Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20090107 Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 13:35:27 +0000 (UTC) From: bketzeba@apo.nmsu.edu Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, January 7, 2009 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- A.Ginsburg A.Ginsburg,J.Bally Triplespec 17:30 00:10 J.Stocke J.Stocke,B.Keeney Triplespec 00:10 06:30 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CU04/R 18:11 00:10 0 0 0 0 0 6.0 0 0 0 CU03/R 00:10 06:09 0 0 0 0 1.4 4.6 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: B.Ketzeback Az Vel Scale Was 580.0 Measured 576.7, 574.9; 575.8 changed to 576.0 Alt Vel Scale Was -604 Measured -607.7,-611.0; -609.4 changed to -609.0 Implemented new Az and Alt remap data from today in prep for next weeks engineering time and a pointing model. This afternoon the day staff discovered that the encoder on actuator B of the tertiary had lost its true position but had thought it was ok. When a large move was tried during the day the B actuator hit a limit switch. The mirror was rehomed. Because of all the problems we had over the past week with this 'lost actuator' and not knowing about it we had built up alot of error in the tertiary tilts. It was therefore no great surprise that now the mirror was rehomed to find pointing was significantly off tonight (greater than 3 arcminutes). It took me about 20 minutes to readjust the tertiary tilts at the beginning of the night. The same will have to be done at NA1 friday evening. Pointing still remained off by almost an arcminute in other parts of the sky the rest of the night. We are in need of a new pointing model because of the weather the last one was nearly 2 months ago. The first half observer did not use the nod script because they were observing extended sources. The second half observer had alot of problems with the nod script. They found that about 1/3 of the time going from position A to position B the object offset completely off the slit n y and ususally undershot the computed boresight distance in x. They felt alot of time was wasted correcting the object position back to the boresight. Since the instrument has no shutter and an integration can not be paused they worry that much of their science data is useless. To a much lesser extent the boresight offset from position B back to A also overshot the object (usually above the slit). It is possible that the NA2 rotator needs to be zeroed however if that was the case and the slit was not aligned perfectly E-W the ABBA repeatability should be off during every nod. It is not. Other possible causes may be related to drive tuning although I didnt see any suspicious signals on the dataq tonight. Seeing was rather poor tonight. Second half the outside temperature warmed significantly and the focus changed by over a 150 microns in a few hours time as the telescope temps tried to reach equalibrium a second time for the night. I spent alot of time giving an orientation checkout to tomorrow nights onsite observers as well tonight and answering questions regarding their special program. ------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:00 TSPEC 175( 248) 114 35 2.6 2.7 1.8 2.2 2.3 Ks 1.72 19:33 TSPEC 25( 36) 107 53 2.4 2.0 2.0 1.6 2.1 Ks 1.33 21:30 TSPEC -60( -61) 108 77 3.5 2.1 2.5 1.8 2.7 Ks 1.23 23:51 TSPEC -110( -17) -106 73 6.3 4.0 4.5 4.3 5.1 Ks 1.89 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 37 13 18 358 (N) 93 mstly clr none 17:00 36 14 10 353 (N) 128 mstly clr none 18:00 37 11 14 15 (NNE) 92 mstly cldy none 19:00 36 12 7 7 (N) 109 mstly cldy none 20:00 37 12 17 314 (NW) 127 ptly cldy none 21:00 37 12 11 11 (N) 136 ptly cldy none 22:00 38 10 18 12 (NNE) 104 ptly cldy none 23:00 38 11 27 23 (NNE) 101 mstly clr none 00:00 41 10 18 6 (N) 47 mstly clr none 01:00 40 12 30 22 (NNE) 83 clear none 02:00 41 16 33 14 (NNE) 43 clear none 03:00 42 14 33 20 (NNE) 36 clear none 04:00 43 15 19 17 (NNE) 52 clear none 05:00 42 14 22 20 (NNE) 42 clear none 06:00 45 14 18 21 (NNE) 26 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