Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20131218 From: dembicky@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2013 14:05:52 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, December 18, 2013 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Klaene J.Dembicky X 17:09 06:52 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ---------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/O 17:09 06:52 0 0 0 0 1.3 12.4 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky Running the trunk version of hub during checkout. - gcam showing stars in images, I used gcam replay off command to fix. - ecam not connected to hub, hub startNubs ecamera/ecam to fix, ecamera still not connecting. - everything else ran as expected I ran a set of long (20 min) darks for DIS, Echelle, and SPIcam. Note: The filenames state these are 5min, but the are actually 20 min darks (mistake from script for filename, fixed). Ran Echelle InterOrder light script. NA2 rotator was zero'ed last night so it was not done tonight. Reset az, alt, and rot controllers Tested new Agile startup wiki instrunctions, modified AgileSetup wiki page instructions. Agile powered down - Re-inventoried incoming comet filters lent to NSO a few weeks ago, updated database. To characterize the new gratings I ran a modified script that I use for taking my wavecals and flats for telescope throughput. This produced: 5 biases 5 BrQrtz @50s 1 He @60s 1 Ne @30s 1 Ar @90s /Throughput/dis/ xxx1200- B1200/R1200 gratings cals @4400/7300 xxx400 - B400/R300 gratings cals @4400/7500 xxx1000 - B1000/R300 gratings cals @4400/7500 B1000 @ Y=451 3888 - 346.218 5015 - 1865.44 ---- ------ 1127 1519.222 Pixel scale 1519.222pix / 1127A = 1.348 pix/A (0.742 A/pix) Under fairly cloudy conditions, but I think the threat of precip minimal, I opened the dome around 00:30 to try some dcam guiding tests for Fritz. Too cloudy at this point to try a pointing model. *** are items that are not working properly or failed testing. Telescope pointing NW First problem, dcam guider hung when I tried taking an exposure (it took 3 prior during my checkout). I issued a dcam replay off just to be sure that wasn't running. That didn't fix it. hub startNubs dcam, got immediate exposure failed error hub startNubs dcamera, then dcam, this fixed the problem. *** Star was ID in the dcam field as a suitabke guidestar, I did a center sel to put it on the boresight, and nothing. It also hung the dcamera again. Same fix as above to get dcam back. *** using the ctrl + click to select different stars, the X moves correctly to the star. Moving to the center sel button draws the arrow. Clicking it locks the guider. - double clicking stars does select them correctly. FIELD STAR GUIDING TESTS I then started guiding using field star guiding mode, and manually selecting a guide star. This seems to work correctly. I let it guide for 5-10 mins or so. I tweaked focus while it was guiding (forgot to focus DIS slit earlier). Guider worked fine while doing so. Changing exposure time, while guiding, also works correctly. A few frames, while guiding, the seeing blew up. Guiding worked fine, but FWHM reported was 0.0. *** Object Arc XY offsets +X worked fine, guider kept correct star, correct new position, and kept guiding. When I then issued a -X offset (to move back to original position, offsets were Rel), the guider turned off. It reported the telescope slewed. (08:03:00UT) *** Guider didn't seem to want to ID (green circle) some fairly obvious and bright stars, yet ID several fainter (smaller and maybe less bloated) stars. See dcam image 0072. It then ID the bright stars, after starting guiding. See dcam image 0073 Tried another -X offset and this time it worked. +X offset worked this time. I bounced back and forth in X several times to try to recreate the failure above. I couldn't break it again. BORESIGHT GUIDING TESTS Since the center sel button doesn't work, I manually centered star on boresight for boresight guiding tests. Guiding for 5-10 mins in boresight, seems to work fine. I then offset the object slightly from the boresight and restarted boresight guiding, to test to see if it would pull the star onto the boresight.after about 3 exposures the star was happily