LBT OSU/RC Queue Observing: UTC 2009 January 30

Observers: Linda Watson, Paul Martini
TO: Aaron Ceranski
AA: Olga Kuhn

Summary:

Photometric at sunset.  Lost time during the night to 1) the red
camera's position angle not responding (1 1/2 hours); 2) a focus
problem with the blue camera (1 hours), which is still unresolved; 3)
bad tracking/guiding when using the F972 filter.  Photometric at
sunrise. 

Observed:

L95, NGC 2403, M81, M92, N3077, I2574, NGC 2903, HJASS, NGC 3672,
EGSF1A, GD 153

Detailed Notes:

UT 0005

Biases started.

UT0100

Slight delay to starting, but the staff got the right (red) and left
(blue) doors to the building open!  Too late to do sky flats though.

UT 0200

Observations of L95 for standard stars in B, U, Us, and V filters on
the blue side and r and R filters on the red side.

UT 0230

NGC 2403 observations.  High airmass.  Seeing ~ 1.4''

UT 0300

M81 observations.  High airmass.  Seeing ~ 1.4''

UT 0320

NGC 3077 observations.  High airmass.  Seeing ~ 1.3''


UT 0400

I2574: LBC had an RPC error right at the end of the OB. All of the OB
was observed except the final R image. Given that the data were nearly
complete, we did not repeat the OB.

After the RPC error, we tried to observe NGC 2903, but during the
focus sequence, the red camera position angle was not responding and
so red images were not executed.  Lost about 1 1/2 hours in total.
CMU required reboot.

UT 0540

NGC 2903 observations.  Seeing ~ 1.2''

UT 0630

HIJASS J1021+6842 observations.  Note that yesterday (Jan. 29), we
observed this object with the B-BESSESL and r-SLOAN filters using the
blue camera only, based on the readme file for this OB.  Today we are
using the B-BESSEL and R-BESSEL filters, as is in the OB file.  Seeing
~ 1.1'' - 1.4''.

UT 0800

NGC 3627 observations.  LBC had another RPC communications error.
Three R band exposures from the red camera are missing from the data,
but we decided to move on.  Seeing ~ 1.3''.

UT 0850

EGSF1A observations.  We lost about 15 minutes because LBC-blue was
turned off in the OB.  Then when we edited the OB with the OB creation
GUI, the F972 filter name within the software was not recognized by
LBC.  Seeing ~ 1.3''.

UT 1000

Very poor tracking through the F972 filter, fairly likely because of
the low SNR stars available. The image quality was very poor and most 
images are trailed. The blue-side data were better for a while, but
then the last set were trailed in blue and very irregular in red. We
attempted to make blue master and red slave, since the guide stars are 
brighter through Us, but even though we could change the OB the LBC
software is hard wired to make the red side the master. 

UT 1130 - 1230

The SX mirror got very far out of focus. We attempted manual
corrections for a while, then reset the mirror to the pointing model,
and then further manual corrections. Eventually it got somewhat
close, but we lost about an hour and decided that the F972 data was
more important than getting the Us in good focus.

UT 1230

Restarted EGS field with F972 and Uspec. Given the previous problems,
we changed the OB to 5min exposures (from 10min) and turned off
guiding. The PSF is slightly elliptical, but the data are much
better.  The Us data is still very out of focus.

UT 1322

GD 153 standard observation in Us and F972.  Seeing ~ 1.1'' in F972.


UT 1340

Sky flats.  Some in BR, but they have high counts.  Plenty in UsF972.