APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY SDSS 2.5M OBSERVING LOG Friday December 21, 2001 (MJD 52265) ---=== OBSERVING TEAM ===--- Swing: Scot Kleinman Night: Jurek Krzesinski, Pete Newman Support: Jon Brinkman (by phone from Missouri) ---=== OBSERVING PLAN ===--- Science with the usual priorities. ---=== OBSERVING SUMMARY ===--- Wind and dust kept us closed until 07:30 UT. Very bad seeing made for very slow progress on spectroscopy. Secondary mirror actuator A ran slow again (another cold night). Clouds arrived at 10:30UT before we finished one plate. Sky camera required two refills. Not a good night. ---=== OBSERVING LOG ===--- High winds and very high dust levels at sunset kept us closed. The sky camera was opened at 01:30 UT when the dust counts dropped to ~6000/0.1 cu.ft. Dust dropped below limits for opening about 03:00 UT but wind gusts > 35 mph continued. About 03:10 UT, CCD3 gave a vrd2 glitch, dropping to 12.3V (nominal 14V+-0.6), then returned to nominal. At 06:00 UT, we went to open as both wind and dust had subsided. However, as we were opening, Jurek noticed fine blowing snow in the air (wind was about 20mph from ENE), so we decided to remain closed until the wind dropped further. This time was logged as 'high wind'. At 07:30 UT, conditions were good enough to open, but the 3.5m observers were still reporting bad seeing, so we started with spectroscopy. At 08:35 UT, secondary actuator A started running slow again. See notes for plate 761 below and problem section #1 for details. PR 2789 updated. At 09:39 UT, during a spectro exposure, we saw the az fiducial error get too large to correct. See problems section #2 for details. This corrected itself on the next slew. Heavy cloud moved in rapidly around 10:30 UT and looked solid on radar, so we closed. The sky camera warmed up twice tonight. First filled at 01:30UT, refilled at 06:30UT, then again at 11:30 UT, so we seem to be getting ~5hrs (with ambient T=-7C). Observing sequence: UT 08:03 Plate 761, cartridge 1. Not completed in 3 exposures. During the second exposure, secondary mirror actuator A started running very slowly again during a small (-0.005) scale change issued at 08:35, losing guide stars. See problems section #1. That exposure was aborted. We waited ~25 minutes for the actuator to catch up, saw the guide stars return, then continued with another exposure. When this actuator failed in the past, it had taken ~3 hours to dismantle and replace. At the time this failed, twilight was only 3.5hr away, so we decided to just log the waiting time to hardware problems and continue science as much as we could. The rate of gaining S/N was very low in any case due to continued poor seeing. Between the second and third good exposures, we again needed a scale change, but found a way to speed up the process. By watching the Heidenhain encoder values in TPM, we could see when the Galil motor stopped without reaching the commanded position. When it stopped, we issued a TCC 'proc enable collimate' command which woke up the collimate process immediately and nudged the actuator closer to it's target position. We think we finished the second scale change in about 6 minutes instead of the estimated 10-11 minutes it would have taken on its own. This cheat will be folklored. Seeing remained poor, however we were unable to run guiderFocusLoop because of the actuator delays. ---=== IMAGING RUN SUMMARY ===--- Run Stripe Flavor Lambda Last Begin End Frame Comments ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2838 100 O ignore 145.46 148.73 36 doghouse bias ---=== IMAGING RUN DETAILS ===--- ---=== SKIPPY RESULTS ===--- Run Frame nFrames stars muErr