APACHE POINT OBSERVATORY SDSS 2.5M OBSERVING LOG Sunday October 19, 2003 (MJD 52932) ---=== OBSERVING TEAM ===--- Night: Mike Harvanek, Pete Newman Support: Jon Brinkmann and French Leger (both by phone) Interference: Tourists and other observatory directors. ---=== OBSERVING PLAN ===--- Science. ---=== OBSERVING SUMMARY ===--- Servo oscillations precluded imaging, so we made spectrographic observations all night under excellent photometric conditions. Finished 6 plates (1116, 1127, 1267, 1492, 1515, 1522) and good data on one more plate (1105). We had problems with a Taurus program plate (1257) that we skipped. We also had a somewhat unfavourable distribution of plate times tonight that meant we could not finish as many plates as we might otherwise. We are attempting to rectify that with the plates to be plugged tomorrow. ---=== OBSERVING LOG ===--- More altitude and azimuth oscillations tonight, among other hassles. During preflight checks, we had a quite severe oscillation at a few Hz on the azimuth servo with the telescope at about (131,90,0) (yes, 131, not 121) at the end of slewing to from (90,90,10). That stopped when a stop button was pressed. The telescope had cartridge 2 mounted, CW=280 and spectro dewars less than half full (based on the subsequent fill). We contacted Jon Brinkman and discussed the situation. He recommended (in agreement with JEG's earlier concerns) that we do not mount the imager under these circumstances, so we plan on proceeding with spectroscopy all night. We later also spoke with French and he agreed. On slewing back to two at 23:41:32Z, we had a slip in altitude at about (121,34,0) while slewing to (121,6,0) that caused a sudden stop and a windscreen touch in altitude, Due to a late start and no swing cover tonight, we did not check spectrograph collimation before flight. After opening and slewing up from (121,6,0) to (121,30,0) there was another altitude oscillation of a few Hz during the slew that damped out before the end of the slew. We saw no more oscillations duing on-sky slews and tracks, including using the standard instChange command to slew to (121,90,0). At the end of night about 12:14Z on closing up and slewing from (121,6,0) to (121,30,0), another altitude oscillation from the moment the slew started, until a slip and abort at about 16 deg. Resetting the slip and trying again, all was well. Cart 6 mounted, CW=280, spectro dewars needed a fill. Seems like that situation produces an oscillation fairly consistently. TPM reported marginal low imager dewar pressure at around 15 psi all night. On closing, we found the grade 5 N2 bottle on the imager rotating rack to be empty. We hooked up a new one and saw a 5 cu.ft.min (is that the scale) flow indicating a leak upstairs (no fill was occuring. We closed off the vent vale on the side of the dog house and that stopped the flow, so the leak is downstream of that. And finally, we found the screen over the exhaust tunnel in the lower enclosure at least 50 per cent covered in moths at the end of the night, certainly enough to have some effect on airflow. These were vacuumed up (and apologies to whoever empties that vacuum cleaner!). There are several thousand still in the west louvres. Just before sunset, we lost time