From: Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20100321 Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:44:08 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Sunday, March 21, 2010 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Ketzeback R.McMillan Echelle 19:30 20:24 D.York J.Barentine NICFPS 20:30 01:08 P.Kundurthy P.Kundurthy Agile 01:12 05:40 M.Klaene R.McMillan SH 05:42 06:07 P.Kundurthy P.Kundurthy Agile 06:10 06:45 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- NM08/W 19:24 20:24 0 0 0 0 0 1.0 0 0 UC08/R 20:24 01:10 0 0 0 0 0 4.8 0 0 UW02/R 01:10 06:36 0 0 0 0 5.2 0.2 0 0 EN01/W/D 06:36 07:01 0 0 0 0 0.4 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan The night was mostly clear first half, with gradually increasing high clouds second half. Seeing was good with Echelle and NICFPS and seemed okay with Agile, but the observer was working with defocused images so it was hard to judge. At the beginning of the NICFPS time, I ran the autofocus script for a while, but it seemed the swings in focus were simply too large so I stopped it. During a high transit, guiding seemed to make the image quality worse so we worked unguided. Otherwise, everything went smoothly with NICFPS. The Agile observations went fairly well also. Each time the observer aborted a sequence, I waited for the camera to reconnect and then restarted the nubs; we had no trouble recovering. The observer ran the new Agile guider for several hours and played with the parameters a little, finding some improvements in the default numbers. The observer was working in a defocused mode and I was concerned to see that collimation looked quite poor again, despite some tests with Agile that showed good collimation on Tuesday. I was worried enough to ask for a little time after the main observations and before twilight flats to check collimation properly, with the Shack-Hartmann. This took a little more time than expected because varying light clouds made it difficult to get a few good exposures; the Shack-Hartmann did recommend a significant adjustment to the telescope's collimation. But we're still unsure why it has changed since the last engineering time, and why it appears to have changed significantly over a few days during the last week. ------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19:36 ECHELLE 50( -843) 231 70 3.9 4.2 3.8 3.6 3.9 ND3 1.00 20:40 NA2gdr 618(43618) 56 41 3.2 3.5 3.4 2.8 3.2 Clear 1.30 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 38 8 9 312 (NW) 2451 clear none 17:00 39 7 9 350 (N) 2742 clear none 18:00 38 4 3 289 (WNW) 2699 clear none 19:00 36 5 3 1 (N) 2808 mstly clr none 20:00 38 -4 7 48 (NE) 2654 mstly clr none 21:00 38 -1 1 63 (ENE) 2408 clear none 22:00 34 1 8 342 (NNW) 2924 clear none 23:00 32 3 12 356 (N) 2504 clear none 00:00 36 1 10 354 (N) 2509 clear none 01:00 37 2 9 354 (N) 2440 ptly cldy none 02:00 38 5 12 3 (N) 2770 ptly cldy none 03:00 34 0 8 331 (NNW) 2640 ptly cldy none 04:00 35 -1 9 308 (NW) 3168 ptly cldy none 05:00 36 -1 11 295 (WNW) 2959 ptly cldy none 06:00 37 4 8 325 (NW) 2987 ptly cldy 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: 1.7.1