muRms nuErr nuRms rot --------------------------------------------------------------- ---=== LTMATCH RESULTS ===--- Run Field nFields nGood rowMean rowSig colMean colSig rot --------------------------------------------------------------- ---=== SPECTROSCOPY DATA SUMMARY ===--- UT Exp Time flavor comment (S/N)^2 totals ========================================== b1 r1 b2 r2 ----- sequence 12364, plate -9999 ------- 23:16 12364 0.0 bias 23:20 12365 0.0 bias ----- sequence 12366, plate 761 ------- 10.9 2.9 8.7 7.0 08:05 12366 10.0 flat 08:07 12367 2.0 arc 08:36 12368 1501.0 target 09:32 12369 1501.0 target 10:17 12370 1800.0 target 10:30 12371 10.0 flat 10:32 12372 2.0 arc ---=== TELESCOPE OFFSETS AND SCALE I ===--- Time Instrument getclock Az Alt Rot Scale ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 01:37 1 761 1009010246 -0.005752 -0.001096 -0.006882 1.000030 ---=== TELESCOPE OFFSETS AND SCALE II ===--- ---=== DATA TAPE SUMMARY ===--- Goes: JL4834 Stays: JL4835 ---=== FOCUS LOG ===--- setmir piston Temp Wind Time Inst scale M1 M2 Foc Az Alt (C) MPH Dir filt fwhm ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 01:37 1 761 1.00003 -295 996 200 138 76.6 -7.3 14 16 -- 3.0 ---=== WEATHER LOG ===--- Wind Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust DIMM Sky 16:15 39 10 34 224 (SW) 7841 - Clear 16:47 38 2 27 253 (WSW) 23334 - " 17:19 37 -1 23 261 (W) 13457 - " 17:51 31 10 24 261 (W) 7912 - " 18:24 30 9 22 273 (W) 5725 - " 18:56 29 7 25 275 (W) 3023 - " 19:29 26 5 18 291 (WNW) 4590 - " 20:00 26 1 34 286 (WNW) 1285 - " 20:33 27 -5 34 291 (WNW) 1984 - " 21:06 25 -10 32 291 (WNW) 635 - " 21:37 23 -7 15 304 (NW) 1174 - " 22:07 22 -1 26 304 (NW) 214 - " 22:37 21 -1 25 296 (WNW) 164 - " 23:08 21 -1 23 289 (WNW) 115 - " 23:41 20 0 18 297 (WNW) 580 - " 00:14 19 2 12 307 (NW) 391 - " 00:46 19 4 11 332 (NNW) 148 - " 01:18 19 6 14 19 (NNE) 115 - " 01:49 18 7 10 27 (NNE) 182 - " 02:19 19 5 14 10 (N) 120 - " 02:49 19 5 12 307 (NW) 123 - " 03:19 19 2 14 316 (NW) 92 - Thin cloud 03:52 19 2 18 18 (NNE) 96 - Thick cloud 04:26 18 4 8 30 (NNE) 110 - " 04:56 18 7 19 22 (NNE) 93 - " ---=== TELESCOPE STATUS ===--- UT 06:00 Fans on, east door opened (west stayed closed due to blowing fine snow). 07:30 Enclosure off 10:55 Enclosure on, fans off. Status at end of night 04:20 MST / 11:20 UT: Telescope stowed at: 30 deg Instrument mounted: Cartridge 1 Counterweights at: 270 Autofill systems: On 180L LN2 dewar weights: Spectro 223 lb Imager 270 lb Interlocks bypassed: Slip detectio, building motion, roll-up door kick-back. ---=== SOFTWARE USED ===--- IOP/SOP: v3_64_3a Watcher: v2_13_2 MCP: v5_8_5 TPM: v2_4_5 AstroDa: v14_40 TCC: 2.5.5 sdssProcedures: v1_34 ---=== MIRROR NUMBERS ===--- PRIMARY: -------- Scale: 1.000000 MIGS TONIGHT NOMINAL Axial A 0.0770 0.0750 Axial B 0.8030 0.8020 Axial C 0.0750 0.0710 Trans D -1.4950 -1.4860 Lateral E 1.8560 1.8540 Lateral F 1.4230 1.4240 GALILS Commanded: 5400. -3700. 900. -200. 31550. 30650. Actual: 5400. -3700. 900. -200. 31550. 30650. SETMIR VALUES PriDesOrient: 0.00 -11.80 23.00 1256.90 642.10 PriOrient: 0.00 -12.16 22.81 1257.41 642.19 SECONDARY: ---------- Focus: 0.00 Air Temp.: 3.6 Alt.: 29.984557 MIGS TONIGHT NOMINAL Axial A 1.5470 1.5500 Axial B 1.2300 1.2260 Axial C 1.2460 1.2480 Trans D 0.2250 0.2320 GALILS Commanded: 1599592. 1566200. 1586320. -10400. -9750. Actual: 1599600. 1565250. 1586350. -10400. -9750. SETMIR VALUES SecDesOrient: 1257.00 -3.40 -10.00 0.00 133.82 SecOrient: 1257.23 -3.17 -9.74 -0.07 133.55 ---=== PROBLEMS IN DETAIL ===--- Problem #1 - Secondary mirror actuator A At about 08:35UT, we lost guide stars during a scale change. A TCC mir stat command at 08:40UT showed secondary actuator A lagging significantly behind the B and C . Here are extracts from TCC 'mir stat' output: 0 14 I SecCmdMount=1376950., 1347700., 1343950., 1550., 2200. 