From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20070728 Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 05:58:10 -0600 (MDT) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, July 28, 2007 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- H.Chen D.York DIS 23:30 00:15 T.Murphy R.McMillan APOLLO 00:25 01:03 J.Greene J.Greene SPIcam 01:17 03:30 05:20 05:45 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- UC05/R 21:05 00:10 0 3.3 0 0.4 0 0.3 0 0 0 DD01/O 00:10 01:10 0 0 0 0.3 0 0.7 0 0 0 UV03/R 01:10 05:15 0 1.9 0 0 0 2.3 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan We had a hefty storm before sunset, and weather was still unsettled when we would have liked to begin. I came close to opening around the end of twilight, but two storms approached from the northeast. They ended up passing on either side of us, and then there was some uncertainty about clouds and humidity. Finally I was ready to open with barely any time left for the first half observer to get science. Focusing was complicated by clouds, but as I tried to focus I began to suspect something was wrong; pointing was way off, like many arcminutes. I finally realized that earlier in the night when I moved the tertiary to NA2, it had given a CHKMV error (which I missed even though I was watching for it) and never completed its move. When I got the tertiary rotated correctly, pointing was still off by 2.5 arcminutes. I corrected this and finally got the observer taking science, but I was concerned about the pointing jump and considered keeping the tertiary fixed at NA2, pre-empting the APOLLO time. I discussed this with Mark and we decided to try moving the tertiary anyway for diagnostic purposes, so APOLLO started just a little late. Russell phoned as I was preparing to switch to APOLLO, and I described to him what had happened. He immediately asked if the tertiary had clamped, and I found that it hadn't because the CHKMV error hadn't been fully cleared. So when I thought I got the tertiary rotated to the proper place, it wasn't quite there, and this explained most of the pointing error. Sure enough, once the tertiary was homed to clear the CHKMV, it rotated to APOLLO just fine. Pointing with APOLLO (and later with SPIcam) was somewhat off, but by less than an arcminute. APOLLO started late because of the discussion about the tertiary and the associated pointing troubles, and also had some trouble with the laser and with clouds. We got no returns. The spicam focus script ran normally but couldn't find any stars even though I told it two places to look. It appeared to be subframing the wrong part of the chip somehow. I focused by hand (and forgot to log the focus, sorry...) Humidity rose high enough to convince me to close at 03:30 and then hovered right on the hairy edge until twilight. We did re-open briefly for some twiflats, though. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UC05 D T/H 23:30 23:55 NA2 pointing messed up DD01 A T/H 00:10 00:25 tertrot confusion/CHKMV error ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 60 40 3 53 (NE) 370 cloudy rain 17:00 64 54 7 256 (WSW) 479 cloudy rain 18:00 57 41 8 85 (E) 645 cloudy rain 19:00 59 46 12 82 (E) 431 cloudy none 20:00 57 47 16 111 (ESE) 558 mstly cldy none 21:00 56 50 18 124 (SE) 874 mstly cldy none 22:00 56 50 11 92 (E) 902 mstly cldy none 23:00 56 50 7 87 (E) 880 mstly cldy none 00:00 56 48 5 336 (NNW) 794 ptly cldy none 01:00 56 49 1 338 (NNW) 796 ptly cldy none 02:00 55 49 6 217 (SW) 747 ptly cldy none 03:00 53 49 4 4 (N) 810 ptly cldy none 04:00 54 49 9 4 (N) 860 ptly cldy none 05:00 54 48 6 7 (N) 802 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: 2.9.1 Current TUI version: TUI 1.3