Observers: Pogge, Villanueva Telescope Operator: David Gonzalez-Huerta Support Astronomer: Olga Kuhn Instrument: MODS1 Observing Log for 2013 Mar 16/17 Summary: Overcast at noon, but forecast is promsing. The watch word for tonight will be "wind". Clouds mostly gone by sunset, but probably not a clean photometric night. Seeing was not very good. We had a few episodes of 1-arcsec, but by and large the seeing was 1.2-arcsec or, at times, much worse. We muddled through as best we could with programs that could tolerate conditions when we began, but had to contend with variable seeing. Programs were given extended exposure times only if we could fit that in their visibility windows. A very trying night. Details: All times are UTC unless otherwise noted 21:30-22:40 (Afternoon): Running long-slit comparison lamps and spectral flats for MODS1. Note that chamber lights are on, which is not a problem for red flats or comps in either channel. 00:24 - Calibrations with dark dome OSU_CHAOS/NGC4254_f1.cal UM_M81mms/m81_f1.cal 01:00 - David opening up and getting ventilation going Clouds mostly gone, but some haze, so not a pristine photometric night. Inside/outside/mirror equilibration should not be a problem. 02:15 - Got collimated, seeing about 1-arcsec For the record, we spotted Comet PANSTARRS naked eye (just barely) and in binoculars GD71 - Standard Star 02:26 - GD71 target acquisition *** GCS froze up on sending the offset due to shell RIP. *** going to another star at recommendation of DGH G191B2b - Standard Star 02:32 - Going to G191B2B instead (issue of wind??) 02:41 - Start of dual and red grating spectra. Had to tweak offset by dx=+0.25 arcsec. Seeing 1.1" but puffy, worse at times. WFS looks like we're still a little out of equilibrium **NOTE: WFS images have the appearance of a pincushion, not as flat as normal. Will pass along to the AO/IQ group for examination. UM_M81mms/m81_f1 03:05 - Start of acquisition Wind is up a little. Seeing a little soft at first, with this WFS star (R=15.76) we're at the edge of what we can do. Mask alisgnment pretty good, seeing 1.3-arcsec and puffy. better at times, worse at others... 03:22 - Start of science observing, 4x20min... wind starting to gust above 17m/s giving warnings. We will watch it closely. Seeing puffy, usually around 1.1, but blows up on occasion to 1.2-1.4. 03:44 - First spectra down, can see HII emission and faint continuum in all of the science slits, so our alignment is good (confirms what we saw in the thru-slit confirmation image). 04:35 - Seeing started to degrade during the last spectrum. DIMM shows 1.4-1.5 arcsec, consistent with guide star images. Will finish this out. *** Overall we see continuum in all apertures, so we expect the combination of four 20min exposures should give good spectra. Sorry we didn't get better seeing. Threaded it into the narrow observing window as best we could. ND_COSMOS/galex13035 04:50 - Acquisition for GALEX13035 started. ~4min slew. Seeing 1.3 arcsec. Seeing 1.1-1.2 arcsec. Target very close to slit and easy to identify. 05:02 - Started science observing. Seeing is not stable, bounces around from 1.2 to 1.4 arcsec. Not a great night. Watching the wind still. We may need to take a couple more images to achieve the S/N>~30 requirement. 05:36 - First image out - definitely seeing smeared, but we detect continuum. We'll have to tough this out. 06:08 - Starting another 2x1800s to get to their S/N limit, as this program should be able to tolerate the 1.2+arcsec seeing. Things got better during the last half of the first 30min exposure in this sequence, getting to nearly 1-arcsec for a brief period. The seeing hovered around 1.2-arcsec for the 2nd 30min exposure. This pushed close to the rotator/zenith limit (within 5-10min) *** Seeing the second run was better, the combination looks to have accomplished the SN>30 as best we can tell. Feige 34 - Std Star 07:10 - Feige 34 acquisition Added dx=+0.125 to offset - will revisit pointing reference using these and images from Dave T tomorrow. 07:19 - Started observations. Seeing puffing up to 1.3-1.4 arcsec Great... OSU_SN2012cg 07:50 - Acquisition. Midpoint of 3h run is ~0930UTC, so using the UT07_30.acq (2h offset Mar to Feb). The devil to identify in modsAlign because of the bright galaxy background. We are sure we ID'd it correctly using the modsDisp ds9 window to get the approximate coordinates, then going to that position in the modsAlign view and hitting "x" to mark. The confirmatory slit image showed it was there. 08:13 - started science observations - 8x1200s. Seeing not starting out as well as when we started the acquisition. We'll see how this goes... Exp 1: seeing unstable, puffing all over at times, but usually around 1.2-1.4 arcsec. We are definitely seeing the SN in the spectrum (we *did* ID it correctly!). Exp 2: Settling down but still puffy, occasional puffs to ~1.4 arcsec Exp 3: more of the same Exp 4: seeing around 1.3-1.4 arcsec Exp 5, 6: more of same Exp 7: Seeing much worse during 2nd half of this exposure. not going to be a good spectrum, but we do still see the SN. Exp 8: Started bad, then settled down to 1.1 arcsec (but variable). *** We see the SN in all of the spectra, so we got something. We hope it is enough as a do-over is not likely given other high-priority targets and the weather forecast. HZ44 - Standard Star 11:08 - Acquiring target. Had to tweak alignment (see notes above) will get more quantitative tomorrow 11:20 - Starting observations - grating dual and red-only mode 11:45 - Test with new offset reference in modsAlign (x=506 instead of 503) -- right in the middle -- 11:50 - Done a little early, seeing is poor and there are no more readily observed standards at this time.