From: Russet McMillan Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20080601 Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 05:06:55 -0600 (MDT) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Sunday, June 1, 2008 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------ B.Woodgate D.Bonfield,G.Hilton GFP 19:55 21:30 23:30 04:30 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- DD02/O 21:09 04:53 2.0 0.4 0 0 5.3 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialists: R.McMillan Skies were mostly clear with some high cirrus and good to moderate seeing. Due to some adjustments during the day, the rotator needed to be zeroed. However, the observers were in hot pursuit of a filter wheel problem right up until sunset, so we decided to get sky flats first and then zero the rotator afterward (it was off about 1.5 deg). I was undecided about whether to count this as equipment time. After the rotator was zeroed, the Sloan observers reported that they had closed due to pollen on cars and visible in the air. I programmed the handheld dust counter to look at 3um and 5um particles, got a baseline measurement (300 and 80 respectively), and decided to close the dome. Over the next two hours, the 3 um counts dropped by a more than factor of 3 and the 5 um counts by a factor of 5, while the small particle counts remained steady. Accumulation on cars also reduced although it didn't disappear entirely. I decided to give this a chance, and re-opened the telescope. I continued to check the 3um and 5um counts at intervals for the rest of the night. Around 3:15, I happened to notice the echelle temperature was running somewhat warm, not quite enough to trigger an alert but enough to concern me. Six hours earlier there had been an anomalous short fill; two hours earlier there was a fill that timed out instead of filling completely. I forced a new fill and monitored tank pressure; this fill proceeded and ended normally, although it didn't really bring the camera temperature down. After 4:00, new accumulations of pollen particles became obvious on the cloudcam and cars. Unfortunately, there was no corresponding increase in the counts of 3 and 5 um particles with the handheld counter. So it looks like we have no reliable quantitative tools for pollen measurement. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 23:46 GFP 100( 939) 6 31 19.2 19.2 20.0 18.2 19.1 6563 1.07 23:49 NA2gdr 4801(37801) 5 31 19.1 19.2 20.0 18.2 19.1 Clear 1.05 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 79 15 17 251 (WSW) 1376 mstly clr none 17:00 74 12 16 283 (WNW) 1489 mstly clr none 18:00 73 12 12 287 (WNW) 1626 mstly clr none 19:00 73 14 12 248 (WSW) 1681 mstly clr none 20:00 68 13 9 215 (SW) 1621 mstly clr none 21:00 68 12 9 191 (S) 1816 mstly clr none 22:00 66 13 10 191 (S) 1841 mstly clr none 23:00 65 14 7 222 (SW) 1686 mstly clr none 00:00 66 14 5 190 (S) 1728 mstly clr none 01:00 68 14 4 250 (WSW) 1779 clear none 02:00 68 12 6 256 (WSW) 1756 ptly cldy none 03:00 67 12 8 220 (SW) 1720 mstly clr none 04:00 67 13 7 216 (SW) 2242 mstly clr 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