Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 11:01:53 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20070416
From: "Gabrelle Saurage"
                         Apache Point Observatory
                         3.5m Telescope Night Log
                         Saturday, April 16, 2007
                                                           ACTUAL
  ASTRONOMER      OBSERVER(S)          INSTRUMENT        START  FINISH
  -------------------------------------------------------------------
  J.Hughes        J.Hughes             SPIcam            22:25  05:00
   INST     SCHED(TWILIGHT)   WEATH     EQUIP     OBS     DAY  NOT USED
  I/ROW/DN   START  FINISH   D    B    D    B    D    B   USE   D    B
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
  UW04/R     20:29  05:36   2.0   0    0    0   7.1   0    0    0    0
   note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time
                ------------- ACTIVITY LOG --------------
Observing Specialist: G.Saurage
High dust levels at sunset and nearby radar activity kept us closed for a
while at the beginning of the night.
During afternoon checkout, SPIcam did not initialize properly. The camera
check failed: saying the serial port was not connected. I pulled out the
filter wheel and flipped the reset button. Then it would initialize
properly; however, the images did not look correct. On the left side they
had a single saturated band and a dark swath that was not present there
before. Turning truss lamps on and taking images yielded the same result.
We reset a few times, tried the “shade” feature (which is an internal
ramping up and down), and it seemed like everything was fine internally,
but it wasn’t registering light properly. We took the instrument off and
with dome lights on, took and image and watched everything move properly.
These images saturated. We power cycled the power supply on the
intermediate level. Same results. As a last resort, we rebooted the ICC,
although it is not clear how this would be affecting things. But for some
reason that did it, images then looked correct.
Later I found out last SPIcam run (Saturday 14th), at the end of the night
the ICC had crashed and perhaps this was related. All of this
troubleshooting happened before twilight and while we were closed due to
dust, so no time was actually lost.
My observer gave-up a little early when clouds moved in and her object was
setting.
                       ------- 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
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
10:45 SPIcam   -335(-235) -36  51  1.2  4.5  2.7   3.6  1.9   C  2.0
00:25 SPIcam   -175(-163)  33  69  1.1  1.6  1.0   1.6  0.8   C  1.8
                ------------- WEATHER LOG ----------------
                                   Wind                      Precip.or
     Time   Temp F Dewp F  MPH  Direction    Dust    Sky    Conditions
    -------------------------------------------------------------------
   16:00    53    14     27   221   (SW)   1811    clear     none
     17:00    53    18      9   273    (W)   2108    clear     none
     18:00    46    15     16   263    (W)   5166    clear     none
     19:00    43    11     24   254  (WSW)   4115    clear     none
     20:00    39     7     12   270    (W)   3488    clear     none
     21:00    36     6     20   307   (NW)   5856    clear     none
     22:00    35     9     10   330  (NNW)   2527    clear     none
     23:00    34     8      2   360    (N)   1027    clear     none
     00:00    34     6     10   336  (NNW)    912    clear     none
     01:00    34     6      9   359    (N)    897    clear     none
     02:00    32     7      7   342  (NNW)    903    clear     none
     03:00    32     7     12     5    (N)    918 mstly clr    none
     04:00    31     8     11    36   (NE)   1049  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