Observers: Pogge, Villanueva Telescope Operator: Geno Bechetti Support Astronomer: Olga Kuhn Instrument: LUCI Imaging + LBC Observing Log for 2013 Mar 19/20 Summary: Cirrus most of the day, some thicker to the west. Cool with calm winds. Tonight's program starts with LUCI direct imaging as the MOS mask system has failed and is inoperable. Ran with LUCI with very good to not-so-good seeing until 0830 UTC (0130MST) when the moon was setting and we switched to LBC. Seeing hovered around 1-arcsec with cirrus and occasional episodes of puffy seeing. We ran into some image quality issues with the blue camera. We tried to co-point then collimate instead of the other way around and had better success, but on the last target this didn't work as well. Into early dawn we let Olga run some IQ tests with LBC to see if we could get a handle on the problem. Details: All times are UTC unless otherwise noted 00:00 - late hand-over because of work on the telescope with the ARGOS mirrors requiring a full rebalance of the telescope (really, this couldn't wait until the science block was over?) 01:00 - checked imaging mask and pupil alignment in LUCI. Ready to go. some restarts required (filter wheel hiccup) 01:40 - opening shutter doors 01:45 - open, slewing to zenith. Getting late for sky flats (see above) 01:48 - Ks bright - 5 each, target 15-20K ADU H bright J bright 02:05 - Ks low 5 each 5K ADU H low J low 5 UM_Starlesscore/L1544_J 02:18 - Acquisition - still a little bright still 02:30 - Start of observing. Seeing 0.8-arcsec OSU_SN/SN1954J Images 03:30 - Running imaging script. 0.7-0.8" or seeing throughout Some cirrus, guide star varied few 0.1 of a mag. OSU_MIRClusters/GLMG360.50 04:01 - GLM-G360_50 J to acquire and take J images On target, some cirrus, 1 arcsec seeing, sometimes less Started getting variable seeing, up to 1.4 during last third, but settled (band of stuff coming over of ~0.5mag) 04:18 - Running K script - seeing 0.9 arcsec at start. OSU_MIRClusters/GLMG360.46 04:34 - J script to acquire and take J images. 04:48 - K script - seeing (on guider) holding. AZ_idmgal - sequence is KKHHJ 05:04 - K script to acquire, then edit to comment out acq and run again. Seeing starting at 0.9-arcsec, but variable cirrus so we expect it to fluctuate some. 05:30 - Olga is noting the image quality in detail seems to have issues, particularly some elongation of what appear to be stars. Seeing is getting puffy at times as well, not as good as at the start. 05:40 - Seeing has started deteriorating as seen on the guider and DIMM, getting up to 2-arcsec on the DIMM. 05:50 - Sequence 1 done. We've stopped because seeing has dramatically deterioriated during the past 15 minutes. 2+ arcsec, and WFS is now useless. We're in a holding pattern while we evaluate what we can do. 06:20 - Running the J script. This is following the PI's priorities, now that this episode of truly awful seeing has passed, we're starting the J imaging. We'll see if it behaves long enough to get some decent data. Seeing 1.2 arcsec on first images. But not so good on others. But the general trend is better and less jumpy. Finally becoming mostly sub-arcsec (0.8-0.9) around 06:50. 07:00 - Done - putting in a blind filter and going to collimate with an on-axis Persson star - image quality is dubious on the images (though the guider images superficially looks OK). 07:02 - Persson star for on-axis collimation... 07:05 - Back to field, re-running K, seeing 0.8 arcsec. Much better behaved this time. Guide star counts only slowly changing. 07:48 - H-band imaging script. Seeing ~1 arcsec, but variable. Starting to see variations in the guide counts, more cirrus bands rolling through. Seeing got better through sequence. Once we get to the first LBC long target, we'll execute the dark calibration script. ========================================================================== 08:30 - Changing instruments to LBC and balancing OSU_monitor/NGC3627 08:51 - focus and collimate - some fuss at first 09:14 - science OB. Also executing the LUCI dark script 09:30 - pause, focus is poor in blue, elongated images. Red OK. 09:35 - resumed after refocus/collimate - better now Seeing ~1 arcsec Seeing slowly getting worse through sequence as measured by the DIMM and images on the LBC. Blue images are showing a steady degradation in image quality - not dramatic, but not a paragon of stability, either. OSU_monitor/NGC4736 10:19 - Trying something differnet: co-point then focus/collimate. 10:24 - On to the science field. Seeing 1-1.5 arcsec OSU_monitor/NGC4826 10:40 - copoint and collimate - cirrus 10:49 - science OB. Seeing ~1 arcsec. Image quality good on blue and red. OSU_monitor/NGC4214 11:31 - copoint and collimate - more cirrus 11:39 - science OBs. Blue images are slightly elongated. Seeing ~1 arcsec. To investigate some of these nagging IQ issues, we're going to repeat this observation, but now collimating then co-pointing. 11:49 - Olga running IQ tests on LBC as we go into twilight (0501 MST). ------------------------------ LBC Biases and Darks after we close.