Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20180419 From: mcmillan@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2018 11:17:29 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, April 19, 2018 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- T.Murphy R.McMillan,T.Murphy APOLLO 19:45 20:02 B.Bolin B.Bolin DIS 23:05 01:06 C.Kobulnicky C.Kobulnicky DIS 02:35 03:00 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ---------------------------------------------------------------- AP01/R 19:45 20:45 0 0.7 0 0 0.0 0.3 0 0 UW04/R 20:45 01:10 0 2.4 0 0 1.4 0.6 0 0 WY03/R 01:10 06:19 4.7 0 0 0 0.4 0.0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Volatile weather tonight with everything borderline at various times. Each program got a chance to gather some photons in defiance of some condition, with varying success. APOLLO got 15 minutes on sky with a rain cloud advancing across the basin. Seeing was poor but not awful, but we couldn't zero in on any returns before the clouds arrived and we had to close. The big bad storm loomed over us, yelled BOO! and then dissipated after spitting about three raindrops. While that storm and the next one were moving off, we had borderline dust (not really bad for April) and moderate humidity (uncommon for April) and gusty east winds (definitely atypical). I watched the dust come down and eventually decided it was okay to try again. UW04 got a couple of hours to observe western targets in pretty bad seeing. Some of the spectra appeared viable, but the tracking was rather bouncy. Right about at the changeover the wind spiked, and then when it came down the humidity went up and we could see banks of low clouds to the east. When those clouds backed off, WY03 tried one target while the telescope was still warm, but horrible seeing really cut down the S:N. When we closed the humidity went down but the wind went back up again. And so it goes. Both of the TSL dewpoint sensors were reading significantly lower humidity than the two Optidews; the enclosure hygrometer split the difference between them. I thought the Optidews were probably more correct since the TSLs often have trouble with dewpoints above freezing, although not usually both of them at the same time. ------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23:07 dcamera 350( 467) -130 72 7.3 8.3 9.5 8.3 7.5 - 3.50 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 51 24 11 107 (ESE) 3434 mstly cldy none 17:00 50 25 24 123 (ESE) 3542 ptly cldy none 18:00 51 27 17 128 (SE) 4314 mstly clr none 19:00 49 28 20 87 (E) 4923 mstly clr none 20:00 46 28 18 114 (ESE) 5423 ptly cldy lt rain 21:00 47 29 28 127 (SE) 5265 mstly cldy dust 22:00 45 30 23 132 (SE) 4586 ptly cldy none 23:00 47 31 27 126 (SE) 3575 ptly cldy none 00:00 45 31 28 133 (SE) 3179 ptly cldy none 01:00 44 31 31 132 (SE) 3057 ptly cldy none 02:00 43 32 27 143 (SE) 2579 mstly clr none 03:00 43 31 25 155 (SSE) mstly clr humid 04:00 48 31 30 207 (SSW) 2510 mstly clr humid 05:00 47 31 24 183 (S) 2671 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: 1.2.4 Current TUI version: 2.6.0