to shepharding tourists out of and away from the buildings. This included people walking into the 2.5m enclosure (which was open for cooling with the entry-bar belt across the door) and, a separate group taking flash photographs on the steps of the PT while we were taking twilight flat-field exposure (and the, despite being warned, taking more flash photographs on the steps of the 1m telescope!), and later, walking on to the 2.5m pad while the telescope was slewing. At that point they were asked to leave the site and we waiting until they were gone before moving the telescope again. Clearly the "closed to the public after 5pm" sign at the end of Apache Point Road, and the "Authorised vehicles only" sign standing in the middle of the road before the parking lot were both ignored. That one of the tourists who walked unannounced into the 2.5m enclosure declared himself to be the director of Big Bear Observatory only added insult to injury (metaphorical injury - nobody was physically hurt). We delayed operations by about 20 minutes as a result, but there is no "Tourist problem" flag in logTool to record that lost time. However, despite all that, we were in the first field before 18-deg twilight. endNight rejoiced. Observing sequence: Guide stars found on gotoField unless noted. 01:15Z Plate 1522, cartridge 2. Done in 3 exposures, 2100s. Merged program plate requiring standard survey S/N. FK5 star required, but only because the sky was still a bit bright. 02:34Z Plate 1116, cartridge 9. Done in 3 exposures, 4200s. Merged program plate requiring standard survey S/N. This plate has more faint-end candidates that 1522, and SoS's estimate of S/N was biased to lower values, requiring longer exposures. postCal taken but, as it turned out, not recommended by SoS. 04:19Z Plate 1105, cartridge 3. Not done in 3 exposures, 2700s, before we passed the design time for the plate. (S/N)^2) >= 11.6. Merged program plate requiring standard survey S/N. 05:29Z Plate 1492, cartridge 7. Done in 2 exposures, 1500s, when combined with data from MJD 52931. Merged program plate requiring standard survey S/N. This one got lots of S/N per unit exposure. 06:16Z Plate 1127, cartridge 5. Done in 2 exposures, 2100s, when combined with data from MJD 52930. Munn program plate requiring standard survey S/N. 07:18Z Plate 1257, cartridge 1. No exposures obtained. Taurus program plate requiring standard survey S/N. FK5 start needed to center the field. As with previous Taurus plates, we had problems with the guide stars being very faint, such that the autoguider was unable to measure FWHM values from even 30 sec exposures (under clear dark sky), and we had problems finding the correct scale correction. We decided to move on. 07:43Z Plate 1515, cartridge 4. Done in 5 exposures, 4500s, with considerable excess S/N. Merged program plate requiring standard survey S/N. Given the problems with the previous plate, plus an unfavourable distribution of plate times tonight, we were able to spend considerably longer than necessary on this plate, so we took a smear at the end while waiting for SoS to process the last science exposure, then the postCals that SoS recommended. We were still on the last plate of the night before it's design time start. 