Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:10:35 -0000 (UTC) Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20100225 From: "Gabrelle Saurage" Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, February 25, 2010 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Klaene G.Saurage ShackHartman, 18:30 05:00 DIS, SPIcam INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/O 18:06 06:26 1.4 3.8 0 0 0 7.1 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: G.Saurage Mostly clear skies (surprisingly). Fluctuating humidity and winds. Nearby radar returns at the beginning of the night. Engineering. Before sunset: took biases for DIS and SPIcam. Fritz made a few adjustments to guider software. 18:30 open to cool. Could not take exposures with any guider. Fritz logged on made some more hub changes. 19:04 closed due to local radar returns and increasing winds. 19:15 ALT slew testing with mirror covers OPEN. First slew up in alt failed (UT02:19 Motion error too large at 58 degrees). However, did 20 subsequent slews up and down and did not have a single other failure. Perhaps the first downward slew of the night with covers open or closed is prone to fail. Test slews at the beginning of the night may now be more important with the recent changes on the drives and installation of the alt brake. 20:46 SPIcam flats with SDSS filters. No contamination found. Ready for science. 22:50 open 23:00 Guider Testing. Neither NA2 or DIS successful. DIS slitviewer doesn't seem to stay connected; get "Target named dcam is not connected" then restarting the Nubs brings it back temporarily. Getting one or two images on sky was a struggle. Often restarting Nubs. When Expose button is clicked it seems to hang and either say dcam not available or get an image but hang with Expose button greyed out. NA2 guider files are pointing to the wrong directory. "Current" brings up "keep/gcam/UT050422" files. 23:40 Humidity bordering closure limits. 23:50 Tested Echelle guider. Performed better than dcam, but sometimes ecam is disconnecting as well. When I did get a star on the boresight the guider is not recognizing it as a guidable star (no green marks) when it clearly should. Focus script very difficult, seems to hang with every measure, maybe when ecam gets disconnected. Was not successful in getting through any focus measurements. 00:30 Collimation Check. Sensoft crashed a few times. Mailed the results. Got a small adjustment in the SecYTransCoef. Applied the results just before humidity hit the closure limits. 02:15 Closed due to humidity. 02:30 Mirror covers would not work in auto (spontaneously). Eyelids still operational in auto. Mirror covers will only operate in manual even after switch toggled over to reset and back. 03:00 DIS wavecals. Please see last 20 henear files in UT100226/dis/. Files 295-304 are with B400/R300 gratings, 305-316 are with the 1200's. 03:45 open 04:00 Pointing model. I tried to do a pointing model but I could not get NA2 guider to work consistently. The "current" file is now pointing to the correct directory (?), but none of the stars are showing up as guidable and once the Expose button is clicked it frequently hangs. Without gcam, I didn't see a way to do a pointing model. 04:40 winds getting high. Did not get an on-sky pointing model or Br Quartz stability test. Guiders and mirror covers not working properly. ------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 29 18 14 323 (NW) 397 mstly clr none 17:00 29 19 12 337 (NNW) 326 mstly clr none 18:00 28 18 11 321 (NW) 242 mstly clr none 19:00 26 19 22 7 (N) 248 mstly clr humid 20:00 26 20 24 20 (NNE) 247 mstly clr humid 21:00 26 18 14 18 (NNE) 290 clear humid 22:00 25 18 17 27 (NNE) 273 clear humid 23:00 24 18 15 26 (NNE) 328 clear none 00:00 23 16 21 24 (NNE) 311 clear none 01:00 23 15 9 37 (NE) 261 clear none 02:00 21 17 11 25 (NNE) 304 clear humid 03:00 22 17 20 15 (NNE) 272 clear humid 04:00 23 13 23 32 (NNE) 270 clear none 05:00 23 12 22 30 (NNE) 251 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: 1.7.0