From: Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20091102 Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 13:50:37 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Monday, November 2, 2009 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Klaene R.McMillan Agile,SPIcam,SH 17:00 06:00 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/W 17:20 06:14 0 0 0 0 0 12.9 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan A clear night with low winds and variable seeing. I took Agile sky flats during both twilights to begin constructing a flat library for the instrument, but with the many instrument settings there is still some parameter space to explore. After that, Nick and Fritz had a little more work to do to correct noise problems in slews. Once the telemetry looked better I took a pointing model, which had a slightly lower RMS than last month's model. This model does show a moderate shift which probably accounts for the minor tracking drift noted by some recent observers; the reason for the shift is unknown. I did tracking tests with SPIcam in the east, north, and south -- the south had the star closest to the center of the chip, and north was the worst. I didn't have time to do the west or other spots in the sky. There were some telemetry blips in the southern part of the sky, e.g. at UT 10:04:30. But these were smaller than the periodic signal we were seeing at the beginning of the night, and I didn't see any image elongation in the short exposures I was taking. I also checked collimation and found it to be significantly off. I had a little trouble believing this, but the numbers and image appearance did improve when I followed the Shack-Hartmann prescription, so apparently it was a real change in collimation. ------- 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 22:43 SPICAM 138( 409) 95 58 9.1 8.4 8.9 7.6 8.4 R 1.10 Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 12 353 (N) 340 clear none 17:00 13 42 (NE) 271 clear none 18:00 50 21 16 64 (ENE) 393 clear none 19:00 47 22 17 66 (ENE) 372 clear none 20:00 48 19 2 223 (SW) 319 clear none 21:00 50 19 2 289 (WNW) 360 clear none 22:00 46 19 7 20 (NNE) 330 clear none 23:00 48 20 12 74 (ENE) 354 clear none 00:00 47 19 9 85 (E) 358 clear none 01:00 47 17 2 188 (S) 306 clear none 02:00 47 17 3 189 (S) 335 clear none 03:00 46 18 3 184 (S) 340 clear none 04:00 47 18 2 156 (SSE) 312 clear none 05:00 48 13 1 215 (SW) 298 clear none 06:00 48 15 2 204 (SSW) 307 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: 2.11.1 Current TUI version: TUI 1.6.2