Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2007 11:34:40 -0000 (UTC) Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20070930 From: "Gabrelle Saurage" Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Sunday, September 30, 2007 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- J.Holtzman J.Holtzman,+9 students DIS,Echelle 19:00 00:55 T.Murphy R.McMillan Apollo 01:05 02:00 M.Moe M.Moe DIS 02:05 03:00 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- NM04/O 19:44 01:05 0 0 0.3 1.7 1.4 1.9 0 0 0 UW12/O 01:05 02:05 0 0 0 0 0 1.0 0 0 0 CU04/R 02:05 06:03 0 3.0 0 0 0 1.0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialists: G.Saurage Az Vel Scales: 578.7, 578.3 avg. 578.5 Opened on time to hazy skies. Humidity threatened for a few hours but we stuck it out through thinly overcast skies long enough to discover a major pointing problem. There seemed to be several contributing factors: somewhat large magnesensor errors in alt, tert clamps not closing, and perhaps the axis did not home properly. The tertiary was homed during checkout – I did not see any errors but one of the clamps failed to close at that time. I moved the tert to NA2 for SPIcam flats, then to NA1 to test the new TUI with Echelle, then back again to NA2 for science. We did sky flats and did not notice the pointing problem until around 20:00. After trying many slews to bright stars to clear the magnesensor errors, it was clear something more was wrong. After re-homing the tertiary and doing several rounds of pointing corrections we managed to get the pointing close enough to work with (the pointing had been off about 5 arcminutes consistently in the alt direction). Russet helped online with Mark on the phone. We lost 2 hours of cloudy sky. We closed the dome for most of the Apollo time due to clouds. They did in-dome tests. Second half we had pointing problems again with large magnesensor errors (~13’). A few slews seemed to help. Then high humidity and overcast skies forced us to close. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NM04 S T/H 20:15 22:15 Pointing problems ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM ----------------------------------------------------------------- 19:57 SPICAM 15( 589) 47 47 12.3 13.9 13.6 12.8 12.6 r 1.0 23:03 dis-slit -59( 255) -29 54 12.5 11.8 12.2 11.2 12.0 1.3 02:40 dis-slit -100( 246) -173 30 11.5 11.5 11.8 10.9 11.2 1.5 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 62 24 1 257 (WSW) 485 ptly cldy none 17:00 61 24 5 313 (NW) 380 ptly cldy none 18:00 58 26 3 301 (WNW) 508 ptly cldy none 19:00 56 43 6 90 (E) 658 ptly cldy none 20:00 54 49 15 75 (ENE) 913 mstly cldy none 21:00 53 47 12 83 (E) 931 mstly cldy none 22:00 54 44 16 121 (ESE) 865 mstly cldy none 23:00 54 39 18 154 (SSE) 767 ptly cldy none 00:00 54 37 16 145 (SE) 749 ptly cldy none 01:00 54 41 18 155 (SSE) 772 mstly clr none 02:00 53 47 17 152 (SSE) 1031 ptly cldy none 03:00 53 48 13 133 (SE) 1111 cloudy humid 04:00 53 49 13 146 (SE) 1236 cloudy humid 05:00 53 50 13 153 (SSE) 1176 cloudy humid 06:00 51 44 10 267 (W) 1152 mstly clr humid 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 1.4