Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20200227 From: mcmillan@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2020 13:37:46 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Thursday, February 27, 2020 PROG PI ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) -------------------------------------------------------------------- AP01 T.Murphy R.McMillan FG01 D.Buzasi D.Buzasi UW03 P.Szkody K.Bell ACTUAL PROG INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- AP01 APOLLO 18:01 19:02 FG01 ECHELLE 19:07 00:03 UW03 Agile 00:05 03:24 UW03 ARCTIC 03:32 03:50 UW03 Agile 03:52 06:12 PROG SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DTN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ----------------------------------------------------------------- AP01/W 18:07 19:07 0 0 0 0 0.0 1.0 0 0 FG01/R 19:07 00:10 0 0 0 0.1 2.4 2.6 0 0 UW03/R 00:10 06:24 0 0 0 0 6.2 0.0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan We struggled with high clouds for most of the night, sometimes bad enough to make data quality questionable but not so bad to make observers give up. Early in the night, there was a problem with altitude tracking downward around 71 deg. The wind was on the other side of the sky so the problem didn't originate with wind. I slewed up, down, and up, and had the observer approach the target from above. That worked fairly well, but I kept a close eye on the current for the remainder of the night. It was definitely happier tracking upward than downward. Second half, when the clouds were particularly annoying, we briefly tried a switch to ARCTIC to see if the higher sensitivity helped. It wasn't much improvement so we switched back to Agile. The Agile rotator did not give us any trouble, because we were careful to keep it in the happy zone between -45 to +45. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- FAILURE MODE TIME PROG INSTR TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FG01 E T/H 19:17 19:22 alt overcurrent, not wind-caused ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:06 APOLLO 650( 1424) -83 57 0.8 3.6 3.0 3.2 1.5 530 2.50 19:21 ecamera 393( -705) -57 73 -0.1 1.2 1.5 0.9 0.2 ND2 1.45 00:20 AGILE 443(-1790) 67 66 0.9 0.4 1.1 0.5 0.7 BG40 0.84 03:40 arctic 488( 465) 47 45 1.3 0.3 0.9 0.6 1.2 BG40 1.37 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 39 8 8 359 (N) 312 clear none 17:00 36 7 6 15 (NNE) 387 clear none 18:00 33 6 10 356 (N) 339 mstly clr none 19:00 32 5 15 41 (NE) 335 mstly clr none 20:00 32 3 8 10 (N) 314 mstly clr none 21:00 36 -2 24 17 (NNE) 395 mstly clr none 22:00 35 -1 19 12 (NNE) 407 ptly cldy none 23:00 34 -1 16 11 (N) 392 ptly cldy none 00:00 34 2 14 356 (N) 370 ptly cldy none 01:00 34 3 13 17 (NNE) 352 ptly cldy none 02:00 34 5 18 29 (NNE) 344 ptly cldy none 03:00 34 4 18 24 (NNE) 323 ptly cldy none 04:00 36 -2 21 31 (NNE) 321 ptly cldy none 05:00 36 -11 22 20 (NNE) 249 ptly cldy none 06:00 37 -8 16 28 (NNE) 167 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: 1.2.4 Current HUB version: v20171231_01 Current TUI version: 2.6.0