Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20200912 From: mcmillan@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2020 13:06:14 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, September 12, 2020 PROG PI ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) -------------------------------------------------------------------- NM04 C.Churchill M.Croom,F.Hasan,B.Stemock DD02 J.Burchett R.McMillan NM02 D.DeColibus D.DeColibus ACTUAL PROG INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- NM04 DIS 21:08 00:20 DD02 ARCTIC 00:33 01:03 NM02 TripleSpec 01:18 06:38 PROG SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DTN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ----------------------------------------------------------------- NM04/R 19:21 00:20 1.8 0 0 0 3.2 0.0 0 0 DD02/R/D 00:20 01:10 0 0 0 0 0.8 0.0 0 0 NM02/R 01:10 06:38 0 0 0 0 1.1 4.3 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: R.McMillan At the start of the night we had this heavy white overcast. It wasn't visible on the satellite but I thought that just meant the clouds were close to the ground, close to the ground temperature. I did consider the possibility of smoke, but the small particle count at ground level was not that bad, and I couldn't smell anything, and I wasn't having trouble breathing. And the humidity was fairly high, not near the limit but high enough that I could believe stuff was condensing not too far overhead. So I thought it was low, warm clouds. But, no, when the sky got dark I could see a few stars. And Mars, in the position where Jupiter was supposed to be. Oh wait, that IS Jupiter, and something is making it very red. We might have it better than San Francisco, but it still isn't great for stargazing! So we opened under layers of stratospheric smoke. A nice big light bucket was able to cut through better than I expected, so the observations went fairly well. Seeing, and some high water-vapor clouds during second half, were bigger barriers than the smoke. The first half program elected to share some of their time with a time-sensitive program from the same institution. ------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21:16 dcamera 678( 1034) -61 69 10.2 12.6 12.6 12.0 10.6 - 1.79 00:43 arctic 653( 1077) 155 49 9.9 9.9 10.5 9.9 9.9 sdss_g 2.11 01:30 tcamera 481( 1086) 71 56 9.7 9.6 10.2 9.6 9.6 Ks 1.45 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 54 30 2 234 (SW) 1044 ptly cldy none 17:00 54 30 6 11 (N) 991 ptly cldy none 18:00 53 30 3 28 (NNE) 974 ptly cldy none 19:00 53 30 9 81 (E) 955 mstly clr none 20:00 52 30 16 79 (E) 1001 mstly clr none 21:00 51 30 21 77 (ENE) 1088 clear none 22:00 50 30 17 75 (ENE) 857 clear none 23:00 50 27 19 72 (ENE) 729 clear none 00:00 51 27 20 67 (ENE) 649 clear none 01:00 50 27 20 73 (ENE) 693 clear none 02:00 49 30 20 74 (ENE) 762 clear none 03:00 49 27 9 82 (E) 721 mstly clr none 04:00 48 30 21 75 (ENE) 821 ptly cldy none 05:00 49 30 14 88 (E) 890 ptly cldy none 06:00 48 30 21 76 (ENE) 944 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