Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 12:52:00 -0000 (UTC) Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20090220 From: "Gabrelle Saurage" Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Friday, February 20th, 2009 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- E.Hilton E.Hilton Agile 18:25 00:05 D.Haggard D.Haggard DIS 00:17 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UW09/R 18:47 00:10 0 0 1.0 0 4.4 0 0 0 0 UW07/R 00:10 05:46 0 0.1 0 0 4.5 1.0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialists: G.Saurage AzVeloScale: 580.7, 579.4; 580.1 (no change) Beginning of the night tcc was not responding to commands via TUI but was running when I logged into tcc35m. This is PR 942 again. Current solution is telstop/telrun. First half we used Agile via TUI which still has a host of problems. PR 955: The Agile TUI window does not update status of Gain and Read Rate for other users. I could not see changes my observer was making. PR 954: There was a significant delay between clicking Start Agile expose until Agile actually began flushing; around 60+ seconds. So focusing was clunky. Using Gain at medium and Read Rate at slow the read rate for "Object" exposures reported in the TUI logs was 10.7 sec, but using the "Flat" label the read rate was 3.12 sec. My observer choose to use "flat" for all science exposures (of 5.0 sec). Several times while we were setting up, he tried to start a sequence or was in the middle of a sequence, and it seemed to hang. I found that restarting the nub for agileExpose, then clicking Abort would allow the sequence to clear, but Abort or restarting the nubs alone didn't seem to work. After we finally got going everything worked fine. We stayed on the same object the rest of the shift. We used the autofocus script while guiding on the NA2 guider all first half. Second half, no telescope problems. Few clouds first half, but mostly clear. Pointing was good with both instruments. Good seeing, around 1.0" often, sometimes dipping into subarc seeing. After 05:00am outside dust levels rose a above closure limits. It was complicated by the fact that the interior 3.5m dust values were not reporting. We stayed open for a while but the situation became dicey after 05:30 when outside dust levels rose above 5000 mic. Then all the temps stopped reporting too. We closed right at 12 degree twilight. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UW08 P I/S 18:30 19:30 Various Agile problems ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM ----------------------------------------------------------------- 18:54 AGILE -10(-420) 97 44 3.8 5.3 4.0 3.7 3.4 B 1.00 00:26 dis-slit 71(-258) 169 80 2.0 1.5 1.9 0.9 1.6 0.97 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 17:00 40 -6 12 345 (NNW) mstly clr none 18:00 40 -6 2 338 (NNW) mstly clr none 19:00 38 -6 1 243 (WSW) mstly clr none 20:00 35 -6 9 324 (NW) 595 mstly clr none 21:00 36 -3 16 306 (NW) 848 mstly clr none 22:00 36 -1 8 286 (WNW) 891 clear none 23:00 36 -1 6 337 (NNW) 928 clear none 00:00 36 -1 17 321 (NW) 995 clear none 01:00 35 -1 7 340 (NNW) 1022 clear none 02:00 35 -2 9 61 (ENE) 1330 clear none 03:00 35 -1 9 358 (N) 2506 clear none 04:00 36 -5 12 4 (N) 3133 clear dust 05:00 35 -9 9 359 (N) 4370 clear dust 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 1.6a6 (with Agile)