Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 13:34:27 -0000 (UTC) Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20140210 From: mcmillan@apo.nmsu.edu Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Monday, February 10, 2014 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- D.York D.York ECHELLE 18:20 18:50 ECHELLE 22:00 00:08 M.Eracleous J.Greene DIS 00:12 01:04 L.Hebb L.Hebb NICFPS 01:16 01:30 02:15 06:20 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ---------------------------------------------------------------- UC03/R 17:53 00:10 0 3.2 0 0 0.0 3.1 0 0 UW07/R 00:10 01:10 0 0 0 0 0.0 1.0 0 0 UW06/R 01:10 06:42 0 0.8 0 0 2.2 2.5 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan We didn't get the forecast snow, but we did struggle with clouds and there was precip to the north or south at verious points during the night. The clouds and precip were popping up in unexpected areas, making me nervous. After evening twilight I was barely able to focus through clouds and the observer got only a few minutes of data before the radar made me too worried and we closed. I stayed closed a little after the clouds thinned because I was worried about the weather behavior, but we got on sky again a few hours before midnight. During second half there was another period of medium clouds, not threatening but too thick for NICFPS, so I counted that period as unusable even though we remained open. Later we were able to get some data as the clouds eased up. I ran the new guider software all night, testing it with ecam, dcam, and gcam. This will set us up for more targeted testing during upcoming engineering. For about an hour second half (approximately 4 to 5 am), the remote observer kept losing her connection and had trouble reconnecting. Her internet connection to most of the world seemed all right, but she was having trouble loading some of the APO pages. Since this has happened to several observers in the last week, I had her do a traceroute to try to track the source of the problem. I ran some image sequences for her while her connection was broken, so effectively no time was lost. ------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19:03 dcamera 599( 47) 152 66 -4.6 -4.0 -3.4 -4.3 -4.9 - 1.28 22:08 ecamera 616( -544) 162 48 3.6 4.3 4.8 4.2 3.3 Clear 1.90 01:28 NICFPS 600( 889) -32 65 2.1 2.7 3.2 2.6 2.2 J 0.91 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 48 18 16 258 (WSW) 414 clear none 17:00 46 18 14 241 (WSW) 493 clear none 18:00 43 20 21 229 (SW) 1173 ptly cldy none 19:00 42 20 17 249 (WSW) 1057 mstly cldy none 20:00 40 20 11 261 (W) 775 cloudy none 21:00 40 20 13 266 (W) 1035 mstly cldy none 22:00 38 19 12 264 (W) 1605 ptly cldy none 23:00 39 18 11 0 (N) 1080 mstly clr none 00:00 38 19 14 25 (NNE) 1185 mstly clr none 01:00 37 19 3 346 (NNW) 872 ptly cldy none 02:00 36 20 8 6 (N) 849 ptly cldy none 03:00 35 21 10 15 (NNE) 591 mstly clr none 04:00 34 21 8 310 (NW) 707 mstly clr none 05:00 32 21 5 2 (N) 651 ptly cldy none 06:00 31 21 3 0 (N) 547 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