LBT OSU/RC Queue Observing: UTC 2008 March 10 Observers: Rick Pogge, Peter Garnavich, Jose Prieto TO: Aaron Ceranski AA: Marco Pedani Summary: We had good seeing the first part of the night (0.8-1.3 arcsec), got the first epoch of Kuiper belt program under very good seeing conditions. When moving to the Cosmos field to get an epoch of snsearch data, the seeing blew up to ~2 arcsec (5 UT). We did the first epoch of asteroid program and noticed that there was condensation in the blue chips, the humidity was ~75% and temperature ~0. We did, however, finish all 3 epochs of UM_Asteroid (separated by 1h) with decent seeing on the Red camera, and OK on the blue but with condensation as noted. We didn't have any clouds during the last part of the night, but it was not photometric at sunset (and impossible to gauge when it cleared off). Also the focus iterations went smoothly all night, starting from the first where we spent less time than previous nights. Blue camera condensation got better but did not completely go away by dawn, there was no condensation on the Red camera. We lost ~30min to the telescope (enclosure). We lost ~20min to the camera when slewing to the first asteroid OB, that was causing it to crash as in last night. At the end we used the second OB for all three epochs. Programs observed: UM_Asteroid: 3 epochs separated by 1h (program completed) NDyso: All observations acquired of V1647 Ori (program completed) OSUAZkuiper: completed kuiper_UTmarch10 Started NDgrb1 on GRB080310, first data 20m after the burst (appears as grb08xxxx in the headers) OSUmonitor epochs for N4395 and N4736 OSUmonitor dailies for M82, M81, N4258, and M101 Aborted attempt to do NDsearch, clobbered by bad seeing outbreak Details: UT 00:15 - Lights are off in the telescope, starting 25bias OB UT 00:32 - Getting 2 darks in each channel UT 01:42 - Opening the doors UT 01:50 - Running skyflattest_gi .. scaled by 3 the OB and started - Good counts in the first images ~40k in both filters, finished with ~20k counts - Running skyflat_rr scaled by 30 UT 02:10 - Moving to the first target ND_yso OB, start running focus OB - First focus images looks awful .. after doing an offset of 1/2 degree we get more stars and it doesn't look too bad. Big focus change in red side (~10000). - After ~7 iterations we converge in red, blue converged earlier UT 02:46 - Started ND_yso OB v1647ori-rettig1 - Seeing is 5.8pix=1.3 arcsec in V-blue side, 5.0pix=1.1 arcsec in R, stars a bit elongated and out of focus in red - Had to stop after two exposures because the red side looked badly out of focus .. running focus OB UT 03:06 - Restarted OB after focusing in red - We see dark bands in the red side images; Randy says is a well documented problem in the red side with bias. Its the first time we see it in this run. - Looks like the guiding is kind of bad, with guide rms around 0.2 arcsec (although that seems normal) and probably thats the source of the stars looking out of focus and elongated. - In the 4th dithering we got an OB execution error. We stopped taking data for this program and moved to the UT 10 OB of Kuiper belt program .. 03:42 UT 03:48 - Moved to the Kuiper belt program OB and running focus OB .. two iterations needed UT 03:56 - Started running the Kuiper belt OB, taking 6x300s VR images - Seeing is 4.5pix=1.0 arcsec in V, and 4.2pix=0.95 arcsec in R .. stars a bit elongated - Second images look good, seeing staying around 0.9-1.0 arcsec in both filters - Last images look a bit out of focus, ~0.3 pix change in seeing. - Running focus OB, it needs big focus changes ~1000 units in blue and red side .. after one iteration continue running the OB a second time UT 04:35 - Started Kuiper belt OB again - Seeing is pretty good in blue side 3.7pix=0.85 arcsec and in red side doesn't look very good with stars elongated, seeing ~5pix. - Running focus OB .. 05:10 UT 05:14 - Started final OB of Kuiper belt program - Seeing still very good in R, 3.5pix=0.8 arcsec - Images on the blue side (V-band) show "holes" where they decrease in flux .. we call John Hill and it looks like its condensation in the dewar window .. the humidity is 75% and temperature is ~ -0.5 deg .. the difference is 400 counts. It looks like we will keep going, John said there is no much to do. - In the final exposure of the OB, the blue side exposure never came up and when red finished integrating, LBC issued an error in the blue side. We are moving to the snsearch target UT 05:55 - Starting exposure in ND snsearch OB. - Seeing blew up, now its ~2.0 arcsec! .. we are going to the asteroid monitoring program UT 06:17 - After a few tries moving to the asteroid field, LBC keeps crashing and the telescope doesn't move to the position. The same program OB that didn't work the previous night. UT 06:26 - Started first epoch of asteroid program OB 2 (don't do OB 1 as it crashes everything!!) - Seeing is 1.5 arcsec in V (red side), blue side still shows the depression due to condensation .. very strong UT 06:44 - Moving to M82 and the enclosure stopped moving .. Aaron has to go to the telescope to restart things UT 06:57 - Started M82 science OB after two focus iterations - Seeing is 1.5 arcsec in first R band exposure UT 07:06 - Now moved to M81 without doing focus - Seeing is not so good in red ~1.5 arcsec, a bit out of focus; in blue it looks better with seeing ~1.1 arcsec UT 07:20 - Moving to second epoch of asteroid program .. focus first, after one epoch it looks pretty good - Started running the science at 07:26 .. seeing is 1.5 arcsec UT 07:45 - Moving to NGC4395 OB .. we spend ~20 min with telescope problems, because the enclosure had to go all the way around and it took a long time UT 08:04 - On target, getting focus images .. - We start running the OB at 08:12 - Seeing is 1.3 arcsec in R UT 08:28 - Moving to the do the third and last epoch of asteroid program .. two iterations of focus first - Started last epoch at 08:35 - Seeing is getting worse, 9pix=2.0 arcsec in the first V image UT 09:03 - Moved to GRB080310 that just came out in GCN .. afterglow is bright - Ran 4 OBs .. afterglow declined ~0.5 mag UT 09:44 - Moving to NGC4736 .. converged in focusing after two iterations - Seeing is 1.2 arcsec in R and 1.8 arcsec in B UT 10:18 - Moved back to GRB .. converged after two focus iterations - Started taking images at 10:19 - Seeing is 1.1 arcsec in r (first images) UT 10:45 - Moved to NGC4258 focus .. converged focusing after two iterations - Started science OB at 10:54 - The seeing is 1.1 arcsec in R UT 11:31 - Moved to M101 at 11:33 - Seeing is 1.0 arcsec in R and 1.05 arcsec in B UT 12:14 - Moved to GRB field and obtained focus - After two images we get an error message about the red side .. two times. We restart the OB and it works the third time UT 12:56 - Finished GRB observations when background was ~30k counts .. moved to flat fields - Did VV and UsZ flat OBs UT 13:22 - Closing telescope - Got some darks