From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20070203 Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2007 07:11:42 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, February 3, 2007 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- G.Wolf-Chase G.Wolf-Chase,M.Smutko NICFPS 17:45 21:50 G.Stringfellow G.Stringfellow NICFPS 21:57 00:00 M.Mottini M.Mottini Echelle 00:05 06:40 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- UC06/R 18:33 22:00 0 0 0 0 0.6 2.8 0 0 0 CU07/R 22:00 00:00 0 0 0 0 0 2.0 0 0 0 UW09/R 00:00 06:02 0 0 0 0 0 6.0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st half Observing Specialist: G.Saurage Clear skies! The ice sufficiently melted off the dome enough to open. NICFPS focus script worked for the most part. I'm not sure if it necessarily can "find" the best option in the field so a few times I choose a different star than was selected by the script. Since the seeing was variable tonight the first sweep failed, and during the second focus round a few hours later, I was getting the same fwhm across 150 steps, so that didn't yield a good fit. Observers reported receiving a "socket error" while AutoGetting. They logged in to Newton and ftp-ed the file that did not come across with TUI. Weather logs are fixed. However, no reliable wind data tonight made things a little questionable. Winds were clearly high but if they were gusting over the limit I couldn't say. Guider images showed a little wind shake but for the most part we were pointed away, so it wasn't bad. I felt the 3.5m was high enough not to get too much blowing snow, but it was definitely whipping around. Seeing was very good tonight after temps settled ~0.9" most of the 1st half. 2nd half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan By the start of second half, seeing had unfortunately degraded and was quite variable. It provided a good torture-test for the echelle focus script, which coped well with the difficult conditions and correctly failed to make impossible fits. The night was peaceful after that, until the wind picked up after 05:00. Unfortunately, it was hard to tell how much. By the time I got the 06:15 weather station reading saying 33 mph gusts, the observer was almost finished anyway. ------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 18:00 NICFPS 16(262) 108 61 -1.8 -0.1 -1.1 -1.6 -1.4 K 1.0 19:55 NICFPS -68(156) 142 82 -0.9 -1.4 -2.1 -1.9 -1.0 K 1.3 00:25 Echelle -99(-1086) 260 38 -0.1 -0.14 -1.01 -0.64 -0.0 ND2 2.3 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 15:59 33 5 ?? 148 clear none 16:59 30 5 ?? 212 clear none 17:59 29 2 ?? 161 clear none 18:59 30 -1 ?? 125 clear none 19:59 30 -3 ?? 263 clear none 20:59 31 -6 ?? 109 clear none 21:59 30 -2 ?? 160 clear none 22:59 30 1 ?? 155 clear none 23:59 33 -6 ?? 160 clear none 00:59 33 -11 ?? 213 clear none 01:59 31 -8 ?? 141 clear none 02:59 33 -13 ?? 108 clear none 03:59 32 -10 ?? 140 clear none 04:59 32 -8 ?? 98 clear none 05:59 31 -7 ?? 137 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