09:55Z Plate 1267, cartridge 8. Done in 4 exposures, 4800s, including an extra 1200s above requirements. Standard survey plate. FK5 start required. Large scale change from previous plate caused a few minor problems getting guide stars back. The seeing apparently degraded to ~2 arcsec FWHM on this plate, and the 3.5m reports ~1 arcsec FWHM, but the wind is now running aong the ridge from the north, which is not favourable. ---=== IMAGING RUN SUMMARY ===--- Run Time Stripe Lambda Last Flavor Comments Start End Begin End Frame ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4193 23:43Z 00:01Z 100 O 93.12 97.52 43 ignore doghouse bias ---=== IMAGING RUN DETAILS ===--- ---=== SKIPPY RESULTS ===--- Run Frame nFrames stars muErr muRms nuErr nuRms rot az el --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---=== LTMATCH RESULTS ===--- Run Field nFields alt az nGood rowMean rowSig colMean colSig rot ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---=== SPECTROSCOPY DATA SUMMARY ===--- Summary Checked (y/n): Yes QA Procedures Done (y/n): No UT Exp Time flavor comment (S/N)^2 totals ========================================== b1 r1 b2 r2 ----- sequence 22722, plate -9999 ------- 23:33 22722 0.0 bias ----- sequence 22723, plate 1522 ------- 22.4 20.2 25.2 17.4 DONE 01:39 22723 10.0 flat 01:41 22724 2.0 arc 02:03 22725 900.1 target 02:16 22726 600.1 target 02:29 22727 600.1 target ----- sequence 22728, plate 1116 ------- 26.4 16.2 28.4 22.2 DONE 02:43 22728 10.0 flat 02:46 22729 2.0 arc 03:00 22730 600.1 target 03:23 22731 1200.1 target 03:46 22732 1200.1 target 04:09 22733 1200.1 target 04:13 22734 10.0 flat 04:15 22735 2.0 arc ----- sequence 22736, plate 1105 ------- 17.3 12.7 18.9 11.6 Not done 04:27 22736 10.0 flat 04:29 22737 2.0 arc 04:48 22738 900.1 target 05:06 22739 900.1 target 05:24 22740 900.1 target ----- sequence 22741, plate 1492 ------- 17.3 13.2 18.5 14.3 DONE 05:37 22741 10.0 flat 05:40 22742 2.0 arc 05:59 22743 900.1 target 06:12 22744 600.1 target ----- sequence 22745, plate 1127 ------- 17.6 12.6 17.8 13.2 DONE 06:25 22745 10.0 flat 06:28 22746 2.0 arc 06:47 22747 900.1 target 07:10 22748 1200.1 target ----- sequence 22749, plate 1515 ------- 43.2 39.3 46.5 36.9 DONE 07:57 22749 10.0 flat 08:00 22750 2.0 arc 08:20 22751 900.1 target 08:38 22752 900.1 target 08:56 22753 900.1 target 09:14 22754 900.1 target 09:32 22755 900.1 target 09:40 22756 240.0 smear 09:43 22757 10.0 flat 09:45 22758 2.0 arc ----- sequence 22759, plate 1267 ------- 23.5 23.3 21.3 21.2 DONE 10:06 22759 10.0 flat 10:08 22760 2.0 arc 10:35 22761 1200.1 target 10:58 22762 1200.1 target 11:21 22763 1200.1 target 11:44 22764 1200.1 target 11:47 22765 10.0 flat 11:49 22766 2.0 arc ---=== TELESCOPE OFFSETS AND SCALE I ===--- Time Instrument Az Alt Rot Scale pos offset pos offset pos offset ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 01:43Z Cart 2 22.13 0.0032 55.15 0.0004 198.39 0.0035 1.000040 03:03Z Cart 9 -28.70 0.0047 53.72 0.0014 156.10 0.0030 1.000200 04:38Z Cart 3 Not recorded. 