LBT OSU/RC Queue Observing: UTC 2008 May 3 Observers: Don Terndrup, Andrew Helton, Jose Prieto TO: David Gonzalez Assisted by: Ray (on site); Olga, John, Andrea, Michelle, and Marco on the phone for different reasons Sunset: 19:12 Eve. twilight ends: 20:38 Mor. twilight begin: 4:07 Sunrise: 5:35 Max wind (10 min): 9 m/s [2 UT] .. can open! > Summary: the night was photometric with subarcsec seeing most of the time, finally the wind allowed us to open. It took ~1:10min to do the collimation at the beginning of the night, with help from Olga and John in the phone. We encountered a few problems with the camera and telescope with a total downtime of ~1.5-2 hr (camera + telescope, see details below). At the beginning of the night we took images of 3 stars for Marco to test the latest pointing model. The offsets with respect to the expected center were ~20-30 arcsec. > Red camera rotator tests: Around noon we ran several tests of the red rotator with Ray watching how it moved and Olga on the phone helping with the tests. We found that every single time after starting up the camera (we turned off/on 3 times, one included turning off/on the CMU) the rotator would start to drift counter-clockwise (increasing rotator angle) at about 1 deg in 10 sec. We would send an OB to a given rotator angle and the rotator moved fine to all the position angles we tested. So it seems that the problem we encountered last night when taking biases had to do with the rotator passing a hard limit (somehow due to a hardware problem the rotator on red starts to move automatically when the camera is re-started) and winding up the cables until it gave the error. The difference for the tests we ran early today was that we sent an OB to different rotator angles, and apparently the rotator never passed the "limit" before we moved it. We tested again in the evening and the rotator behaved well. > Programs executed: * OSUmonitor: NGC 3489, NGC 4258, NGC 6946 (half OB, stopped to go to rotation close to morning twilight) * NDedgeon .. completed * UVa BCG_2 .. completed * OSUrotation .. completed OBa * Three standard star fields SA104, SA107, SA110 UT 02:04 - Started 25 bias OB UT 02:09 - Started to open the enclosure UT 02:15 - Moving to sky flat position - Taking BI skyflats, saturated in test files ..moved to UsZ UT 02:27 - Started UsZ flats scaling by 2 - Filters hardware failure in red .. two times - Turn off and on the camera .. 02:33 UT 02:37 - Red rotator failure after turning on the camera .. rotator moves very slowly drifting like last night. Try starting the OB again and we get the same error. - Turn off/on the camera for the second time to see if the rotator comes up .. filters failure now - Turn off/on again after getting red filter failure (errors in the log): "motion stop return error (out:) [src/filters/filters.c:1732]" "filter is more than 10 times the maximum allowed distance from it nominal position" UT 02:54 - Always when turning on red rotator is drifting UT 02:57 - Moving to star to test the pointing model .. star #339, #203, #318 - Images "032640" and "032644" in the west star #318 were taking with different pointing model (lpcr_v2.20080321.btmod) - Went back to initial pointing model that has ~20 arcsec offset UT 03:31 - Moving to NGC3489 focus field - Both sides need big focus change ~ +7000 in Z4 - No hole in red, needs a lot of Z11 .. we give +1000 first in blue and then +2000 in red - John Hill and Olga are in the phone - We don't see the inner hole of the pupils at all .. John suggests doing a global Z offset in red of -1.2 mm and -1 mm - After moving around Z offsets John noticed that the corrections were not being applied UT 04:43 - Moved to NGC 3489 field to get science images - After first 200 sec exposure, the filters in the blue side give an error (without changing filter) - Working fine again .. seeing is red is 5 pix and blue is 6 pix - Previous to last image of OB is heavily trailed "051706" - Loosing collimation in the last couple of images - John Hill says we have problems with guiding .. there are problems UT 05:41 - Moved to standard field SA 104 - Took focus image .. looks good - We have some problems with tracking .. Michelle and Olga are on the phone UT 06:18 - Now we are finally exposing in the SA 104 field - Last U_SDT didn't get done .. maybe filter name is wrong in OB .. changed UT 06:25 - Moving to NDedgeon program focus field - The focus OB doesn't look right for this program .. taking 5 images in B and doesn't do anything in red-side .. using rVfastextra UT 06:37 - Started science OB of NDedgeon - Seeing is 0.9 arcsec in I and 1.24 in B - Guider image in red looks bad, completely out of focus (stars separated in two point sources) .. but science images look fine - Az guide stdev is 0.11 arcsec and El guide stdev 0.40 arcsec - In 2nd image of red side stars look elongated .. the 3rd image looks fine. Still the guiding in red looks bad with fwhm ~1 arcsec worse than blue in techchip - Last images of first OB look pretty collimated so we are going to do the second without focusing .. 38 min was the OB and focus is holding UT 07:10 - Started second OB of NDedge - Collimation still looks pretty good in the second images of the OB .. seeing is 0.8-1.0 arcsec in blue and red - Blue image "072753" has double peaked PSFs, probably guiding issues .. red looks fine - Last images a bit out of focus UT 07:46 - Moved to standard field SA 104 again, this time at airmass 1.5, useful to get airmass correction UT 08:03 - Moved to SA 107 .. getting focus field - Got filter error in red side, I-besel filter failed .. two times. Had to restart the camera We won't do this standard field and go to NGC 4258 - Filter error is: "filter is more than 10 times the maximum allowed distance from it nominal position" .. in filter wheel 1 UT 08:27 - Moving to NGC 4258 focus field, it will set relatively soon - We get the red rotator failure again .. rotator is drifting positive like we have seen before .. we turn off/on camera - Error is "actual motion has been X deg insted of 90 deg" where X changes as it drifts from parked position - When we turn on the camera again the reading in rotator angle is increasing still, which means that it kept drifting while we were disconnected .. now is close to 30 deg, started at -90 when we turned on the first time - Finally starts to move after sending OB .. it worked after turning off/on - Focus corrections are small, good to go after one focus iteration UT 08:32 - Starting science OB in NGC 4258 seeing is subarcsec - Collimation changed quite a bit UT 09:22 - Moved to UVa BCG_2 program that needs photometric conditions and taking focus image - Started science OB at 09:27 after focusing - Seeing in red is pretty good ~0.8-0.9 arcsec .. blue looks good too, ~1.0 arcsec UT 10:04 - The last two images of the OB in red were not taken .. tech images stopped coming after "100356", the last two blue images arrived including tech images - In the power control of lbc there is a message in red trackers, AO and focus saying "stop" UT 10:17 - Moved to NGC 6946 focus field UT 10:23 - Started science OB - Again we are not getting red tech chip images and the "trackers, etc" is in "stop" mode, while blue tech chip images are arriving normally and is integrating .. no error messages in log analyzer - David had to restart PCS .. 10:43 - Guiding is working again normally in red side UT 10:59 - Stopped NGC 6946 OB to go to rotation program UT 11:19 - Moving to SA 110 standard field - Taking UT 11:29 - Got a filter failure in red .. similar to what we have seen before when moving to I-band - The first error was: " filter is more than 10 times the maximum allowed distance from it nominal position" - Started to work fine after starting the second time - Failed again in the last (fourth) dithering of the standard field .. red filter failure UT 11:45 - Moving to take twilight flats - Took 5 BI, VV and UsZ flats .. good counts for most of them UT 12:11 - Closing up -- jose