Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20230719 From: cgray@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2023 10:10:10 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, July 19, 2023 PROG PI ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) -------------------------------------------------------------------- GS01 D.Michael M.Crenshaw and class UW05 K.Suberlak K.Suberlak ON-SKY PROG INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- GS01 eyepiece 23:45 00:10 UW05 KOSMOS --:-- --:-- PROG SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DTN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ----------------------------------------------------------------- GS01/R 20:19 01:10 2.9 1.6 0 0 0.4 0.0 0 0 UW05/R 01:10 06:00 4.8 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: A.Townsend & C.Gray Well, tonight was an exciting night, that's for sure. Should I start with the bats or the fire? The bats. It would seem that we have quite a number of bats who are starting to call our dome home. Bill said he released about 50 this morning. After I did fills in the afternoon and turned the lights off, we saw them swarming in the dome, so they probably came in through the louvers. We released them again and kept the louvers shut for the rest of the night. Mostly because of the fire. Around 6pm we got a call from Ben telling us there was smoke nearby. A fire seems to have started 3-5 miles away due to lightning strike. There were some flare ups shortly after sunset and we saw ash falling. However, things seem to calm down. Particle counts and wind stayed nice and low and we decided to open shortly before midnight. Then the wind shifted. We closed as soon as the shift occurred. The 0.3um particles spiked up to ~25K and the smoke was very strong. The particle counts stayed high and, at 2:30am, UW05 threw in the towel as they wouldn't have enough time to do their science. By 4:00am the smoke was still strong and we can continue to see the glow of the fire to the ESE. However, the fire doesn't seem to be getting worse. I guess we'll see what tomorrow brings. I left the dome parked to the east with the hope that less smoke would be pulled into the dome. Louvers were left closed and only the Press fans are on. DIS Temps checkout: 199, 191 20:05 198, 193 21:43 199, 192 23:04 199, 191 03:30 200, 188 ------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 79 39 5 183 (S) 1727 mstly cldy none 17:00 78 38 5 253 (WSW) 1700 mstly cldy none 18:00 78 39 1 169 (S) 1738 mstly cldy none 19:00 77 35 1 225 (SW) 1564 mstly cldy none 20:00 76 34 4 271 (W) 1369 mstly cldy none 21:00 73 38 3 25 (NNE) 3327 ptly cldy none 22:00 72 38 14 77 (ENE) 2940 ptly cldy none 23:00 72 36 14 81 (E) 2148 mstly clr none 00:00 68 35 14 115 (ESE) 2601 mstly clr dust 01:00 70 35 14 128 (SE) 7243 mstly clr none 02:00 71 34 11 142 (SE) 6002 mstly clr none 03:00 71 34 11 138 (SE) 13881 clear none 04:00 70 34 12 136 (SE) 5355 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: 1.4.2 Current HUB version: v20171231_01 Current TUI version: a>