 00:00 05:52 0 0 0 0 5.9 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st half Observing Specialist: G.Saurage Clear skies: A bright cloudless day and daytime dome snow removal cleared the enclosure of ice and snow so that we could open tonight. Seeing was decent (~1.0") considering there were significant wind gusts, I'm guessing at times around 20mph. Around 22:00 humidity began to climb and seeing went bad quick. 2nd half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan The Sloan observers (and the cloudcam) reported considerable blowing snow, which kept the 2.5m closed and blanketed the patio in front of the ops building door. I checked our dome and found no sign that any of it was reaching the telescope level. We should all give hearty thanks to Mark Klaene, Nick MacDonald, and especially Ben Harris, whose snow removal efforts have been making it possible for us to take advantage of clear skies after storms even when the snow hasn't crusted yet. Winter, alas, is probably not over yet, but we can thank them more later! Humidity went up near the limit twice (the second time the ambient humidity wasn't as high, but the primary mirror was colder). Both times it backed off, and after the second spike it stayed down for a while. Seeing remained poor for several hours, between 1.5-2 arcseconds and somewhat variable. After 04:30 it improved to about 1.2 arcseconds. ------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 18:45 SPIcam -215(-426) -33 45 -5.3 -3.9 -4.8 -4.8 -4.8 r 1.1 20:30 SPIcam -125(-391) 119 76 -5.3 -5.0 -5.7 -5.5 -5.2 r 1.0 22:10 SPIcam -125(-384) 44 50 -5.5 -5.5 -6.0 -5.9 -5.5 r 2.0 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 15:57 25 13 ?? 297 clear none 16:57 25 14 ?? 325 clear none 17:57 23 12 ?? 285 clear none 18:57 23 12 ?? 301 clear none 19:57 23 13 ?? 324 clear none 20:57 23 13 ?? 320 clear none 21:57 23 14 ?? 371 clear none 22:57 21 15 ?? 354 clear none 23:57 20 14 ?? 375 clear none 00:57 21 15 ?? 337 clear none 01:57 21 12 ?? 318 clear none 02:57 22 9 ?? 296 clear none 03:57 21 10 ?? 303 clear none 04:57 22 9 ?? 271 clear none 05:57 27 3 ?? 632 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