Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20200620 From: mcmillan@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2020 12:13:33 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, June 20, 2020 PROG PI ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) -------------------------------------------------------------------- JH04 H.Reggiani H.Reggiani CU06 J.Bally J.Bally ACTUAL PROG INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- JH04 ECHELLE 20:30 01:02 CU06 ARCTIC 01:11 05:40 PROG SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DTN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ----------------------------------------------------------------- JH04/R 20:23 01:10 0 0 0 0 4.8 0.0 0 0 CU06/R 01:10 05:47 0 0 0.2 0 4.4 0.0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan A lovely clear night with good to excellent seeing. Everything was good at checkout (except NICFPS needed some love). Everything worked well for first half. And then... The second half observer found his ARCTIC biases were giving constant high-valued pixels, although it had been fine a few hours earlier. I experimented with changing binning and readout mode, but all quads were giving (different) constant values. So I did an arctic init, which restored three quads to good function but dropped the upper left quad to zero - not a problem, since the observer wanted LL readout mode. Then, on the first target (az -9, alt 28, tracking slowly downwards), the altitude axis began to oscillate and lose tracking. The motor current was close to -10 but did not trigger an overcurrent, so I stopped it myself. I slewed the telescope down to a lower altitude and had the observer slew to the target from below, which made the alt axis happier. After that, no more problems and a nice productive night! I even got to test the sky flat script in the morning, which is getting close to being ready for sharing. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- FAILURE MODE TIME PROG INSTR TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CU06 R I/H 01:03 01:11 ARCTIC constant pixel values, needed init CU06 R T/H 01:20 01:24 Alt oscillations, near overcurrent ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp Strc Prim Sec Air filt FWHM -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:34 ecamera 454( 217) 31 62 17.4 19.4 19.4 18.9 17.9 ND2 0.77 01:16 arctic UNM_657/3 1.15 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 69 25 13 328 (NNW) 579 clear none 17:00 70 27 16 273 (W) 787 clear none 18:00 70 28 11 255 (WSW) 566 clear none 19:00 69 24 6 264 (W) 774 clear none 20:00 64 20 7 256 (WSW) 840 clear none 21:00 62 19 6 207 (SSW) 859 clear none 22:00 63 21 16 218 (SW) 750 clear none 23:00 63 21 10 235 (SW) 501 clear none 00:00 63 20 10 258 (WSW) 485 clear none 01:00 63 19 7 260 (W) 548 clear none 02:00 62 20 7 255 (WSW) 593 clear none 03:00 61 20 11 261 (W) 729 clear none 04:00 62 20 8 253 (WSW) 871 clear none 05:00 61 20 6 257 (WSW) 908 clear none 06:00 60 20 6 262 (W) 1151 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 SOFTWARE ---------- Current TCC version: 1.2.4 Current HUB version: v20171231_01 Current TUI version: 2.6.0