OSU/RC Queue Observing UTC 2011 Apr 28 (civil date 2011 Apr 27/28) ============================================================================== Observer: David Atlee (OSU), Jennifer Johnson (OSU), Alexandro Bedregal (UMinn) Observing Assistant: Steven Allanson Support Astronomer : Marco Pedani Instrumentation : Tim Shih =========== Instrument: =========== LBC ========= Summary: ========= Clear skies and moderate winds. The entire night was photometric. Seeing was good for most of the night, but it spiked sharply around 2 AM. This forced us to abandon some of our OSU_monitor targets in favor of targets that could tolerate worse seeing conditions. We took extended observations of the programs done during poor seeing to compensate, at least somewhat, for the reduced S/N induced by the bad seeing. We concentrated on Notre Dame and OSU programs tonight, attempting to bring these partners close to parity. This meant a great deal of time spent on OSU_monitor targets. However, see the note above concerning poor seeing after 2 AM. We also took data for the WHIM and cluster confirmation programs. Despite the photometric conditions, we did not observe a photometric standard field for ND_LLS. None of the pre-prepared LBT fields were at a suitable airmass. See the note in the section on that program. We did take a standard observation for ND_whim. This program requested a different filter set, and a standard was available closer to the airmass of the target field. We also collected as many sky flats as possible. In combination with flats taken earlier in the run, we have at least one flat for each camera/filter combination requested by the LBC programs. Many of these are available in two different position angles to obviate effects induced by gradients in the twilit sky. ============ Opening ============ 0030 Beginning LBC bias frames for LBCB and LBCR cameras. 0156 Sunset. Clear skies and photometric 0215 Beginning twilight flat exposures for U-Bessell and V-Bessel (LBCR). 0228 Beginning full twilight flat sequence for U-Bessel and V-Bessel. CR ~35000 0232 Beginning twilight flat sequence for U_spec & z filters. CR ~20000 0238 Beginning B & R band twilight flats. CR ~20000 0245 Finished twilight flats. Beginning focus sequence. 0258 Bumping telescope to re-start focus sequence. 0303 Beginning telescope co-pointing adjustment. Ran into trouble because current version of LBTtools has a conflict with allowed instrument names. ============ OSU_cc ============ 0320 Moving telescope to science field for RX J1209+45. Estimated seeing from initial focus sequence is 1.0". 0327 Stopping image sequence to re-focus. 0333 Re-starting OB with corrected focus. Seeing is ~0.65" in r-band. 0348 Beginning short read-outs of r,i,z bands (20s) ============ ND_whim ============ 0351 Moving telescope to science field for target PG1338. 0353 Beginning focus sequence. 0358 Beginning first science observation. DOFPIA reports 0.8" seeing in r-band. First i-band science image shows 0.7" seeing. 0422 Beginning collimation/focus sequence prior to next exposure. 0425 Beginning second science OB. Science image shows 0.8" seeing. 0448 Beginning third science OB. Image condition remains good, so no re-focus (seeing 0.9" in U-band, 0.8" in I-band) 0511 Beginning focus sequence. 0517 Beginning fourth science OB. Seeing is approximately 0.7" in both B- and V-bands. 0531 LBCB image 052709 has no data. Appears to be a communication problem between LBC and the data archive. Taking an additional B-band image to compensate (and V-band, too). 0539 Moving telescope to flux standard field SA 104. 0544 Beginning collimation/focus sequence for field SA 104. 0546 Focus sequence converged. Beginning flux standard OB. ============ OSU_monitor ============ 0551 Moving telescope to focus field for M81. 0554 Beginning collimation/focus sequence. Estimated seeing 0.9". 0559 Beginning science observation of M81. We note that the OB carried out simultaneous V-band images of this galaxy on both cameras, which is not what is described in the README file. 0610 Moving telescope to NGC 3489 focus field. 0616 Beginning science observations of NGC 3489. Estimated seeing 1.2" from collimation sequence. 0625 Seeing in first science images is 0.8" in R-band and 0.9" in B-band. 0654 Moving telescope to focus field for NGC 3344. Estimated seeing 1.0" from focus sequence. 