Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20140418 From: dembicky@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 11:08:13 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Friday, April 18, 2014 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Klaene J.Dembicky, R.McMillan X 19:44 06:20 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ---------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/O 19:44 06:20 0 0 0 0 3.5 7.2 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky In dome pointing models to excercise the drives and look for problems. The drives worked much better today with no overcurrents. Power dropped at 21:33, luckily the pointing model had just finished a few mins earlier Russet noted some large magnasensor corrections. She thought they were in the downward slew direction. After the 2nd in dome pointing model Russed had me adjust the DIS blue camera focus. Resumed in dome pointing models for the remainder of the night. Sky cleared around 03:40, from the looks of things it may not last more than 1 hr so I opted to do a smaller pointing model. Pointing was really bad. At first I thought it was clouds, but I couldn't find stars where there were no clouds. I checked against the APOLLO Bright star catalog to see what was going on. Nothing in the guider so I switched to DIS slitviewer (DIS was mounted) and of course thick clouds rolled in. I closed, filled the instruments, mounted spicam, then checked the weather. Still clouds but less threatening and I could see more stars now. I could see Alpha Cyg in SPIcam (whew), hopefully it was just clouds. Switched to the NA2 guider and star appeared in the LR corneer of the image. I tried a smaller pointing model, since I was running out of time. This failed as the stars were just off the lower right edge of the frame (see g0556, which just happened to be in the frame). Clouds, radar returns and threatening weather necessatated that I close. WIth it now cloudy, radar returns heading this way, and a large cloud mass looming to our SW heading in this direction I closed and called it a night at 05:00 I ran 4 biggrid in dome pointing models (biggrid.dat and biggrid2.dat) tonight with no problems other than magnasensor errors. ------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03:49 GUIDER 423( 595) 171 62 6.3 7.2 8.7 6.9 6.1 R 1.30 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 57 21 15 211 (SSW) 1905 cloudy none 17:00 53 21 9 219 (SW) 1795 cloudy none 18:00 51 27 15 149 (SSE) 2872 cloudy none 19:00 49 29 16 125 (SE) 2901 cloudy none 20:00 49 30 16 136 (SE) 2717 cloudy lt rain 21:00 42 32 20 241 (WSW) 3611 cloudy none 22:00 43 32 22 137 (SE) 2189 cloudy none 23:00 45 32 20 150 (SSE) 2269 cloudy none 00:00 46 31 22 157 (SSE) 1880 cloudy none 01:00 42 32 22 146 (SE) 2236 cloudy none 02:00 43 31 12 150 (SSE) 1989 cloudy none 03:00 43 31 15 143 (SE) 1704 cloudy none 04:00 43 31 5 116 (ESE) 1274 mstly cldy none 05:00 42 31 6 178 (S) 1299 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: 2.15.0 Current TUI version: 2.2.0