Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 13:45:18 -0000 (UTC) Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20131026 From: mcmillan@apo.nmsu.edu Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, October 26, 2013 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- C.Gray C.Gray Echelle 18:35 19:28 B.Balick B.Balick,K.Kwitter DIS 19:30 05:20 T.Murphy R.McMillan APOLLO 05:25 07:00 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ---------------------------------------------------------------- NM06/O 18:26 19:26 0 0 0 0 1.0 0 0 0 UW05/R 19:26 06:24 0 0 0.3 0 4.8 5.9 0 0 UW11/O 06:24 07:09 0 0 0 0 0.0 0.8 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Heavy orographic clouds in the afternoon and ambiguous radar signals made me wait until sunset to open, but I judged the radar non-real and the clouds began to thin as the sun went away. So NM06 was able to get started with very little time loss, and Venus was mostly underneath the layer of clouds. While we were observing with DIS, the weather was fairly good (although seeing was initially bad and I was watching humidity closely). One 20-minute spectrum showed lines smearing during the exposure in the wavelength direction, in blue only but not red. The instrument was nearly upside-down at the time, and the likeliest explanation is that the blue grating shifted, but there are some mysteries about this. I counted the time of that exposure lost to equipment, and I will examine the mounting of the blue bay 2 grating tomorrow. There were a couple of other shifts later in the night, but they occured between exposures and did not smear lines, so I didn't count that as lost time. APOLLO had much worse difficulties in the morning and didn't get anything, but it was no fault of the telescope. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UW05 D I/H 23:00 23:20 grating shift? ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:41 dcamera 526( 528) 74 78 4.3 7.0 6.9 6.5 4.6 - 2.40 21:33 dcamera 726( 510) 136 75 2.9 2.7 3.1 2.7 2.7 - 1.50 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 48 29 5 81 (E) 258 mstly cldy lt rain 17:00 49 30 5 256 (WSW) 209 mstly cldy none 18:00 45 30 7 85 (E) 330 ptly cldy none 19:00 42 30 16 76 (ENE) 329 mstly clr none 20:00 40 30 13 65 (ENE) 424 clear none 21:00 17 76 (ENE) 545 clear none 22:00 37 32 19 76 (ENE) 605 clear none 23:00 37 32 12 78 (ENE) 616 clear none 00:00 39 30 6 59 (ENE) 497 clear none 01:00 41 29 2 157 (SSE) 409 mstly clr none 02:00 41 28 6 199 (SSW) 258 mstly clr none 03:00 41 28 5 189 (S) 291 mstly clr none 04:00 41 29 2 223 (SW) 315 mstly clr none 05:00 41 28 4 216 (SW) 282 mstly clr none 06:00 40 28 3 252 (WSW) 331 mstly clr 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: 2.1.0