OSU/RC Queue Observing UTC 2012 June 16 (civil date 2012 June 15/16) ======================================= Observers: R. Pogge (OSU), D. Berg (UM) Telescope Operator: S. Allanson Support Astronomer: O. Kuhn Support Tech: D. Officer Instrument: MODS, because of a disabled LBC-R camera Summary: Half Night, we get the 1st half, LBTO gets the 2nd half to prepare for a run with PISCES/AO for INAF starting tomorrow night. Clear and warm, light wind (8m/s). A few puffy afternoon convective clouds, so maybe only marginally photometric. LBC red channel died (bias trackers fault) shortly after we finished morning biases. Work on the camera here with remote assistance from Italy was fruitless, so we called it off for the day at around 5:30. We decided to switch to MODS using a very short half-night program we cobbled together during the afternoon while they were working on LBCR. It is a long-slit grating program derived from the dregs of the queue. Our hard stop is at 0015MST when we hand off to Juan Carlos from LBTO. Seeing started very good, 0.5", then degraded steadily to around 1" and variable with some ugly puffing to 1.5". Overall average is probably 1-1.2". Transparency appeared to be good, and wind was light. Details: All times are UTC unless otherwise noted ------- Startup 01:00 - side vent doors are closed, will open if the wind continues to drop (gusts to 14m/s earlier this afternoon) Vent doors opened later after sunset when the winds dropped to 5m/s. 02:48 - pointing star, waiting for darkness 03:09 - active optics running, getting darker. Nice seeing (0.6" on guider) GD140 - Our favorite standard star (to start these nights with) 03:25 - acquiring standard star - good collimation and images seeing 0.5" FWHM on the acquisition image (2s) 03:31 - starting obs script - dual grating only 3x180s/channel ND_css1204 - 1.5h 16x on CV (winds calm, <4m/s) Note: We reset the slit PA to -80deg and identified a new guide star to better align with parallactic for a rough start time of 0400 UTC. However, a lack of bright blue guide stars at the new PA means we will acquire with the clear filter, but diff'l atmospheric refraction will not be substantially larger compared to seeing. 03:47 - preset to target (css1204_ut04.acq script) 03:54 - sent offset, taking confirmatory snap Seeing 0.7" at SDSS g 03:56 - starting observing script, 16x200s, about 5min/image with all overheads, so we'll be here for 80 minutes. Instructions said 65 min total, but that would require assuming 43 sec overhead per frame. It is more like 100 sec per frame. Note: Seeing was variable, started out good, but as we sank in elevation there was a little puffing, but mostly under 1" UM_U10818 - improvisation for the unexpected MODS night 05:18 - preset to target. 05:28 - start acquisiton. Seeing was 0.8" when we arrived, but puffed to 1.15" when we took the field snap (60s). Will be variable during the 3x1200s integrations. 05:50 - seeing was better (0.9") during much (but not all) of the second exposure. Still variable w/occasional puffs. Must be pockets of warm air blowing over us from the very hot (low 100s) valleys. 06:34 - added 1 and 2, detecting 4363 (our goal), but v. faint. given the hit from puffy seeing, we'll end on a 4th 1200s, rather than a standard (we have lots of standards from this run) 06:37 - fired off 4th exposure. 07:00 - done. handoff to LBTO ======================================================================== While telescope is at zenith for reconfiguration of the right side, I'll fire off some pixflats.