From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20070314 Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:48:46 -0700 (MST) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, March 14, 2007 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- D.Bowen D.Bowen DIS 19:20 00:54 G.Kacprzak G.Kacprzak,J.Holtzman SPIcam 01:12 05:50 Echelle 05:55 06:20 SPIcam 06:30 07:00 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 20:04 01:00 0 0 0 0 4.9 0 0 0 0 NM05/R 01:00 06:21 0 0 0 0 4.1 1.3 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- 1st Half Observing Specialist: G.Saurage Mostly clear skies, with moderate variable seeing first half. DIS Slitviewer seemed to be having trouble keeping a hold on guide stars. We were observing fairly faint stars and the seeing wasn't great. The guider would still occasionally stop guiding on the chosen guide star and pop over to the illuminated left edge of the slitmask. Additionally tonight, however, once guiding was apparently going it would drift enough such that offsets needed to be made (in other words the guiding wasn't guiding well enough). I also noticed several times (but not every time) when I would choose a new guide star (i.e. click on it and get the green marks around it) while guiding and the Apply button would not activate. 2nd Half Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Second half was peaceful with subarcsecond seeing about half the time, but cirrus clouds troubled us for most of the morning. Some poor tracking was apparent with SPIcam during a very high southern transit (84.8 deg), but since clouds interfered with the guide star during the same period it was unclear whether the problem was a high frequency tuning problem or a lower-frequency drift the guider might have compensated for. Once we got away from the meridian, tracking improved. The last bit of the night was given over to a quick nova shot with the echelle, then we went back to SPIcam in time for twilight flats. ------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 19:35 DISslit 214(496) 169 45 10.9 13.1 11.9 11.9 11.4 --- 1.2 20:30 DISslit 14(245) 128 71 11.1 12.1 11.0 11.2 11.0 --- 0.9 01:20 SPIcam 35(374) 81 70 9.9 10.08 9.63 10.06 9.84 i 0.75 05:59 Echelle -50(-645) 7 25 9.2 9.10 8.61 8.91 8.94 ND2 1.3 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 54 20 10 306 (NW) 316 ptly cldy none 17:00 54 20 12 356 (N) 286 mstly clr none 18:00 54 21 4 296 (WNW) 300 mstly clr none 19:00 54 20 1 270 (W) 284 clear none 20:00 52 18 4 318 (NW) 313 clear none 21:00 52 17 6 344 (NNW) 326 clear none 22:00 52 18 3 258 (WSW) 354 clear none 23:00 50 18 9 187 (S) 368 clear none 00:00 51 18 8 244 (WSW) 314 clear none 00:00 51 18 8 244 (WSW) 314 clear none 01:00 52 16 11 269 (W) 356 clear none 02:00 50 18 12 296 (WNW) 517 ptly cldy none 03:00 50 19 7 69 (ENE) 595 ptly cldy none 04:00 49 17 11 14 (NNE) 359 ptly cldy none 05:00 49 14 14 46 (NE) 286 ptly cldy none 06:00 49 13 14 26 (NNE) 319 ptly cldy 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: 2.9.0 Current TUI version: TUI 1.3