Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20201227 From: mcmillan@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2020 13:55:59 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Sunday, December 27, 2020 PROG PI ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) -------------------------------------------------------------------- OU01 J.Wisniewski G.Stefansson, A.Lin, S.Kanodia UW04 Z.Ivezic P.Yoachim EN01 B.Ketzeback R.McMillan WY02 M.Brotherton J.McLane ACTUAL PROG INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- OU01 ARCTIC 17:11 21:30 UW04 ARCTIC --:-- --:-- EN01 SHACK 02:30 03:15 WY02 TSPEC 03:35 06:30 PROG SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DTN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ----------------------------------------------------------------- OU01/R 17:14 00:10 0 2.7 0 0 0.0 4.2 0 0 UW04/R 00:10 02:20 0 2.2 0 0 0.0 0.0 0 0 EN01/W/D 02:20 03:30 0 0 0 0 0.0 1.2 0 0 WY02/R 03:30 06:56 0 0 0 0 1.1 2.4 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan Yet another night with an odd constellation of difficulties, but we finally found the root cause for several of the issues that have plagued us over the last week! It turned out one of our file systems was nearly full, and once this was addresssed the truss lamps problem, the guider problem, and tonight's new problem with the schedule parser all cleared up very quickly. It's hard to say whether the file system issue could have contributed to some of the NICFPS problems last night, but it may have added complications to underlying instrument moodiness. There was also a problem with our preferred weather service being taken down for yearly maintenance, which was not related to the APO file systems and did not clear up. We were able to use alternative weather applications but it was hard to be as comfortab;e about predicting the vagaries of the weather, which was vagaring a lot tonight. The first half program got very little usable data, and we closed partway through the evening when clouds got thicker and there were some nearby radar pings right before we had to switch to backup radar services. The clouds thinned somewhat around 2 am, but the observer said his primary targets had set and secondary targets would need long exposures in good conditions. He ceded the remainder of his time, and shortly after that the sky cleared up beautifully - I was expecting some improvement, but not that much. I took the opportunity for some pickup engineering, made an adjustment to collimation, and handed over to WY02 about an hour early. Of course the clouds reappeared soon after science resumed, but they weren't as thick as first half so a good number of photons were gathered anyway. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- FAILURE MODE TIME PROG INSTR TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17:30 arctic 477( 808) 163 54 4.7 7.9 7.5 7.5 5.6 Semrk 0.97 17:34 arctic 471( 791) 163 54 5.0 7.8 7.4 7.3 5.6 i 1.02 02:43 shack 475( 1127) 147 58 3.1 3.2 3.8 3.2 3.0 - 1.20 03:47 tcamera 446( 723) 135 46 3.5 2.5 3.5 3.0 3.4 Ks 1.52 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 48 1 7 258 (WSW) 175 ptly cldy none 17:00 41 -4 5 245 (WSW) 175 ptly cldy none 18:00 41 -3 7 251 (WSW) 138 ptly cldy none 19:00 39 -1 9 210 (SSW) 189 mstly cldy none 20:00 39 1 10 262 (W) 163 mstly cldy none 21:00 40 -4 16 265 (W) 155 mstly cldy none 22:00 42 -4 10 263 (W) 97 cloudy none 23:00 40 8 10 269 (W) 150 mstly cldy none 00:00 39 10 9 281 (W) 134 mstly cldy none 01:00 39 14 8 235 (SW) 213 ptly cldy none 02:00 39 17 12 251 (WSW) 213 mstly clr none 03:00 38 17 8 209 (SSW) 222 clear none 04:00 39 16 13 204 (SSW) 268 mstly clr none 05:00 38 15 13 234 (SW) 345 ptly cldy none 06:00 39 18 10 226 (SW) 249 ptly cldy 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 SOFTWARE ---------- Current TCC version: 1.4.2 Current HUB version: v20171231_01 Current TUI version: 2.6.0