Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20090204 Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 14:43:12 +0000 (UTC) From: bketzeba@apo.nmsu.edu Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, February 4, 2009 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------------- T.Murphy R.McMillan APOLLO 17:30 18:48 C.Miller N.Chanover,C.Miller, Agile 20:30 00:05 R.McMillan,R.Hamilton C.Badenes C.Badenes, F.Mullally DIS 00:15 07:30 INST SCHED(TWILIGHT) WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UW17/R 17:48 18:48 0 0 0 0 0 0.2 0.7 0 0 NM08/O 18:48 00:10 0 0 0 1.7 0 3.7 0 0 0 PU01/R 00:10 06:00 0 0 0 0 2.5 3.4 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: B.Ketzeback Az Vel Scale Was 579 Measured 578.9, 577.1; 578.0 n/c Alt Vel Scale Was -609 Measured -605.4, -607.0; -606.2 n/c Tert Tilts after afternoon homing Adjusted Xtilt 0 Ytilt 0; pointing was right on at both BC1 and NA2. The start of the night seemed to be a series of unfortunate events. There was a scheduling confusion with APOLLO spotters and we needed to find an emergency replacement. Then Russet was having internet connection issues and needed to rush into the department. This lost APOLLO about 15 minutes of twilight time. While this was going on I attempted to set up Agile for TUI use for the second group of observers. There was an error message regarding the timing signal and I called Russell and he spent 45 minutes troubleshooting the problem as well as recompiling some ICC code. After the AgileICC was back and I could control the camera with TUI the ICC (ccd acct on nimble) did not have permissions to write to /export/images nfs mounted disk on nmible. After this was straightened out it was time to switch instruments to Agile. I headed upstairs to put a special filter arrangement and holder that I had put together in the instrument filter slide earlier in the afternoon. It seemed like a snug fit when I tried it first time so instead of practicing caution I tried to gently force it into the slide recepticle. This was a bad decision on my part and the filter slide became jammed halfway into the instrument. It would not go in all the way nor could be pulled back out. I could see the only way to fix the problem was to remove the camera from the mount. After I had done this I could see the cause of the jam however I was too concerned for the safety of the filters and it appeared, to me, that the further dissembly was required to access the jammed part safely. Unfortunately, the stuck slide obstructed one of the screws to remove the focal reducer assembly from the mounting plate. At this point I decided it best to call for assistance. Nick came up the observatory and was able to fix the problem in just a few minutes. As he put the camera back on the mounting plate I came up with a different way to stack the filters in the standard filter holder. Not quite 90 minutes of on sky time was lost. Once we got on sky the observers were able to successfully use TUI to control Agile however the bug (PR/934) that prevents setting the gain in the TUI controls caused the observers to want to switch to aacq control the gain of the camera. I later learned that we could have continued to use the AgileICC to control exposures, I had just misread the documentation regarding the control of the settings. Due to the loss of the time at the start of the night the observers were unable to perform all the tests they had wanted to do on the moon however much was still learned. Clouds first half actually helped some when extra ND filter was needed to identify where at the poles we were pointed. The switch to second half went smoothly. Seeing was moderate and quite variable. Skies cleared up and remained photometric all of second half. No other problems second half. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UW17 A I/S 17:48 18:02 Internet connection issues NM08 P I/H 18:48 20:30 Stuck filter slide ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17:28 APOLLO -50( 748) 69 57 4.1 5.9 5.1 4.8 4.4 -- 1.50 00:20 dis-slit -57( -327) -82 40 2.7 2.0 2.4 1.2 2.2 -- 1.30 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16:00 47 5 15 209 (SSW) 895 clear none 17:00 43 4 9 185 (S) 703 clear none 18:00 38 3 13 149 (SSE) 909 mstly clr none 19:00 36 3 14 157 (SSE) 753 ptly cldy none 20:00 37 3 17 155 (SSE) 1132 mstly cldy none 21:00 36 2 13 153 (SSE) 952 ptly cldy none 22:00 38 -2 11 174 (S) 791 mstly cldy none 23:00 37 -4 11 180 (S) 807 mstly clr none 00:00 38 -1 13 182 (S) 780 clear none 01:00 36 0 11 180 (S) 890 clear none 02:00 35 1 11 184 (S) 895 clear none 03:00 37 1 7 185 (S) 955 clear none 04:00 38 2 7 201 (SSW) 1012 clear none 05:00 39 1 6 218 (SW) 1160 clear none 06:00 39 2 8 235 (SW) 1239 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