OSU/RC Queue Observing UTC 2010 Dec 13 (civil date Dec 12/13, 2010) =============================================================================== Observers: Paul Martini (OSU), David Atlee (OSU), Chris Howk (ND), Terry Rettig (ND) Observing Assistant: Geno Bechetti Support Astronomer : Olga Kuhn Instrumentation : Doug Officer =========== Instrument: =========== LBC ========= Summary: ========= Sky was clear at sunset with a small amount of cirrus clouds on the horizon. Seeing was good at the beginning of the night (0.8") and remained stable throughout the night, staying roughly in 0.7-1.0". Weather remained clear all night. We lost 3 hours at the beginning of the night to mechanical problems with the telescope enclosure but experienced no other technical difficulties. Science obs: OSU_monitor: NGC 628, 672, 925, 3627, 4258, 6946 ND_whim: FBQS 0751 (1 hour ) & PG 1206 (1 hour, 10 min) OSU_clusterconf: RX J0843+45 & RX J0954+17 OSU_qso: 2/4 OBs for QSO 0949 (30 min each for gz, ri bands) Sky flats: SDT_Uspec, z-Sloan ============= Setup ============= 22:00 Unable to control telescope mount. 23:30 Mount control restored. 00:05 Attempting to open the dome. Right door failed to open 00:19 Attempting to open both doors. Left side door closing. 00:20 Sunset 00:30 Over-torqued latch pin on shutter doors 01:03 Pin state undefined: indicates motion. 01:05 Error returned 01:05 Problem with LBC GUI on OBS2. Does not accept button pushes. Switching LBC control to laptop. 01:08 Shutting down all telescope subsystems for restart 01:12 Starting bias frames from laptop. Lights are on in enclosure. 01:40 Right shutter door opened. Left inoperable. 01:50 GUI error on OBS2 machine caused by multiple instances of firefox running under same observer account, even on separate machines. Can be resolved by running only a single instance of firefox from OSURC account. 02:10 Reset latch pin control 02:15 Resetting breakers for left side door 02:19 Pins are retracting 02:21 Left shutter opening 02:22 Beginning mirror ventilation system 02:32 Re-setting telescope encoders 02:41 Primary mirrors at collimation limits 02:44 Closing vent doors due to wind speed 02:54 Beginning telescope pointing 02:55 Right main mirror failed to focus. OB failed to load RA, Dec 02:59 Trying again. Communication succeeded. 03:05 Beginning collimation. 03:15 Inputing manual collimation adjustment 03:20 Trying automatic focus sequence again 03:26 Adjusting telescope co-pointing ============== OSU_monitor ============== 03:34 Moving telescope to NGC 6946 focus field 03:40 Blue focus sequence does not appear to be converging. Stopping focus sequence and moving to target field. 03:55 Poor seeing in B-band (1.6"), probably related to incomplete focus 04:14 Guiding failed on red channel (exposure #6) 04:19 Moving telescope to NGC 628 focus field 04:31 Moving telescope to NGC 628 field (seeing 0.7") 05:06 Moving telescope to NGC 672 focus field 05:07 Beginning collimation & focus sequence 05:11 Moving telescope to NGC 672 science field (seeing 1.0") 05:47 Moving telescope to NGC 925 focus field 05:48 Beginning collimation & focus 05:54 Moving telescope to science field (seeing 1.0") ============== ND_whim ============== 06:20 Moving telescope to FBQS 0751b 06:21 Heading into telescope cable wrap limit. Unwrapping. 06:27 Returning to science field. 06:29 Beginning collimation sequence 06:38 Beginning science observation B. Seeing 1.2" 07:04 Beginning collimation / focus sequence 07:10 Resuming science observations with sequence C. Seeing 0.8" ============== OSU_monitor ============== 07:33 Moving telescope to NGC 2403 focus field 07:36 Beginning collimation & focus sequence 07:45 Moving to science field ================== OSU_clusterconf ================== 07:55 Moving telescope to RX J0843+45 08:00 Beginning science observation. Seeing 0.7" 08:17 Moving telescope to RX J0954+17 08:18 Beginning collimation & focus 08:25 Beginning science image sequence. ============== OSU_qso ============== 08:40 Moving telescope to QSO 0949 08:43 Beginning focus sequence 08:52 Beginning g&z band integrations. Seeing 0.9" 09:29 Beginning focus & collimation sequence. 09:38 Resuming science observations with r&i bands. Seeing 0.8" ============== OSU_monitor ============== 10:15 Moving telescope to NGC 3627 focus field 10:24 Moving telescope to science field. Seeing 0.9" 11:01 Moving telescope to NGC 4258 focus field 11:02 Beginning collimation & focus sequence 11:09 Beginning science imaging of NGC 4258. Seeing 0.8" 11:30 Guiding in U-band is marginal. Image quality may suffer. ============== ND_whim ============== 11:47 Moving to PG1206 11:47 Starting focus sequence 11:54 Manually backing out Z11 spherical terms due to arithmetic error in `dofpia' 11:55 Beginning science observations. Seeing 1.0" 12:10 No focus control star in the U-band. Blue channel image quality will be compromised. 12:18 Beginning collimation & focus sequence 12:23 Resuming science integrations (Seeing 0.7") 12:45 Beginning collimation & focus sequence 12:50 Resuming science integrations (Seeing 0.6") for abbreviated I-band integrations 13:12 Starting first test sky flat (Us, z bands) 13:43 Got reasonable number of sky counts. Beginning flat script. 13:47 Beginning second run of flat script 13:55 Close dome 14:09 Sunrise