LBT OSU/RC Partner Observing Notes Date: 2014 November 26 UTC (Night 7 of 8) Observers: Ben Shappee, Rick Pogge (OSU) Support Astronomer: M. Edwards (remote) Telescope Operator: G. Bechetti SUMMARY: *** IMAGES MISNAMED mods1x.20141125.*.fits *** MODS1. Sky is clear, but we have wind and sunset and the temperature has gone way up from last night. We were at -10C, started just over -1C. This has implications for mirror temperature equilibration. Pretty much we had thermal issue the first 2/3 of the night compounded with poor seeing. Outside air temps went through some big excursions, making equilibration problematic. Wasn't until the last 1/3 of the night we were stable and then seeing steadily improved towards twilight. We did what we could with the conditions (and telescope) we were dealt. Seeing ranged from 2" to 0.6". Had to fill time with some poor-seeing AGN targets for the former, proceeded with high-priority MODS targest the latter Plan was for LBC at midnight, but telescope thermal problems and poor seeing was such that it would be hopeless. Instead we forged ahead with MODS1 programs. At the end we switched to LBC at twilight to get a jump on flats. Programs Observed: UM_ASN14fv - coordinated with M. Wagner photometry at MDM2.4m UVa_Mgiants - giant2,3,4,9 - PI please see notes OSU_Z6 - check DES2114, conditions were difficult ND_void - excellent seeing, best observations of the night ND_v445pup - better seeing, got the data at prime observing window OSU_AGN - filler when seeing was 2" or worse. Observing Notes: All times are UTC unless otherwise noted 00:30 - Open, Winds out of NE, so keeping back to the wind as gusts are pushing near limits. 00:50 - Collimation preset to BS9185 110, still in twilight Mirrors are 5C colder than air, even after running air all afternoon. Cannot open vent doors because of the wind. 01:00 - Collimating, seeing about 0.9", started way out of focus Geno had to dial in focus by hand, then slow convergence. A lot of "donut" distortion as we're so far out of equilibrium. Reset active optics, but just walks away. PSF looks awful after a while. 01:18 - Going to Feige 110 standard star. Had to reset AO first. Image quality is terrible and seeing is starting to go to hell. IQ is unstable, Z11 runs away. Mirrors were over-aooled in anticipation that it would be as cold as last night (-10c) despite an NWS forecast that was calling for a warming trend up to 2C (35F) by 3am. We'll just have to ride this out. Seeing is also variable: 0.9-2" which is definitely not helping matters. Right now we've got a 3C center-to-edge gradient on the mirror and an average delta-T of 3.3C. The gradient is our problem. 02:00 - Finished the standard star spectra, IQ not great and had to reset AO a number of times. May not be useful (or at least really hard to extract). Luckily we have data from previous nights, so it is not critical. Going to ASN14fv, problem may be facing into the wind. Causing problems with secondary, have to stop and go elsewhere. 02:05 - Going to OSU_Z6/DES2114-0041. DIMM seeing is 0.9-1, but PSF is 1.3 due to the mirror gradient. Doing what we can. 22:20 - Started science script. Z11 is more stable now, but still some distortion of the WF. Primary is getting better. Seeing is 0.9-1". Core is getting better as we integrate, but the wings are now comatic, consistent with active optics. At least it is not running away anymore. Center-to-edge gradient is now 1.2C, so better but a ways to go. 02:47 - Seeing puffed up during 2nd exposure, around 1.1 on average. Time is too short (object is low) to simply double the observing sequence. We got signal, but pretty faint given the IQ and seeing issues. We ended near 36-deg elevation. Please have PI check data during the day and give us a read on a do-over of this high-priority OSU target. 03:08 - Going to UVa_MGiants/mgiant2 - acquisition good. Seeing and IQ better at 59-deg elevation: 1-1.1 arcsec and less donut wavefront. 03:16 - Started science script. 1x800s dual grating, 0.8" slit Seeing around 1" during and WFS looks a lot better Because these star was well-centered in the thru-slit confirmatory image, we omitted the post-spectrum thru slit image. At 800s exptime, this is not indicated (it *would* be indicated if the spectral exposure was an hour long, mostly because of DAR concerns). 03:34 - UVa_MGiants/giant3 - acquisition. Seeing ~1-1.1". Offset by -0.12". Science script, then post-slit image because we didn't take a 2nd thru-slit image after the offset. 03:59 - UVa_MGiants/giant4 - acquisition - seeing 0.9". Star well-centered after offset, no further offset needed. 