Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2008 12:52:06 -0000 (UTC) Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20081220 From: "Gabrelle Saurage" Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, December 20th, 2008 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- D.Bowen D.Bowen DIS 17:50 00:03 K.Covey K.Covey TSPEC 00:20 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PU04/R 17:59 23:00 0 0 4.0 0 2.0 0 0 0 0 DD07/R 23:00 06:04 0 0 0 0 1.8 4.3 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialists: G.Saurage Clear skies most of the night. DIS blue was back online today. During checkout the DIS slitviewer produced new features, something like streaks, in the lower left FOV. Streaks do not change with rotation of instrument or with different slits. There is nothing in the light path up to the camera. PR submitted. Tertiary was moved in the afternoon to BC1. During checkout I moved it back to NA2. It seemed to move fine, no error messages at the time. Then with the first slew a series of error messages began streaming through the TUI log: 00:46:08 .tcc.0 0 tcc F Modu="mir_o_MoveOneGalil"; Text="Tert returned an error message" Homing the tertiary did not work. It seemed to think a limit switch was depressed and would not move. Mark came to the site and investigated; Tom Murphy, also onsite, helped. Visually did not look like it was close to a limit. We moved the tertiary manually to get actual encoder positions closer to commanded for actuators B and C. Moving B seemed to affect C. We tried to get back on sky and found pointing to be horribly off, and the Galil error messages were still coming in. Actuator C looked particularly off so we went up to move it manually again. This time B may have actually been at a limit. Using the collimation eyepiece we discovered the tertiary was way off. We moved the dimple close to the crosshairs by moving mostly actuator C and a little on B. The rest of the night we ran with the tertiary locked in this position. Since the tert was stuck at the NA2 tilt position the APOLLO time was canceled. DIS seemed to work fine except for the slitviewer streaks; TSPEC was fine, no streaks and pointing not too far off. Several slews tonight with TSPEC produced rotator servo errors. We would get "servo error too large" anytime the rotator was commanded to a physical angle near +100 degrees. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PU04 D T/H 17:50 21:50 Tertiary issues ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM ----------------------------------------------------------------- 23:15 dis-slit -111(-443) -38 42 1.0 0.8 1.1 0.3 0.9 1.23 00:30 TSPEC -54(-110) -74 69 1.4 0.9 1.3 0.6 1.3 0.92 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 36 -11 18 309 (NW) 265 clear none 17:00 35 -12 15 318 (NW) 289 clear none 18:00 34 -3 16 303 (WNW) 391 clear none 19:00 35 -5 13 321 (NW) 387 clear none 20:00 35 -6 15 319 (NW) 389 clear none 21:00 35 -5 14 316 (NW) 218 clear none 22:00 35 -6 9 313 (NW) 321 clear none 23:00 34 -3 9 330 (NNW) 292 clear none 00:00 33 -4 8 354 (N) 215 clear none 01:00 35 -6 13 343 (NNW) 245 clear none 02:00 34 -4 6 339 (NNW) 226 clear none 03:00 34 -5 12 331 (NNW) 186 clear none 04:00 33 -3 9 335 (NNW) 182 clear none 05:00 33 -2 12 312 (NW) 179 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 1.5