From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20070521 Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 05:14:02 -0600 (MDT) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Monday, May 21, 2007 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- T.Murphy R.McMillan,T.Murphy APOLLO 20:00 21:10 D.Bowen D.Bowen DIS 21:15 00:55 M.Shin M.Shin DIS 01:02 04:10 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- DD01/O 20:07 21:15 0 0 0 0 0 0.3 0.9 0 0 PU04/R 21:14 01:00 0 0 0 0 0 3.7 0 0 0 PU03/R 01:00 04:59 0.8 0 0 0 3.1 0.1 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan A nice mostly-clear night with moderate seeing, unfortunately troubled by dust. During checkout I tried to relax the primary mirror by pushing the telescope first to the upper hard stop (because the transverse load cell was most upset), then pushing it to the lower hard stop for the other three load cells. Unfortunately, the transverse looked as bad or worse than before, so maybe the mirror needs attention from a two-person team with one person watching the telemetry. APOLLO had good success, getting returns from three reflectors in spite of moderate windshake. Over the course of twilight, the wind dropped from around 30 to around 20 mph. Dust counts rose slowly throughout the evening and reached the limit right around the program change time. I considered the steady behavior (not a spike), the fact that humidity was low, and the plans to realuminize the primary in August, and I decided to push the limit. But it continued to go up slowly, and by 4 am it was high enough that I thought would be best to close. The telescope and instruments worked perfectly, despite a long period of tracking a field near the azimuth direction reversal. ------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:05 APOLLO 125 medium 21:20 DIS 14(294) -132 48 11.9 11.85 11.36 11.94 11.75 - 1.25 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 61 24 15 253 (WSW) 878 mstly clr none 17:00 61 27 26 233 (SW) 863 mstly clr none 18:00 60 27 15 263 (W) 1020 mstly clr none 19:00 57 23 22 267 (W) 1023 mstly clr none 20:00 54 21 20 250 (WSW) 1220 mstly clr none 21:00 54 20 21 269 (W) 1298 mstly clr none 22:00 53 15 22 276 (W) 2291 clear none 23:00 53 14 25 267 (W) 2480 clear none 00:00 51 13 13 271 (W) 2863 clear none 01:00 49 9 10 268 (W) 3339 clear dust 02:00 48 13 13 271 (W) 3416 clear dust 03:00 46 18 17 269 (W) 3410 clear dust 04:00 45 19 17 268 (W) 4052 clear dust 05:00 44 21 8 265 (W) 4633 clear dust 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