Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:16:07 -0700 (MST) Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20090112 From: "Jack Dembicky" Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Monday, Januarr 12, 2009 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Klaene J.Dembicky DIS 17:00 06:00 Echelle Fastcam INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B --------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/O 18:15 06:09 0 0 0 0 1.1 10.8 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky Engineering To Do list: [x] Zero Rotator (0.075 off) [x] Pointing model (new 80 point model implemented) [ ] Collimation (VNC on OBS1 mac wasn't working correctly and SH temp would not set properly. PR submitted)) [x] Test New TCC software version (2.10.0) [x] Refine DIS slitviewer focus (check instrument block?) (spectra taken for Russet to analyse, mirror focus for DIS is +100um from slitview focus) [ ] Aadjust tertiary piston to correct off axis collimation (seeing not good enough to do this tonight) [x] FastCam [x] Echelle pointing check. (Pointing was again off tonight, star on bottom of guider frame, just out of FOV) Zero'ed rotator during checkout. (0.075 degrees off) Az velocity scale measuyred 578.2 was 576.0 changed 577.0 Alt velocity scale measured -603.5 was -609.0 changed -604.0 Seeing was pretty poor to start the night measuring 3.5 arc sec or worse and variable. We had a approching cold front coming down from our North and winds out of the N/NE. I started out trying to do a dis slitviewer focus check but with such poor seeing I opted to move to a ppinting model instead. Pointing was off with NA2 tonight. I did a quick pointing correction before starting an actual pointing model. I had some problems with the gmech controller, due to them implementing a new TCC today and things getting reset (and gmech not connecting properly on its own). Once we got that fixed I updated the wiki page on doing pointing models (it was a tad out of date) and started our standard 80 point model. Beautiful pointing at NA2 after I implemented the new pointing model. Std star fell right on the boresight after a fairly good sweep around the sky. DIS/DISslit focus test mirror focus check (seeing 1.5-2 arc sec, measurements in FWHM Pixels) dfocus_mirror_xxxxx.xxxx.fits (starting @ 22:47) Inst Focus Red Blue ----------------------- Focus(11) 6.18 6.30 +50 5.18 5.73 +100 4.17 5.14 +150 4.48 6.02 +200 5.64 7.58 Focus(-25) Sweep2 Focus(11) 5.01 4.47 +50 4.10 4.24 +100 3.59 4.42 +150 3.72 5.61 +200 4.17 7.13 Focus(-56) Sweep3 Focus(-32) 5.11 4.54 +50 4.28 4.27 +100 3.27 3.98 +150 3.13 5.14 +200 3.86 6.91 Focus(-55) Best DIS focus seems to be DISslitviewer focus + 100um, although seeing may not be stable enough for a valid test. Spectra Focus (dfocus_spectra_xxxxx.xxxx.fits) starting @ 00:04 Initial focus -55, final focus at end of sweep was -56. Russet, can you look at the spectra and see if focus seems off on these as well? I then started up the SH. There seemed to be some problems running it from VNC on Safari. I could not enter any text on the keyboard (change exp time to 300s for the reference frames). The set point temp was also not ramping to 0C like it is supposed to (I was connected to the camera and I could see the temperatures change every once in a while but stayed near -6C instead of 0C where it was set.) I could click buttons but not enter any text. I also had the same problem with VNC to Fastcam, although with that session it would lock the screen up on the mac VNC and required a restart, which still didn't work. While I was waiting for the SH to cool down I ran Bill's Fastcam stuff. Like I said previously connecting to it via OBS1 VNC was really slow and would not take text input and freeze the VNC screen up. Luckily Fastcam is sitting in the control room so I just logged in directly which worked fine. I had to correct the pointing for this instrument as well. I got 2 sets of data for Bill at each of the 4 wind directions he asked for. The local internet was running very slow tonight (accessing APO web pages from site). J.Brinkman was aware of the problem as well. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (STEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:19 dis-slit 32( -309) 152 65 -1.2 1.2 1.3 -0.2 -0.6 -- 1.80 19:08 dis-slit 103( -374) 168 69 -3.9 -1.6 -1.1 -2.7 -3.4 -- 3.00 19:53 NA2gdr 2726(24726) -21 58 -3.9 -2.9 -2.1 -4.1 -3.8 R+ND2 3.20 22:04 dis-slit -3( -509) 7 70 -1.9 -2.1 -1.6 -2.5 -2.0 -- 1.11 22:06 NA2gdr 28(22028) 6 70 -1.9 -2.2 -1.7 -2.5 -2.1 R 1.05 22:21 dis-slit -6( -517) -4 70 -1.9 -2.2 -1.7 -2.6 -2.2 -- 1.47 22:44 dis-slit 11( -498) 10 56 -2.4 -2.4 -2.0 -3.0 -2.6 -- 2.00 23:01 dis-slit -25( -543) 2 56 -2.8 -2.6 -2.2 -3.4 -3.0 -- 1.70 23:05 dis-slit 11( -510) 0 56 -2.8 -2.6 -2.2 -3.4 -3.0 -- 1.41 23:44 dis-slit -32( -568) -17 55 -3.6 -3.0 -2.7 -3.9 -3.6 -- 1.21 00:23 dis-slit -56( -605) -32 51 -3.8 -3.3 -3.0 -4.4 -3.9 -- 1.44 01:24 ECHELLE -117(-1412) 8 78 -3.8 -3.9 -3.4 -4.6 -4.0 ND3 1.36 02:25 FASTCAM 158( 262) -7 71 -2.9 -4.0 -3.4 -4.4 -3.5 -- 1.60 02:29 FASTCAM 133( 239) -10 71 -2.8 -3.9 -3.3 -4.3 -3.3 -- 1.60 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 33 12 16 2 (N) 325 lt. cirrus none 17:00 32 12 7 321 (NW) 202 lt. cirrus none 18:00 30 11 1 9 (N) 339 lt. cirrus none 19:00 26 12 15 72 (ENE) 921 clear none 20:00 27 12 10 22 (NNE) 957 clear none 21:00 30 12 13 12 (NNE) 406 clear none 22:00 29 11 11 1 (N) 305 clear none 23:00 27 12 3 349 (N) 400 clear none 00:00 26 12 10 354 (N) 439 clear none 01:00 25 12 1 207 (SSW) 497 clear none 02:00 26 9 18 355 (N) 297 clear none 03:00 26 9 8 326 (NW) 136 clear none 04:00 24 11 8 355 (N) 175 clear none 05:00 23 11 11 324 (NW) 292 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: 2.10.0 Current TUI version: TUI 1.5.1