From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20080517 Date: Sun, 18 May 2008 06:52:27 -0600 (MDT) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, May 17, 2008 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- D.York D.York DIS 20:25 00:00 O.Fraser K.Kinemuchi DIS 00:05 05:35 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- UC04/R 20:58 01:05 0 0 0 0.1 0 4.0 0 0 0 UW13/R 01:05 05:02 0 0 0 0 0.2 3.8 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan The site got 0.3 inches of rain this afternoon -- hooray for fire prevention! Humidity and lingering nearby rain kept us closed at sunset, but we were able to open not too long afterward. Humidity stayed down for first half and clouds stayed away. Outside dust flirted with the limit, but inside dust was well below so I thought it was okay despite the medium-high humidity. Seeing was moderate to poor, and somewhat variable. On the first slew to a focus star, we had some trouble with the rotator not moving, or moving at unexpected times. This cleared up by the time the sky was dark enough to focus, so no time was lost. I was able to run the NA2 guider tonight and play with the new autofocus script. The variable seeing seemed to give the script some difficulty, but for the most part it seemed to be doing the right thing. Then the calculations blew up and sent the secondary off into la-la-land, so I decided that was enough testing for tonight. We should probably put a limit on the permitted size of focus moves, in addition to the more complex task of making the script more robust in variable conditions. Everything was very peaceful after that. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UC04 D T/S 22:33 22:37 autofoc sent sec way off ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM ----------------------------------------------------------------- 19:49 dis-slit 200( 107) 243 75 5.4 6.3 6.1 5.7 5.4 - 1.40 20:08 NA2gdr 23742(23742) 246 71 5.4 6.0 6.1 5.5 5.5 - 1.47 00:06 dis-slit 103( 18) 253 60 6.9 6.3 6.8 5.8 6.5 - 1.20 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 42 37 19 60 (ENE) 2333 cloudy lt rain 17:00 48 34 6 98 (E) 2287 cloudy lt rain 18:00 45 34 14 60 (ENE) 2588 cloudy rain 19:00 39 35 19 54 (NE) 1537 cloudy none 20:00 41 34 21 62 (ENE) 1691 ptly cldy none 21:00 42 32 18 59 (ENE) 2466 mstly clr none 22:00 44 31 25 58 (ENE) 2789 clear none 23:00 44 30 16 45 (NE) 3028 clear none 00:00 45 29 13 37 (NE) 3180 clear none 01:00 45 30 12 28 (NNE) 3049 clear none 02:00 43 30 11 1 (N) 3040 clear none 03:00 45 29 11 27 (NNE) 3143 clear none 04:00 44 28 12 24 (NNE) 3263 clear none 05:00 45 26 17 25 (NNE) 3464 clear none 06:00 46 24 14 23 (NNE) 3820 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 1.4.5