Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20190905 From: dembicky@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2019 11:42:02 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, September 05, 2019 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- M.Varakian M.Varakian TSPEC 20:38 01:00 J.Hughes J.Hughes ARCTIC 01:10 05:23 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ---------------------------------------------------------------- NM01/R 19:31 01:10 0 0.8 0 0 1.0 3.8 0 0 SU01/R 01:10 06:33 1.1 0 0 0 4.3 0.0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Dembicky Cirrus clouds overhead at sunset but we were able to open once the observer finished their dome cals. NA2 rotator failed (motion error 02:16) during slew @ -88.5 deg rotation 2019-09-06 02:16:45 .tcc.0 0 tcc w BadRotStatus; RotStat=-147.581167,21.032660,5074453005.65000,0x20006801; RotDTime=0.08 Axis init fixed the issue. Next major slew and NA2 rotator failed again. (Actually this was a rot none commanded move, so maybe that was the issue? still I got a BadRotStatus). 2019-09-06 02:18:31 .tcc.0 0 tcc w BadRotStatus; RotStat=-88.500833,0.000000,5074453111.00000,0x00002801; RotDTime=0.10 Another axis init rot fixed this problem. The reason for the slews was I was not able to see a star to use for focus in the TSPEC slitviewer. We had some clouds so I assumed that may have been part of the reason. I slewed to brighter and brighter stars until I went to Vega and could not see that (I could visually see it outside). This indicated another issue. A call to Russet (for sanity checks) and a slew down (after closing the mirror covers) to see if I could indeed see the eyelid open/close, which I could after the slew). I then slewed back to Vega and it was nice and bright in the NA2 guider and then as well in TSPEC slitviewer. I checked the eyelids earlier (via camera) and they appeared to cycle properly, but I never cycled the mirror covers. Russets thoughts were it is possible the outer eyelid did not engage properly with the cam mechanism on the inner eyelid. Apollo has this issue but this is the first possible instance we have seen with NA2. After about 50 minutes of diagnosing and dealing with the issue I was finally able to focus the telescope and all appears well. Clouds grew progessively worse during 2nd half and finally pretty much made observing useless and we called it at 05:23. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEDFNVOG) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NM01 T T/H 19:52 20:38 NA2 eyelid apparently did not fully open. Cycled covers fixed issue. ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:46 tcamera 419( 1198) 181 74 14.3 16.7 16.5 16.1 14.6 Ks 1.18 22:06 tcamera 510( 1207) 18 47 13.7 14.6 15.0 14.2 14.2 Ks 1.55 01:17 arctic 453( 1061) -83 72 15.2 14.1 14.7 14.2 14.7 JC_V 0.82 01:20 NA2gdr 39(37039) -84 72 15.3 14.1 14.7 14.2 14.7 clear 0.92 01:37 arctic 450( 1078) 9 41 15.1 14.1 14.8 14.2 14.4 Wash-C 1.60 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 67 43 15 235 (SW) 324 mstly cldy none 17:00 65 44 8 216 (SW) 304 mstly cldy none 18:00 64 44 7 216 (SW) 325 mstly cldy none 19:00 61 44 4 231 (SW) 303 ptly cldy none 20:00 59 44 5 189 (S) 315 ptly cldy none 21:00 58 45 9 175 (S) 290 ptly cldy none 22:00 57 45 8 181 (S) 292 ptly cldy none 23:00 58 45 8 184 (S) 309 ptly cldy none 00:00 57 44 6 180 (S) 284 mstly clr none 01:00 59 43 2 245 (WSW) 307 mstly cldy none 02:00 59 44 3 257 (WSW) 235 mstly cldy none 03:00 59 44 4 273 (W) 261 mstly cldy none 04:00 59 45 5 302 (WNW) 260 mstly cldy none 05:00 58 45 6 332 (NNW) 300 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: 1.2.4 Current TUI version: 2.6.0