Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20171206 From: dembicky@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 11:38:35 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, December 06, 2017 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Bentz M.Bentz DIS --:-- --:-- D.Chojnowski D.Chojnowski ECHELLE 21:00 22:40 T.Murphy R.McMillan APOLLO --:-- --:-- K.Pan Z.Zhou ECHELLE --:-- --:-- INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ---------------------------------------------------------------- GS01/R 17:06 18:06 1.0 0 0 0 0.0 0.0 0 0 NM04/R 18:06 00:10 2.5 1.9 0 0 0.0 1.7 0 0 AP01/R 00:10 01:10 0 1.0 0 0 0.0 0.0 0 0 NM07/R 01:10 06:44 0 5.6 0 0 0.0 0.0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky Sky started clearing around 20:00, we had lots of wind and blowing surface level snow. I started ventilating to cool the inside and primary mirror (which were still above freezing, outside temps were -7C) At 20:45 I choose to wait until the primary was at least below freezing before I opened the 3.5m with the blowing snow. Wind gusts were also now around 33MPH. Outside temperature dropped significantly during the afternoon and we were at -9.0C by 20:45. Seeing was horrible at start, as expected with a NE wind and a cold front that just came in (plus telescope horribly out of thermal equilibrium) We were able to stay on sky for about 1 hour and 40 minutes before the humidity and wind again rose over closure limits. I did my instrument fills at 04:20 and we called it a night at 04:35. We had maybe a 1/10 of an inch of snow mostly just blowing around and very cold and windy. ------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21:08 ecamera 303(-1099) 173 65 -9.2 -4.9 -1.8 -5.4 -7.8 ND2 5.00 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 29 29 5 84 (E) cloudy lt snow 17:00 24 22 12 79 (E) cloudy humid 18:00 20 17 20 77 (ENE) cloudy humid 19:00 18 15 23 67 (ENE) cloudy humid 20:00 17 12 20 71 (ENE) mstly cldy humid 21:00 16 10 26 72 (ENE) 1204 mstly clr none 22:00 15 9 28 62 (ENE) mstly clr none 23:00 15 12 24 62 (ENE) ptly cldy humid 00:00 14 12 23 65 (ENE) cloudy lt snow 01:00 13 11 35 70 (ENE) cloudy humid 02:00 14 13 34 65 (ENE) cloudy humid 03:00 14 12 27 72 (ENE) cloudy humid 04:00 14 12 18 87 (E) cloudy humid 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: 1.2.4 Current TUI version: 2.6.0