Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20250912 From: cgray@apo.nmsu.edu Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2025 11:13:20 +0000 (UTC) Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Friday, September 12, 2025 PROG PI ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) -------------------------------------------------------------------- UW10 S.Hawley S.Hawley AP02 S.Merkowitz R.McMillan ON-SKY PROG INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- UW10 ECHELLE --:-- --:-- AP02 APOLLO --:-- --:-- PROG SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS NOT USED I/ROW/DTN START FINISH D B D B D B D B ----------------------------------------------------------------- UW10/R 19:21 01:10 3.0 2.8 0 0 0 0 0 0 AP02/R 01:10 06:37 0.0 5.4 0 0 0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: C.Gray - dataq and alcor needed a restart during checkout - I gave a dome tour to the NMSU class this afternoon but, as we didn't have guest wifi, we did not run through TUI training. - During the tour we had an interesting arctic issue. When arctic was rotated upside down, it looks like the electronics box became unhinged due to a small umbilical working loose of its collar. I told Cary and he fixed it lickity-split. I took arctic biases and flats and saw no issues. I didn't think the rain was going to come until tomorrow but it was cloudy even before the class arrived. It started raining at 7:30 and was off and on with fog all night. We were not able to open and it looks like there won't be much hope for tomorrow. Even more exciting, we had some lost army guys arrive on site. A squad from Fort Bliss was assigned to high Dog Canyon up to I believe Sunspot and meet up with their commander. However, there was no signal and the commanders could communicate with the squad and...became lost. So, we had two army guys come in the building to call Fort Bliss for help. It would seem that whoever assigned the hike did not account for the altitude gain, weather, moon phase, and lack of signal. I believe they made it offsite around 9pm. And learned a hard lesson about altitude. ------- 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 65 44 6 170 (S) 549 mstly cldy none 17:00 65 44 19 203 (SSW) 471 mstly cldy none 18:00 63 46 7 191 (S) 534 mstly cldy none 19:00 61 46 17 149 (SSE) 590 cloudy lt rain 20:00 59 47 15 118 (ESE) 776 cloudy rain 21:00 53 51 3 247 (WSW) cloudy rain 22:00 51 49 15 179 (S) cloudy fog 23:00 54 50 19 161 (SSE) cloudy humid 00:00 53 48 17 184 (S) mstly cldy humid 01:00 53 50 11 195 (SSW) cloudy none 02:00 53 50 14 183 (S) cloudy none 03:00 53 50 10 226 (SW) mstly cldy rain 04:00 50 51 6 199 (SSW) mstly cldy none 05:00 52 50 15 193 (SSW) mstly cldy lt rain 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: 3.1.8