Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 04:41:12 -0600 Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20100814 From: Nicholas Ule Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, August 14, 2010 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH ------------------------------------------------------------ T.Marriage M.Hilton,M.Zhang SPIcam 20:00 01:03 J.Gauthier J.Gauthier DIS 01:13 03:30 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ------------------------------------------------------------------ PU04/O 19:58 01:05 0 0 1.0 0 1.4 2.7 0 0 UC01/R 01:05 06:18 2.8 0 0 0 2.4 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: N.Ule, G.Saurage Local thunderstorms cleared in time to open. Most of the night was mostly clear skies and good seeing until 03:30 when dense clouds formed. Radar returns after 03:00 were not favorable and forced the closure of the telescope. The first Alt Motion error occured moving from 20 to 80 stopped at 33 degrees and for several attempts would not move up or down, then finally after several E-stop, axis stop/init combos it slewed up. Multiple Alt Motion errors continued during first test slews and the first slews on sky and most occurred around 32 degrees (one at 48). It would work on and off. Then at ~21:45 stars were streaking on the guider (after it had worked for a little while). We tried a few large slews to cross magnasensors and then tried guiding again but the stars were still moving across the guider too fast to maintain guiding. I called Fritz and he logged in. He determined the fiducials were too large to correct during slews. He manually corrected them and also ran the telescope up and down in Alt. This seemed to fix both problems. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PU04 S T/H 22:00 23:00 Alt motion errors ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:55 SPICAM 101( 820) 339 55 17.4 17.5 17.6 16.8 17.1 r 0.95 01:28 dis-slit 140( 524) -18 56 16.9 15.8 16.4 15.3 16.1 1.07 ------------- Weather LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 59 52 17 71 (ENE) mstly clr none 17:00 63 44 16 70 (ENE) mstly clr none 18:00 62 49 18 84 (E) mstly clr none 19:00 64 50 12 83 (E) mstly clr none 20:00 63 49 11 90 (E) mstly clr none 21:00 63 48 12 85 (E) mstly clr none 22:00 62 49 13 87 (E) mstly clr none 23:00 61 50 15 78 (ENE) mstly clr none 00:00 61 50 15 78 (ENE) mstly clr none 01:00 62 48 12 81 (E) mstly clr none 02:00 62 47 13 80 (E) mstly clr none 03:00 63 46 12 80 (E) cloudy none 04:00 63 44 13 81 (E) cloudy 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: 2.13.0 Current TUI version: 1.8.1