0700 Moving telescope to science field for NGC 3344. Seeing is 0710 Seeing from first science images is 0.7" in both V- and R-bands. 0721 Seeing in U_spec images is 0.8" 0722 LBCR has no viable star on its focus chip, so images will be subject to degradation as focus drifts. Seeing quality changes by ~0.1" from 07:01:38 to 07:15:48. 0730 Finished NGC 3344. Moving telescope to focus field for NGC 4258. 0745 Finished focus sequence. Beginning science OB for NGC 4525. Estimated seeing 0.7" from focus sequence. 0750 Seeing from first science image is 0.5" in R-band and 0.55" in V-band. 0755 No stars on focus chips for either LBCB or LBCR. Focus will drift. 0810 Stopped exposing because R-band failed to start exposing at the beginning of the V-sequence. Re-starting the OB. 0812 OB successfully re-started from where it left off. Not the expected behavior after a full OB stop. Possible software glitch. 0815 Conclude that we lost an R-band image during the software glitch. Should be some image between 07:58:02 and 08:12:50 but none appears. 0833 Moving telescope to focus field for NGC 4826. Estimated seeing 0.8". 0840 Beginning first science OB for NGC 4826. First science images give seeing 0.9" in both B- and R-bands. 0904 Seeing degrades as we move toward higher airmass. 0909 Seeing appears to have degraded dramatically to approximately 1.5" in R-band. 0909 Encountered an RPC communication error with the red camera. Powering down LBCs after 14/18 exposures (after image #2 of V-band sequence). 0917 Powering LBCs back up after shut down sequence. 0922 Re-starting OB at previous position in sequence. 0935 Slewing telescope to focus field for NGC 5474. 0940 Finished focus sequence. Slewing to target. Estimated seeing 1.5" 0945 Moving telescope to science field for NGC 5474. 0952 Stopping OB due to extraordinarily poor seeing conditions. ============ ND_LLS ============ NOTE: We have not taken photometric standards for this object. None of the flux standard sets in common use are calibrated in the giz filter set, and none of the LBT pre-set standard fields have similar airmass. (The nearest LBT pre-defined standard star field is at RA=15:40 and Dec=-00:15.) We suggest calibrating the photometry with the SDSS sources in the field. 0954 Moving telescope to target field to begin focus sequence. 1004 Slewing telescope again due to operator error. Re-starting focus sequence. 1010 Starting OB. Seeing is 1.5" in Sloan-r band. 1020 No visible pupil image on technical chip. Telescope will tend to drift in focus. 1031 Starting focus sequence. 1034 Starting second exposure due to poor seeing conditions. 1037 Re-starting second exposure sequence. Previous attempt used focusing OB instead. ============ OSU_cc ============ 1057 Moving telescope to science field for RX J1336+54 1100 Beginning focus sequence. Estimated seeing 2.0". 1105 Beginning science sequence. Estimated seeing 1.6". 1120 Starting science OB a second time to compensate for poor seeing. 1122 Seeing is becoming poor, and we are pushing into twilight. In past 10 minutes, sky counts have gone from 12,500 to 23,700. Seeing now approaches 2" in red. 1122 Have just passed airmass 1.7. 1128 Stopping OB after 4 of 8 exposures due to rapidly increasing sky brightness. 1129 LBC has recovered from a crash. Powering cameras back up. 1131 Beginning fast snapshot exposure sequence. Be advised that the "OBJECT" keyword in these images will read "RX J1209+45" rather than "RX J1336+54" due to an operator oversight. ============== Calibrations ============== 1134 Slewing telescope to take first sky flat test (g & r bands). 1140 Found dense star cluster in field. Creating new sky flat OBs far from Galactic plane. 1149 Took first test exposure. Got ~2000 counts. 1151 Took extended test exposure (3x). Found ~6000 counts. Beginning full flat sequence at 2.5x. Last flat had ~22000 counts. 1159 Beginning flat sequence for V & I bands. Initial counts ~25000 1201 Changing scale factor. New images yield ~17000 counts. 1203 Beginning r & i band flat sequence. Sky counts ~17000 in r-band and ~30000 in i-band. 1207 Red channel (i band) in non-linear regime by this time. Probably not reliable for sky flats. 1208 Finished sky flats. 1217 Started dark current OB.