Observers: Paul Martini, Scott Adams 
Telescope Operator: Geno Bechetti 
Support Astronomer: Michelle Edwards
Instrument: MODS1

Observing Log for 2013 April 30/May 1

Summary:

The seeing was fairly horrible at 1.5" - 2.5" for most of the first half, 
but was decent at 1" for most of the second half. We attempted OSU_ORLs, 
but hit a limit with the secondary fairly early on. As we did not have time 
to reacquire and finish this target, and the image quality was poor anyway, 
we moved to try NGC5055_f1. The seeing was 1.5" - 2.5", but we took data 
anyway as it looked like it was slowly improving and the seeing was above the 
limit for all of the programs. The seeing did not improve, so those data are 
probably not useful. At around midnight the seeing became much better, 
so we started SN2011fe and stayed on that for the rest of the night. The 
seeing was mostly 1", although occasionally flared up to 1.5" - to 2". These 
data look decent, and we took an extra 1200s exposure just in case to fill 
out the night. We then took a spectrophotometric standard in twilight 
and started the calibration scripts for long-slit spectroscopy. 

Night seemed clear, although was hazy at times -- mostly during periods 
of really poor seeing . 

Details: 

All times are UTC unless otherwise noted

2:30 Twilight sky is clear, wind about 13m/s, temp about 8C. 

3:10 Seeing about 1.4". Observed spectrophotometric standard Feige 34.  

3:20 Wind picking up, seeing about 1.1", Aborted calibration script as 
     twilight is over 

3:30 OSU_ORLs IC2574 acquisition 

3:50 Started ic2574.obs 

4:05 Lost GS due to a secondary RX limit. There is no time to complete 
     this target, so heading to a new target 

4:10 NGC5055 f1 acquisition 

4:20 Seeing 2.5"! Need to clear active optics 
     
4:45 Seeing still horrible, but running mask acquisition anyway in case it 
     improves (and the absence of 2.5" programs) 

4:50 Starting NGC5055_f1 in 1.5" seeing

5:05 Seeing still bad, DIMM at 2", WF very asymmetric 

5:35 Pausing after second exposure in script to clear the active optics. 
     This will hopefully fix the very comatic WFS 
     *** hit PAUSE at very start of exposure 3, yet GUI says the shutter 
         is still OPEN  
5:48 Starting again. WFS is better, although seeing is still very poor 
     Aborted 3rd one in case shutter was actually open (script aborted) 
     DIMM seeing is 2.5" 
5:54 Restarted script 
6:19 Seeing about 1.2" 
6:37 Seeing about 1.7" 
6:50 Now about 1.2", looking much better 

7:00 Reading out N5055, aborted script after readout. Stopped and restarted 
     OSS. 
7:05 Running acqMODS SN2011fe_UT09.acq
7:21 Identified object, taking through-slit image 
7:28 Started SN2011fe, seeing 1" 
7:42 Seeing very variable 
8:00 Seeing stable at about 1" 
10:00 Seeing degrading to 1.5-2" 
10:44 Finished SN2011fe script. Seeing still poor at 1.5-2". 
      Taking one extra 1200s exposure due to poor seeing
11:02 Twilight begins 
11:08 Slewing to BD33+2642 for acquisition 
11:15 Starting observation, dual grating only 

11:47 Starting calibrations:
execMODS bias8K.cal
execMODS bias3K.cal
execMODS imflats_r.cal
execMODS grpixflats.cal
execMODS slitflats_May13.cal
execMODS grflats.cal
execMODS grlamps.cal
/home/modseng/modsScripts/Support/modsSleep.pro