0 14 I SecActMount=1129899., 1352072., 1340702., 1550., 2200. At 08:43 UT, it was catching up slowly: 0 14 I SecCmdMount=1376300., 1347150., 1343150., 1700., 2300. 0 14 I SecActMount=1200671., 1349943., 1340727., 1700., 2300. At 08:46: 0 14 I SecCmdMount=1375950., 1346800., 1342600., 1750., 2400. 0 14 I SecActMount=1237023., 1349187., 1340620., 1750., 2400. At 08:50 UT 0 14 I SecCmdMount=1375400., 1346300., 1341900., 1900., 2500. 0 14 I SecActMount=1280475., 1348091., 1340481., 1900., 2500. At 08:53UT 0 14 I SecCmdMount=1374800., 1345750., 1341050., 2050., 2650. 0 14 I SecActMount=1320128., 1346913., 1339958., 2050., 2650. At 08:58 UT 0 14 I SecCmdMount=1374300., 1345300., 1340350., 2150., 2800. 0 14 I SecActMount=1347744., 1345961., 1339555., 2150., 2800. About here, the guide stars re-appeared. At 09:03 UT, it had caught up: 0 14 I SecCmdMount=1373700., 1344750., 1339500., 2300., 2950. 0 14 I SecActMount=1373552., 1345029., 1339001., 2300., 2950. ------------------------------------------------------- Problem #2 - Az fiducial too large to correct During a spectro exposure, we saw the azimuth fiducial error grow too large to correct. The temperature was -7.4C. The error corrected itself during the next slew to az=120. Incidentally, it missed the az=121 fiducial completely. Below are the messages from a tLatch section of murmur (az entries only): 02:13:20 dsc_I_trcInfo az fiducial 165.88 deg 02:13:20 dsc_I_trcInfo err = 243 poserr = -319 ticks 02:26:23 dsc_I_trcInfo azimuth: took 2 attempts to read MEI latch status 02:26:23 dsc_I_trcInfo az fiducial 180.51 deg 02:26:23 dsc_I_trcInfo err = -17 poserr = -450 ticks 02:39:53 dsc_I_trcInfo az fiducial 195.50 deg 02:39:53 dsc_I_trcInfo err = -408 poserr = -760 ticks 02:56:07 dsc_I_trcInfo az fiducial 210.48 deg 02:56:07 dsc_I_trcInfo err = -224 poserr = -664 ticks 03:21:08 dsc_I_trcInfo az fiducial 225.51 deg 03:21:08 dsc_I_trcInfo err = 5722 poserr = -776 ticks 03:50:13 dsc_I_trcInfo azimuth MS.ON 03:50:13 dsc_I_trcInfo Applying correction 776 to azimuth 03:50:13 dsc_E_trcErr correction for azimuth 776 is too large 03:50:13 dsc_W_trcWarn Not disabling MS.ON; error 776 (max allowed: 600) 03:50:26 dsc_I_trcInfo az fiducial 225.51 deg 03:50:26 dsc_I_trcInfo err = 209 poserr = -567 ticks 03:50:26 dsc_I_trcInfo Applying correction 567 to azimuth 03:50:33 dsc_I_trcInfo az fiducial 210.49 deg 03:50:34 dsc_I_trcInfo err = 211 poserr = 114 ticks 03:50:34 dsc_I_trcInfo Applying correction -114 to azimuth 03:50:41 dsc_I_trcInfo az fiducial 195.51 deg 03:50:41 dsc_I_trcInfo err = 438 poserr = 131 ticks 03:50:41 dsc_I_trcInfo Applying correction -131 to azimuth 03:50:49 dsc_I_trcInfo az fiducial 180.51 deg 03:50:49 dsc_I_trcInfo err = 103 poserr = -25 ticks 03:50:49 dsc_I_trcInfo Applying correction 25 to azimuth 03:50:56 dsc_I_trcInfo azimuth: took 2 attempts to read MEI latch status 03:50:56 dsc_I_trcInfo az fiducial 165.88 deg 03:50:56 dsc_I_trcInfo err = 136 poserr = 164 ticks 03:50:56 dsc_I_trcInfo Applying correction -164 to azimuth 03:51:03 dsc_I_trcInfo azimuth: took 2 attempts to read MEI latch status 03:51:03 dsc_I_trcInfo az fiducial 150.89 deg 03:51:03 dsc_I_trcInfo err = 80 poserr = 42 ticks 03:51:03 dsc_I_trcInfo Applying correction -42 to azimuth 03:51:11 dsc_I_trcInfo azimuth: took 2 attempts to read MEI latch status 03:51:11 dsc_I_trcInfo az fiducial 135.77 deg 03:51:11 dsc_I_trcInfo err = 64 poserr = 176 ticks 03:51:11 dsc_I_trcInfo Applying correction -176 to azimuth 03:51:25 dsc_I_trcInfo azimuth MS.OFF