04:05 - Starting science script 2x600s. Seeing ~1" with some puffs during exposure 1. During this visit the air temp outside went up to near 2.C, corresponding to a puff in seeing. 04:31 - Post-spectrum thru-slit image 04:33 - UM_ASN14fv - acquiring. Temp going up, seeing some pinch on the WFS. Grumble. Seeing is 1"... We alerted Mark Wagner at the MDM 2.4m who is making simultaneous photometric observations while we take spectra. Mark started before we got on target and we are in email contact. 04:45 - Starting science script. 3x600s dual grating WFS Z11 starting to runaway, clear AO during inst config... 04:50 - paused to clear AO, resumed at 04:52. Gradient 1.3C 04:54 - paused to clear AO, resumed at 04:56 - resumed Note: exptime in header is bogus, it is report the darktime, not the 600s of open shutter time. Bug in code? Grumble... 05:10 - pause to clear during exp 2, resumed about 05:12. Combo of seeing and WFS instability not helping... 05:23 - brief pause for WFS reset, resumed at 05:25 05:33 - Taking a 4th 600s to make up for puffy seeing. T outside went from 0.1C to 4C in about 30 minutes, so we have some kind of inversion layer over us, messing with the seeing. The temp spike disequilibrated the primary, bringing us back to WFS Z11 runaway problems. Gradient on mirror is 1C C-to-E 05:44 - Taking a 5th and final 600s image, then moving along. Seeing is 1.5" with puffs. Doing what we can under crappy conditions and telescope thermal issues. Temp outside just dropped from 3.3 to 0.5 in less than 10 minutes, then curled back up to 1.5C about as fast. Messed up weather here tonight. Seeing is 2" on the DIMM, this last one is probably crap, but might be salvagable. 05:56 - UVa_MGiant, mgiant9 (last one visible) 06:00 - WFS is flatter now so hopefully more stable, seeing ~1.2-1.4" as we pass through this inversion. Temp back down to 0C. Hopefully seeing and WFS stabilization will help this target. 06:07 - Star well-centered in slit, seeing 1.2", integrating 2x500s dual grating, then seeing blows up to 2"+. No mercy tonight... We'll repeat it a 2nd time to make up for the poor seeing blowing up. Not much else we can do tonight. 06:28 - repeat 2x500, seeing 1.4", Object is faint, so not clear this spectrum is any good. Have PI advise regarding quality so we can reset time accounting as needed. 06:55 - G191B1b Standard Star - seeing 1.5" in a 5" slit. Just doing the dual grating calib. Additional offset of +0.3" 07:00 - Executing the calibration script. Seeing 1.5-1.6" on DIMM, dipping briefly to 1.2". Mirror better and WFS flat and stable. 07:12 - Bad seeing target: OSU_AGN/3c120 - Seeing ~2". Temperature shot up -0.5 to 4C in about 15 minutes. 07:50 - More Bad Seeing: OSU_AGN/Mrk79 - Seeing ~1.5". Touched up pointing, rotated acq file PA=180 because of bad seeing, need a brighter guide star. 08:04 - Started science script. 08:35 - Bad Seeing Target: OSU_AGN/Mrk 6 - seeing ~2". 09:14 - UVa_Mgiants/mgiant23. Had to select a new guide star and rotate slit to PA=180 (star: NOMAD1 1155-0151600) Big change - seeing 1"! Extra offset of dX=+0.1". Necessitates a post-spectrum thru-slit image. 09:40 - Signal low despite 1" seeing at the PIs target spec. Taking a second 800s exposure. Suspect the exptimes are too short by about 2x. Can just see the CaII triplet lines they are seeking to measure in a quick-reduction 2d spectrum, but peak cts are ~20 ADU/pixel above bias. 10:00 - ND_v445pup - changed guide star to NOMAD1 0640-0145508, more on-axis. Picked up at el=30, our sweet spot. Seeing is ~1" here. But started to degrade during acquisition. 10:15 - Start of science script. Seeing is poorer than 1" targert, but we have no viable alternatives at this RA range. Can see various He emission lines in the red and blue quick-reduced spectra. Seeing 1.4" and variable during exposures. 11:14 - ND_void - acquisition. Better seeing (0.8-0.9") at El>60deg. 3x900s. Good slit centering, and we faintly see the 2nd object 20" south. Finally decent conditions and stable seeing. Took all night... Detect H-beta, [O III] and Ha in both main and 20" faint candidate, both at apparent redshift 0.35 (approx). [OII]3727 appears in the blue spectra for both objects. Seeing 0.7-0.8 during science exposures. We have only 10m before end of twilight, so took a bonus 900s spectrum for 4x900s total. Should help them ID fainter lines (and ther ewas nothing else to observe before twilight). Seeing 0.7-0.9", picked up a little more variability. 12:34 - Astronomical Twilight. Switching to LBC to setup to take twilight flats so we don't get caught out our last night if weather goes south. LBC startup problems (whodathunk!) M. Edwards called and intervened. V+R Flats, R has out-of-focus stars, so use R from previous nights? PA0 and PA180