From: Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20091103 Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 13:01:27 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Tuesday, November 3, 2009 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Klaene R.McMillan Agile,SPIcam,SH, 17:00 06:00 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/W 17:19 06:15 0 0 0 0 0.3 12.6 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Once again clear with light winds, but tonight the seeing varied really widely. Some of the best measurements are shown in the focus log, but while I was using Shack-Hartmann and Fastcam images frequently flared to over 2 arcseconds. Once again tonight I started with Agile sky flats, this time in the MSSSO filters. After some discussions with Nick, I homed the secondary mirror to see if that had anything to do with the collimation changes noted last night. But the errors on homing were very small, and when I checked collimation later in the night, the Shack-Hartmann recommended moving a little further in the same direction as last night. I obtained a tracking test with SPIcam in the west (Q4APO/UT091104/spicam/), and only realized afterward that all the tracking tests on both nights were taken with the old October pointing model because I hadn't read in last night's model. I talked this over with Bill, who thought it probably didn't invalidate the tests. I moved on to Fastcam. Once again the TR3 eyelid refused to open in auto mode, but I was able to open it in manual mode. Because of the light winds with variable direction, I took fastcam measurements not relative to the wind, but at positions of direction reversal. On the gross scale, tracking seemed fine in the azimuth direction near the azimuth reversal, but there was some jitteriness in the altitude direction in that same part of the sky. The altitude direction reversals (transits) seemed all right so far as my eyes could tell with the seeing changing so much. ------- 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 18:49 SPICAM 14( 375) 276 75 9.9 10.5 10.0 9.2 9.7 R 0.57 20:48 SHACK -200( 702) 213 62 11.1 10.2 10.8 9.5 10.6 0.80 00:09 FASTCAM 115( 920) 157 68 10.5 10.3 10.5 9.4 10.1 0.88 --------------- WEATHER LOG --------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 51 24 2 254 (WSW) 592 clear none 17:00 50 18 3 344 (NNW) 417 clear none 18:00 50 9 5 353 (N) 218 clear none 19:00 50 9 3 345 (NNW) 233 clear none 20:00 51 8 1 351 (N) 274 clear none 21:00 52 14 4 359 (N) 331 clear none 22:00 52 14 2 345 (NNW) 296 clear none 23:00 52 12 8 4 (N) 347 clear none 00:00 51 15 1 120 (ESE) 306 clear none 01:00 50 15 4 189 (S) 331 clear none 02:00 52 13 15 30 (NNE) 517 clear none 03:00 51 11 11 34 (NE) 415 clear none 04:00 51 6 12 27 (NNE) 488 clear none 05:00 51 4 12 35 (NE) 511 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