Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20090106 Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 13:35:24 +0000 (UTC) From: bketzeba@apo.nmsu.edu Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Tuesday, January 6, 2009 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- A.Evans D.Kim Triplespec 17:30 23:00 D.York D.York Echelle 23:10 00:10 J.Stocke J.Stocke,B.Keeney Triplespec --:-- --:-- INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UV03/O 18:10 23:10 0 0 0 0 0 5.0 0 0 0 UC01/R 23:10 00:10 0 0 0 0 0 1.0 0 0 0 CU03/R 00:10 06:09 2.6 3.4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: B.Ketzeback Az Vel Scale Was 580.0 Measured 581.8, 580.5; 581.2 n/c Pointing was significantly off at both NA2 and NA1 ports tonight. In each case the target star was outside the field of view on the initial slew. I used the old na2tilt and echtilt scripts to help correct pointing. Tracking and guiding appeared poor on the meridian (High altitude southern crossing and low altitude northern crossing) tonight. At northern crossing the azimuth motor current appeared to be slowly but smoothly varying over a large range. At the southern crossing the motor currents were much noisier / more rapidly changing but over a smaller range. There was no evidence on either the tach or command voltage that anything unusual was occuring. Around 10pm Triplespec Auxillary tank ran dry of liquid nitrogen. I waited until the instrument change over at 11pm to do an emergency fill. Although several critical alert alarms were triggered, the temp stayed within a degree to two degrees above the setpoint. Winds were rather strong all night and seeing was poor. The site experienced blowing snow. I remained open as long as I could since we pointed mostly out of the wind and the telescope temperatures were several degrees below freezing. At midnight however gusts and sustained winds exceeded the closure limits and we closed. We never had a chance to reopen. Gusts exceeded 60 mph on occasion during second half. I spent second half updating fastcam documentation. ------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 17:48 TSPEC -30( -426) 9 77 -6.7 -6.0 -6.0 -6.7 -6.6 Ks 1.42 23:14 ECHELLE -25(-1463) 1 47 -7.1 -7.3 -7.1 -7.6 -7.2 ND2 1.87 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 21 13 13 339 (NNW) 400 mstly clr none 17:00 20 11 12 345 (NNW) 351 mstly clr none 18:00 20 10 6 30 (NNE) 343 mstly clr none 19:00 20 9 1 333 (NNW) 303 clear none 20:00 20 9 28 13 (NNE) 728 clear none 21:00 21 9 9 318 (NW) 230 mstly clr none 22:00 19 10 6 339 (NNW) 158 ptly cldy none 23:00 20 9 13 6 (N) 269 ptly cldy none 00:00 20 9 18 344 (NNW) 956 mstly cldy none 01:00 19 10 10 0 (N) 575 ptly cldy none 02:00 21 10 22 23 (NNE) 2037 ptly cldy none 03:00 24 10 24 21 (NNE) 1301 mstly clr none 04:00 26 9 27 25 (NNE) 3046 clear none 05:00 26 11 30 36 (NE) 549 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 1.5.1