OSU/RC Queue Observing UTC 2011 Apr 21 (civil date 2011 Apr 20/21) =============================================================================== Observer: David Atlee (OSU), Kris Sellgren (OSU) Observing Assistant: David Gonzalez-Huerta Support Astronomer : Dave Thompson Instrumentation : John Morris =========== Instrument: =========== Lucifer ========= Summary: ========= There were patchy clouds with cirrus at sunset, so we did not obtain twilight flats in the evening. The clouds cleared quickly in the hours following sunset. However, high wind speeds forced the dome to close for 3.5 hours throughout the night. We lost approximately 30 minutes due to an error with the telescope pointing, which was ultimately corrected by re-setting the Alt-AZ encoders. By the time this problem was corrected, the clouds had begun to clear enough to allow observation of the first target. We finished two observing sequences during the night (ND_oldsn_ir and OSU_GalCenX). We also started observations for OSU_A1689 and UVa_H2IMG. These programs were both interrupted for various reasons. We encountered a logic error in OSU_A1689 that could be corrected via a simple telescope offset. The guide star selected for UVa_H2IMG was too faint to be useful due to high sky background in the R-band. Both of these programs were also stopped by high winds. We obtained lamp calibrations for OSU_GalCenX during the night and twilight flats in J and H bands at the end of the night. After sunrise, we also measured dark frames for the configurations that correspond to the completed projects. ============ Opening ============ 0152: Sunset. Cirrus and patchy clouds. Clearing toward the west. No twilight flats. 0225 Beginning pointing check. Clouds in the vicinity of first target. ============= ND_oldsn_ir ============= NOTE: Dave Thompson acquired LBC images of this field on 19 April, but with no flatfields, and the darks were taken with the vents open, so they are suspect. 0230 Moving telescope to science field, which may be affected by cloud cover 0232 Unable to acquire primary guide star, probably due to clouds. Script terminated by TO due to inability to locate guide star. 0240 Unable to adequately point telescope. Guide star temporarily acquired before it lost focus and left guider field. 0250 Pointing telescope to R=5 star to diagnose telescope problem 0257 Re-starting AGw. 0302 Sending telescope to zenith to reset Alt-AZ encoders 0309 Located pointing star. Correcting telescope pointing. 0313 Sending preset to telescope. Slewing. 0314 Observing sequence failed due to insufficient collimation. Re-collimating. 0319 Moving back to science field. 0320 Starting science observations in J-band. Seeing 0.6" 0350 Starting science observations in H-band. Seeing 0.5" ============= OSU_A1689 ============= 0422 Moving to Mask #2 telluric field 0431 Critical error from instrument temperature sensor. Caused by flaky sensor, and may safely be ignored. 0445 Beginning telluric spectrum. Second (of 3) observations missing telluric star. 0510 Beginning science observation of Mask #2. Reference stars visible in boxes. 0530 Clouds have largely cleared by this time 0545 Identified logic error in observing script. In DETXY coordinates, dY=+5 moves SOURCE 5" up rather than moving telescope 5" in +Y direction. 0545 Stopped script execution (6th dither) and moved source dY=+8. Puts source at top of slit from off bottom of slit. Normal script execution will then work correctly. 0547 Re-started target observing script. Dithers working correctly. 0604 Abort observations during fourth dither due to high winds ============= UVa_H2Img ============= 0902 Wind has stabilized enough to resume observing. Slewing telescope to IC883 science field. 0904 Critical temperature error during slew. This is a buggy temperature sensor and may be ignored. 0907 Beginning BrG integration sequence. 0915 Seeing very poor (approximately 1.2" in BrG) 0933 Stopped script execution in element 20 of 36 due to poor collimation. Re-collimating and changing guide stars. Guide star provided (R=13.6) is too faint for high-sky background conditions. Changing POSANGLE to 180 from 270 to accomodate a brighter guide star. 0937 Closing dome due to high wind gusts before observations could resume with new guide star. ============= OSU_GalCenX ============= NOTE: Spectra were taken with \lambda_cen=1.93um, as provided in the LUCIFER observing scripts. Kris Sellgren has indicated that this will lead to a loss of science output due to the missing CO-bandhead from some targets. 1018 Moving telescope to science field for mask #1 1023 Moving mask to turnout 1038 Beginning science integration. Seeing ~0.7" in acquisition images (FeII narrow band filter) 1136 Moving calibration tower in to focal plane 1137 Beginning arc lamp calibration sequence 1140 Beginning specflat calibration sequence. A single speclamp sequence will take exposures with the lamp both off and on. No dedicated observing file for lamp-off specflats is required. ============= Calibrations ============= 1145 Slewing to random sky field for flats. 1150 Taking first J-band test flat. Counts ~250 1200 Taking next J-band test flat. Counts still ~250 1220 Reached ~3000 counts in luci.20110421.216 1221 Began new J-band dither sequence for flats 1225 Began H-band dither sequence. Typical counts for first image ~7000 (first image luci.20110421.0228). Note that images get type "SCIENCE" despite being sky flats from use of JITTER keyword in flat script 1228 Last of 10 H-band sky flat images has ~12000 counts (median). 1231 Moved blind filters and mask into position in preparation for darks. 1238 Began dark script for image formats of ND_oldsn_ir and OSU_GalCenX