Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20180920 From: mcmillan@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2018 12:38:34 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, September 20, 2018 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- D.Chojnowski D.Chojnowski ECHELLE --:-- --:-- K.Pan H.Yan ECHELLE 21:10 22:10 J.Jackiewicz J.McKeever ECHELLE 22:10 00:05 T.Murphy R.McMillan APOLLO 00:08 01:08 S.Lepine N.Hejazi ECHELLE 01:15 06:10 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ---------------------------------------------------------------- NM02/R 19:11 19:51 0 0.7 0 0 0.0 0.0 0 0 NM05/R 19:51 22:10 0 1.3 0 0 0.0 1.0 0 0 NM01/R 22:10 00:10 0 0 0 0 0.0 2.0 0 0 AP01/W 00:10 01:10 0 0 0 0 0.0 1.0 0 0 GS03/R 01:10 06:42 0 0 0 0 2.9 2.5 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan At the beginning of the night, we had clouds and nearby rain, but the edge of the system was about to reach us. We had high humidity and one of our dewpoint sensors (the one logged below) was frozen over, but the others agreed. Sooner than forecast, the humidity did begin to drop, and the other three dewpoint sensors disagreed about how quickly it was coming down but eventually they all said it was safe. Unfortunately the wind, not noted in the forecast, was now pretty strong from the north east, which was where NM05's targets were. I opened, focused out of the wind, and then moved the telescope close to the wind to see how it looked. The motors and mirror were doing all right so I let NM05 start observing. The wind did get stronger, however, until I thought it was important to move away. So the telescope was handed over early to the next program which had targets on the west side of the meridian. The telescope was happier there, but the wind continued to rise and danced around at the limit for a while, but it wasn't so high that we needed to close regardless of direction, and it was sufficient to just make sure we weren't pointing into it. Finally, after APOLLO got some good data, the wind dropped and all conditions were good. ------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:50 ecamera 486( -85) 142 42 10.8 11.1 11.8 11.1 11.2 ND2 1.28 23:19 APOLLO 550( 1767) 324 31 11.8 11.7 12.1 11.7 11.8 530 1.50 00:22 ecamera 550( -20) 219 59 11.8 11.4 11.9 11.4 11.8 ND3 1.12 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 50 31 7 332 (NNW) cloudy humid 17:00 51 31 7 306 (NW) cloudy humid 18:00 49 30 6 357 (N) cloudy humid 19:00 49 30 11 22 (NNE) mstly cldy humid 20:00 50 30 21 9 (N) mstly cldy humid 21:00 51 31 24 23 (NNE) ptly cldy none 22:00 52 31 25 41 (NE) 587 mstly clr none 23:00 54 30 23 20 (NNE) 403 clear none 00:00 54 31 17 8 (N) 304 clear none 01:00 53 31 12 20 (NNE) 334 clear none 02:00 53 30 9 0 (N) 326 clear none 03:00 53 30 17 11 (N) 281 clear none 04:00 53 30 16 21 (NNE) 278 clear none 05:00 53 31 11 20 (NNE) 297 clear none 06:00 53 31 16 61 (ENE) 280 clear 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