Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20241214 From: mcroom@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2024 13:10:39 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Saturday, December 14, 2024 PROG PI ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) -------------------------------------------------------------------- JH04 N.Oliveros-Gomez N.Oliveros-Gomez GS02 D.Gies P.Wysocki ON-SKY PROG INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- JH04 NICFPS 17:02 00:04 GS02 ECHELLE 00:12 05:30 PROG SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DTN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ----------------------------------------------------------------- JH04/R 17:07 00:10 0 0 0 0 0.0 7.1 0 0 GS02/R 00:10 06:50 0 0 0 0 0.0 6.7 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: M.Croom Many thanks to Russet for getting NICFPS session underway. I believe this was my second NICFPS session, and the first was many months ago and apparently with an expert observer. I am still on the learning curve for NIC, and it was very instructional to see the steps taken. Initially clear, the clouds increased mid way in A Half and persisted through most of B Half but they were thin enough to allow continuous data collection until near dawn. The bright clouds in proximity to the Moon forced us to skip some targets early on, and those targets were at too high an air mass once the clouds cleared away at dawn. We concluded science at 05:30. Around 03:00, dataq froze completely with red warning bands on the menu bar showing 100% capacities. The mouse and keyboard control commands were non-responsive. I tried resetting the stripchart-mac but that returned to the same frozen state. About an hour later, the strip charts started partially running again but the mouse was still inop. Being unsure how to proceed I left it in that condition. I found the correct MST-based focus logging widget and used it tonight. The remote observer on B Half had a hung echelle slitviewer. Quitting TUI and logging back in was the fix. He was running with: TUI 2.6.0 Windows-8-6.2.9200. ------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18:29 NICFPS 359( 1422) 113 71 6.0 5.7 5.8 5.2 5.4 MK-J 0.99 00:33 ecamera 337( -119) 14 72 6.8 5.3 6.0 5.3 5.8 ND1 0.67 ------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:00 47 0 20 292 (WNW) 295 clear none 17:00 42 -1 6 263 (W) 303 clear none 18:00 43 -1 12 291 (WNW) 466 clear none 19:00 42 4 8 283 (WNW) 907 mstly clr none 20:00 45 8 7 265 (W) 1195 ptly cldy none 21:00 45 10 6 258 (WSW) 983 mstly clr none 22:00 44 10 11 227 (SW) 927 ptly cldy none 23:00 43 11 10 214 (SW) 883 ptly cldy none 00:00 44 14 11 233 (SW) 488 ptly cldy none 01:00 44 18 10 236 (SW) 388 mstly cldy none 02:00 41 17 10 206 (SSW) 822 cloudy none 03:00 41 14 12 235 (SW) 598 mstly cldy none 04:00 40 12 13 280 (W) 657 mstly cldy none 05:00 40 14 14 279 (W) 642 mstly clr none 06:00 40 11 14 273 (W) 832 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: 3.1.5