right on the boresight. I moved the star slightly around the boresight and it seemed to pull it back to the boresight fine. Next I moved the boresight while boresight guiding. This worked fine. Next I tried boresight guiding with a sub-framed image. Moved the boresight around and everything worked fine. MANUAL GUIDING Not much to test here. Started manual mode and then did some object XY offsets. Everything worked fine. Guider correctly turns off when I slew from the slew window. *** Next, to a transiting star to test how it handles possible star motions as a field transits. I used field star guiding for this tests and 5s exposures. See dcam frames 230-238 of the actuall transit. It lost the star during this time (09:07:11UT was the last successful image before it lost the star). Frame 248 ID a mysteery object (blank field) as a suitable guide star. I ran another transit to double check if it also lost the star during this track. See frames 260-275. This time it handled the transit fine. The star moved a little (see 270) but the guider pulled it back. Both test were at the same altitude. *** Testing transit with Horizon rotation and field star guiding. Again star was lost as it transited (09:36:41UT, image 308 & 309) Testing star with Horizon rotation and field star guiding (not transit). Star in NW part of sky. During this test I also ran the NA2 guider in manual mode. guiding on star not near boresight to maximize field rotation effect on guidestar. Next tested NA2 guider field star guiding (object rotation). Worked fine *** I noticed that, again, the NA2 guider also did not id bright obvious stars as suitable guide star candidates. See guider image 140, 276 Next tested NA2 guider field star guiding (Horizon rotation). Worked fine. Focus scripts ran fine for dcam. *** Focus script for gcam hung the guider camera when I did a find star (10:27UT). I did cancel a sweep just before this which may have contributed something to the problem, but it shouldn't have killed the gcamera. hub startNubs gcamera/gcam fixed problem. *** NA2 Guider Focus script seems to hang on trying to centroid star, it never returns back so I can start the focus sweep. Reverted back to tagged version of hub at this point, as I needed to do a pointing model and didn't want to have the trunk version causing problems. Ecam working again with tagged version. BIGGRID.DAT pointing model done. MOdel reduced and implemented. Checked pointing at NA2 after implementing model. First star looked good, Feige 67 (after a long az unwrap) was off a bit (left side of image). PG1708 was spot on, Feige34 was spot on. Re-checked Feige67, still off, maybe under slit but getting too bright and I didn't see it when I did an offset. Feige 66 was spot on. Checked pointing at NA1 after implementing model. Good (Feige 66) Feige 67 also not in Echelle, but nearby pointing ref star was almost dead on. B1000 grating left in DIS for Bill to further refine adjustments during the day. DIS also left mounted to NA2 port for this task. Tasks left to do for next engineering run: 4. Collimation -SH -agile? 7. B1000 grating (cloudy night, afternoon or if other tasks completed) -verify alignment 8. Check DIS cameras verses slit viewer focus 9. Throughput with DIS? (Jack do you still need more?) - Photometric ------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 00:47 dcamera 567( 468) 212 64 4.6 4.8 5.2 4.8 4.3 -- 1.0 03:25 dcamera 602( 445) 226 42 3.2 3.3 3.8 3.3 2.9 -- 1.50 03:44 NA2gdr -181(21818) 226 39 3.6 3.2 3.7 3.2 3.1 R+ND2 1.50 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 43 6 1 277 (W) 405 mstly cldy none 17:00 43 2 6 340 (NNW) 405 cloudy none 18:00 44 2 7 346 (NNW) 405 cloudy none 19:00 45 6 5 269 (W) 405 cloudy none 20:00 44 2 7 263 (W) 405 cloudy none 21:00 45 2 8 270 (W) 405 cloudy none 22:00 43 5 9 264 (W) 405 cloudy none 23:00 42 9 11 259 (W) 405 cloudy none 00:00 41 6 7 261 (W) 405 cloudy none 01:00 40 12 13 279 (W) 405 mstly cldy none 02:00 40 14 18 251 (WSW) 405 ptly cldy none 03:00 38 17 19 249 (WSW) 405 ptly cldy none 04:00 38 14 23 235 (SW) 405 ptly cldy none 05:00 37 14 19 266 (W) 405 ptly cldy none 06:00 37 14 16 264 (W) 405 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: 2.15.0 Current TUI version: 2.1.0