Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 06:16:45 -0700 From: "Jeff Coughlin" Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20080119 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, January 19th, 2008 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- M. Drosback M Drosback, K O'Malia, Echelle 18:20 21:30 J. Destree, O. Martinez, G. Stringfellow DIS 21:30 00:10 J. Stocke J. Stocke NICFPS 00:10 06:08 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- CU01/O 18:20 00:10 0 0 0 0.9 0 4.9 0 0 0 CU05/R 00:10 06:08 0 0 0 0 0 6.0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialists: G.Saurage, J.Coughlin Weather was photometric all night - seeing was 0.9-1.0" in first half and 0.5-0.7" second half. We had five main problems to report tonight. 1) While guiding, echelle slitviewer unexpectedly halted with the following error: 01:49:27 APO.Jeff.ecam 4 ecamera f text="unexpected response (not 3 lines): ['doread 5.00 1 1 255.50 255.50 511.00 511.00', ' OK']" 01:49:27 .hub 0 cmds i CmdDone=31081 01:49:27 APO.Jeff 540 ecam i camFile="None" 01:49:27 APO.Jeff 540 ecam f text="\"unexpected response (not 3 lines): ['doread 5.00 1 1 255.50 255.50 511.00 511.00', ' OK']\" We ultimately had to restart Slitty, which fixed the problem. Science exposure continued throughout, and pointing performed well, so no loss of science time occurred. 2) At 10:00 MST, a DIS exposure was attempted, and red channel did not download correctly. A re-start of the dis-icc was performed, however, now red channel contains 65k counts in all pixels. Problem was not resolvable. See problem report APO PR dis/721. 3) When switching to NIC-FPS for second-half observer, the raw images (fits extension [1]) would not display. We restarted the NIC-FPS ICS and nubs, and nicfps expose init. Problem persisted, so we repeated procedure. This time images displayed properly and were normal for rest of night. 4) When first attempting NIC-FPS focus script for second-half observer, I received a TUI error that it could not locate the script file on obs-2. I logged out of TUI, re-started the program, logged-in, and then tried to run the script again. This fixed the problem and the focus script ran normally. 5) NA2 Guider camera had initial problems for second night in a row. Images appeared to be split between a clear and fuzzy side when first taking images for second-half observer, as if filter wheel was out of place, which is most likely the cause. We repeated procedure same as last night: We issued a "tcc talk tcc_gmech REMAP" then restarted the gcamera and gcam nubs. We had to repeat this sequence 4 times before the gcam images were normal. The benefit of all these problems is I (Jeff) got lots of good troubleshooting experience :-) ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CU01 D I/U 22:05 22:50 Red Channel Reading 65k CU05 N I/U 00:00 00:14 NIC-FPS Raw Image Not Read Correctly ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM ----------------------------------------------------------------- 18:19 ECHELLE 131(-1033) 218 37 -2.9 -2.0 -1.9 -2.7 -2.8 - 0.90 19:55 ECHELLE 31(-1231) 43 46 -3.2 -3.7 -3.3 -4.2 -3.8 - 1.05 21:40 dis-slit -15( -464) 106 45 -2.6 -3.5 -2.3 -4.1 -3.2 - 1.10 00:17 NICFPS 40( 47) 96 78 -3.3 -3.9 -3.4 -4.7 -4.0 0.90 01:53 NICFPS 40( 56) -21 59 -2.9 -3.9 -3.4 -4.7 -3.6 0.60 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 28 -11 3 348 (NNW) 218 clear none 17:00 28 -9 11 355 (N) 150 clear none 18:00 27 -9 18 11 (N) 400 clear none 19:00 26 -9 20 8 (N) 201 clear none 20:00 27 -5 14 8 (N) 244 clear none 21:00 27 -4 14 7 (N) 343 clear none 22:00 27 -3 14 13 (NNE) 111 clear none 23:00 27 -3 8 3 (N) 116 clear none 00:00 26 -3 5 343 (NNW) 134 clear none 01:00 26 -4 10 326 (NW) 138 clear none 02:00 27 -3 9 276 (W) 128 clear none 03:00 26 -4 7 266 (W) 164 clear none 04:00 26 -4 9 268 (W) 156 clear none 05:00 24 -5 7 267 (W) 210 clear 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 1.4.4