05:45Z Cart 7 -6.63 0.0028 57.00 0.0002 174.35 -0.0112 1.000050 06:31Z Cart 5 -20.40 0.0042 55.50 0.0000 162.87 -0.0158 1.000050 08:03Z Cart 4 11.31 0.0033 56.70 -0.0006 189.43 -0.0066 1.000000 10:22Z Cart 8 96.11 0.0008 48.05 -0.0021 250.49 -0.0066 1.000270 ---=== TELESCOPE OFFSETS AND SCALE II ===--- ---=== DATA TAPE SUMMARY ===--- Goes: JL6860 Stays: JL6867 ---=== FOCUS LOG ===--- setmir piston Temp Wind Time Inst scale M1 M2 Foc Az Alt (C) MPH Dir filt fwhm ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 01:43Z Cart 2 1.00004 -395 839 0 22 55.1 13.6 4 97 BG38 1.4 03:03Z Cart 9 1.00020 -1974 -466 0 -29 53.7 12.6 6 98 BG38 1.3 04:38Z Cart 3 1.00016 -1579 -158 -25 -34 52.1 13.3 1 190 BG38 1.3 05:45Z Cart 7 1.00005 -494 701 -50 -7 57.0 12.8 3 233 BG38 1.1 06:31Z Cart 5 1.00005 -494 730 -25 -20 55.5 12.8 1 191 BG38 1.3 08:03Z Cart 4 1.00000 0 1136 -25 11 56.7 12.3 2 251 BG38 1.5 10:22Z Cart 8 1.00027 -2665 -1044 -25 96 48.0 11.5 1 13 BG38 2.0 ---=== WEATHER LOG ===--- Wind Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust DIMM Sky 20:50Z 66 26 8 248 (WSW) 348 - Clear 21:22Z 61 26 3 226 (SW) 359 - " 21:54Z 64 25 7 250 (WSW) 350 - " 22:27Z 60 23 5 270 (W) 371 - " 23:19Z 60 24 0 231 (SW) 377 - " 23:51Z 58 23 3 257 (WSW) 330 - " 00:24Z 57 21 0 240 (WSW) 376 - " 00:56Z 57 21 0 10 (N) 302 - " 01:28Z 57 21 2 113 (ESE) 328 - " 01:58Z 55 21 7 107 (ESE) 304 - " 02:32Z 55 20 7 91 (E) 289 - " 03:03Z 54 21 5 102 (ESE) 324 - " 03:33Z 54 23 3 107 (ESE) 327 - " 04:04Z 55 24 0 148 (SSE) 416 - " 04:38Z 56 24 0 192 (SSW) 395 - " 05:12Z 55 21 1 228 (SW) 361 - " 05:42Z 55 22 2 229 (SW) 394 - " 06:14Z 54 24 1 203 (SSW) 399 - " 06:45Z 55 24 1 189 (S) 423 - " 07:15Z 55 23 0 218 (SW) 349 - " 07:46Z 54 24 1 247 (WSW) 364 - " 08:16Z 53 25 1 202 (SSW) 323 - " 08:46Z 52 24 5 349 (NNW) 402 - " 09:18Z 53 23 5 341 (NNW) 385 - " 09:48Z 53 24 5 303 (WNW) 407 - " 10:21Z 52 24 0 319 (NW) 392 - " 10:54Z 50 25 0 143 (SE) 403 - " 11:28Z 49 25 5 69 (ENE) 395 - " 11:58Z 51 24 0 285 (WNW) 401 - " 12:30Z 52 24 1 1 (N) 396 - " ---=== TELESCOPE STATUS ===--- 23:45Z Fans on, doors open. 00:45Z Enclosure off 12:15Z Enclosure on, fans off No interlocks bypassed. Status at 12:35Z: Telescope stowed at: 30 deg Instrument mounted: Cartridge 6 Counterweights at: 280 Autofill systems: On 180L LN2 dewar scales: Spectro 60 lb, 20 psi (filling) Imager 103 lb, 15 psi (grade 5 N2 turned off) ---=== SOFTWARE USED ===--- IOP/SOP: v3_120_0 Watcher: v2_24_0 MCP: v5_22_0 TPM: tpm_v2_33_0 AstroDa: v14_47 TCC: TCC 2.7.1 July 22 2003 sdssProcedures: v1_77 SoS: v4_10_6 hoggPT: v1_6_9 plate-mapper: v4_3_1 ---=== MIRROR NUMBERS ===--- PRIMARY: -------- Scale: 1.000000 MIGS TONIGHT NOMINAL Axial A 0.5440 0.5460 Axial B 0.6450 0.6290 Axial C 1.0890 1.0900 Trans D -8.6030 -8.5750 Lateral E 10.8839 10.9093 Lateral F 10.8458 10.8712 GALILS Commanded: 4600. -2850. 850. -7250. 19000. 18450. Actual: 4600. -2866. 866. -7275. 19011. 18425. SETMIR VALUES PriDesOrient: 0.00 0.00 15.20 829.90 1.60 PriOrient: 0.00 0.00 14.91 830.49 3.19 SECONDARY: ---------- Focus: 0.00 Air Temp.: 15.8 Alt.: 14.682071 MIGS TONIGHT NOMINAL Axial A 1.5150 1.5100 Axial B 1.0980 1.0990 Axial C 1.1110 1.1160 Trans D -0.8290 -0.8210 GALILS Commanded: 1628298. 1554118. 1576556. -3900. -8750. Actual: 1628641. 1548187. 1574504. -3899. -8726. SETMIR VALUES SecDesOrient: 1257.00 0.00 -25.00 0.00 146.27 SecOrient: 1259.02 0.63 -23.18 1.46 146.15 ---=== PROBLEMS IN DETAIL ===--- See main log for description of servo oscillations.