Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20120611 From: dembicky@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2012 11:48:56 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Monday, June 11, 2012 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Strauss M.Strauss, P.Pattarakijwanich TSPEC 19:20 01:00 P.Gaulme P.Gaulme, J.McKeever Echelle 01:00 03:59 J.Wisniewski J.Wisniewski DIS 04:09 05:40 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ---------------------------------------------------------------- PU08/R 20:20 01:10 0 0 0 0 4.8 0.0 0 0 NM03/R 01:10 04:05 0 0 0 0 0.2 2.7 0 0 UW18/R 04:05 05:46 0 0 0 0 0.0 1.7 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky TSPEC jumped to a different guidestar while I was adjusting the radius mult value. See tspec slit image 102 & 103. Troubles again with TSPEC and guiding/drift, the new clamp was used to secure the instrument tonight. Az -5.3 Alt 75, telescope did not want to move well in Y direction using Obj XY offsets. My observer noticed this and had great difficulty getting the star on the boresight. I then tried, and found I had to put in several arc sec offset(s) to get the star to move a couple arc seconds as well. The telescope also wanted to drift in Y. The guider was having probles with drift even with 5s exposures. I slewed the telescope over a few magna sensors and the problem diminished but didn't quite go away. I also noticed that when I issued Object XY offsets, it both moved the star, but also moved the guide point even further. This was while guiding. The star also continued to drift down in Y while guiding (10s), as if the guide corrections were not quite enough to compensate. See tspec slit images 500-600. The instrument required a lot of babysitting to keep the star in the correct spot, even with the guider runnning. It was still having issues at Az -39.4, Alt 71.6, although it seemed a little better (not fixed) after I did the large slew across several magnasensors. I noted a couple 'large fiducial errors' on the Az drive when slewing. Here is a snipped of the TUI log where the guider was issuing a guide offset (but didn't seem quite enough to compensate for the correction). 05:50:05 PU08.Strauss.tcam 18684 tcc > Started; Cmd="offset guide 0.000107,-0.000034" 05:50:06 PU08.Strauss.tcam 18684 tcc I MoveItems="NNNNNNNYN"; Moved 05:50:06 PU08.Strauss.tcam 18684 tcc I GuideOff=-0.043488,0.000000,4846197075.95000,-0.011872,0.000000,4846197075.95000,0.000000,0.000000,4846197075.95000 05:50:06 PU08.Strauss.tcam 18684 tcc : 05:50:06 CmdDone: client-2772 18684 tcc offset guide 0.000107,-0.000034 05:50:06 PU08.Strauss 282 tcam w debug="telescopeHasMoved mode=field computed=False newField=False how=None" 05:50:06 PU08.Strauss 282 tcam i guideMode="field"; guideState="on","deferring" 05:50:06 PU08.Strauss 282 tcam w text="waiting 0.74s for offset to finish" Guiding started wotking better here (Az -49.7, Alt 68.8), same field as before and no slews otherwise. Only difference was the rotator had to unwrap during the last re-acquire of the field. It still looked like we had some drift, but the guider was able to handle it. I did a MS.dump at 07_05UT for both drives. The telescope had been guiding better at this point. GFP left mounted on telescope for daytime tests ------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19:24 TSPEC 423( 993) 48 62 17.7 20.9 20.2 20.2 18.3 Ks 1.00 00:08 ECHELLE 423( -447) 117 68 17.0 17.2 17.8 17.4 16.7 ND2 1.30 03:16 dis-slit 302( 455) 2 26 16.4 15.6 16.0 15.4 15.9 -- 1.66 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 73 32 15 225 (SW) 1141 ptly cldy none 17:00 74 32 14 232 (SW) 1045 mstly clr none 18:00 72 30 10 237 (WSW) 920 mstly clr none 19:00 70 27 13 225 (SW) 984 clear none 20:00 65 22 11 237 (WSW) 770 clear none 21:00 64 21 11 213 (SSW) 901 clear none 22:00 64 21 9 194 (SSW) 1061 clear none 23:00 64 21 9 218 (SW) 868 clear none 00:00 64 21 8 224 (SW) 828 clear none 01:00 64 21 7 254 (WSW) 706 clear none 02:00 62 18 6 190 (S) 802 clear none 03:00 62 20 6 192 (SSW) 1253 clear none 04:00 63 22 8 229 (SW) 1886 clear none 05:00 63 20 9 251 (WSW) 1531 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: 2.15.0 Current TUI version: 1.9.5