LBT OSU/RC Partner Observing Notes Date: 2014 November 27 UTC (Night 8 of 8) Observer: Rick Pogge (OSU) Support Astronomer: M. Edwards (remote) Telescope Operator: G. Bechetti SUMMARY: MODS1 and LBC night. Very clear skies, winds 10m/s, but seeing was variable between 0.7 and 1.3" at times. Didn't have the thermal stability problems with the primaries that we had last night. Started with MODS1, ran until 5UT, then changed over to LBC for the remainder of the night at 0530 UT. Seeing was good during the long LBC portion, 0.6-1.0. During MODS it was OK, 0.9-1.0 with puffs up to 1.2 or so, and occasional dips down to 0.7. Mirrors thermally very good, and except a couple of inevitable LBC startup glitches, everything ran well all night. MODS Programs Observed: OSU_Z6: DES2114 and DES2148 - completes OSU_Z6 for this run. OSU_lens: 1 image compromised by Z11 runaway, took a 4th to replace. UVa_BCD_MODS: J0222 spectra. See notes about the detailed target acquisition and also the notes about the J0153 acq fail. LBC Programs Observed: OSU_monitor: see below Observing Notes: All times are UTC unless otherwise noted 23:00 - Configured for MODS1 to start to knock off high-priority early MODS programs remaining, then we will change to LBC for most of the night. Forecast is better, temperatures are more stable and mirrors are already in good shape. No wind and very clear, probably photometric. Nothing on the satellite. 23:50 - Started up LBC w/o a repeat of last night's problems. 00:30 - Beautifully clear after sunset - easy to see Kitt Peak, and winds are not as strong as previous nights. Still above 10m/s so limited vent doors opened. T=4.8C, so warmer start than last night, but no big changes today so the mirrors look good and will get better. Could be a good-seeing night. 01:00 - On sky and collimated. Mirrors look great, WFS look flat, Seeing 0.8. Looking really good. 01:07 - Going to Feige 110 waiting for twilight. Will take dual grating and dual prism calibration data under photometric conditions. Seeing 0.8-0.9" 01:13 - Starting f110_nov14.obs calibration spectra. A little early (just after 12-degree twilight) but OK to go. Seeing 0.9" at start. puffed to 1.0-1.1" 01:17 - had to restart active optics, forces high on mirror and Z11 1100, should only be a few hundred. Did it during readout. converged fast. 01:28 - Z11 climbed up to 1100, then started going down. Seing has been 1-1.1" during this period. 01:31 - OSU_Z6, DES2114-0041 acquisition. Cleared active optics so we can get a cleaner start at the source. We have time as we're not yet to full astronomical twilight. Will be on target and ready to start science exposures right at AT. Seeing 0.9" WFS Z11 now stable around 300. Still a tough acq - target is faint. Using a 120s thru-slit image to confirm centering. Seeing 0.8-0.9" 01:45 - Executing science script. Seeing 0.85", target well-centered in the slit. Astronomical Twilight was at 0141UTC. El=49 and setting. 2x1200s with 10" dither between. Seeing 0.7-0.9" during the integrations, but occasional puffs to 1" or more. Probably scraps of stuff going over us, but mostly stable during the exposure, just puffs, but on average the seeing was 0.1-0.2" worse during exposure 2 than exposure 1. Moon is about 24 degrees away, but not too bad (FLI=0.24). 02:30 - OSU_Z, DES2148+0043. Similar drill as DES2114. Seeing 0.8-1" Target faint, thru-slit image 90s to confirm. Target is well-centered. Elevation 48-deg at acq. 02:42 - Executing science script. Seeing at start 0.85". We will just finish inside the HA window. Moon is about 28-deg away. Exposure 1 seeing ~0.9", ranged 0.85-0.95", brief puffs to 1.1" @ end. Exposure 2 seeing started 1.1", 0.9-1.0" second half and variable. 03:27 - OSU_lens/SDSS0102 - imaging observation, hopefully seeing is good at the target (El~58deg) compared to El~40 where we were. Started at 03:32 when the WFS converged w/RMS WFE<300nm Seeing is 0.8-0.9". Z11 started rising during exposure 2. Paused at exposure 3, reset active optics, but seeing is also variable, so we just have to take what we get. Seeing better during exposure 3, 0.8-0.9" again. 03:47 - Taking a 4th 200s image to make up for compromised image 2. Seeing ~0.9" and Z11 behaving itself 03:52 - UVa_BCD_MODS, J0153 acquisition. Pointing off, target star clearly at bottom of guide acquire field, resetting mount pointing. Also clearing active optics. Grabbed a galaxy core instead of guide star. Hopeless with the LBT GCS system, aborting. 03:58 - UVa_BCD_MODS, J0222 acquisition. Cleaner acq field. Target faint, putting slit onto a likely blob in the target galaxy. The place to center on the slit was not obvious in the PI-provided SDSS finder so I had to make a call. I am sending Trinh a snapshot of my display window showing which aim point I picked. 04:08 - Executing science script. Looks well-centered in the slit. 4x800s exposures. Seeing ~1" at start, range 0.9-1.1". First spectra in mods_quickreduce show emission lines of H-alpha, H-beta, and [O III]4959,5007, so I think I picked the right target. Seeing is running 0.95-1.05 during the integrations. 05:10 - Going to Zenith to switch to LBC. During the switch I'm running flats and biases for OSU_lens imaging. 05:12 - Running MODSCalib/imflats_lens.cal. g and r imaging flats and then 5x 3Kx3K bias images both channels. Getting good counts (40kADU) in the flats. Will also run biases in the background for prism and grating modes. See logs for details. 05:27 - Switch and balance done End of MODS1 Observing --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Start of LBC Observing 05:30 - OSU_monitor, NGC628B, focus and co-point. Bunch of coma and spherical to start. Collimating... 05:45 - Converged, running co-pointing script for N628 06:10 - usual LBC IRAF startup BS took time. 06:11 - Running OSU_monitor NGC628B. Seeing ~1" Usual IRAF fun Michelle talked me through it 06:46 - OSU_monitor, NGC672B, focus and co-point. 06:58 - Executing science OB for NGC672 - seeing ~1" Got a "warning" on blue apparently about the filter wheel#1 the log says "hardware failure". A fault that stops blue channel data acquisition is a "warning". Really? Bottom Line: letting red run, then we'll diagnose blue. 07:33 - Red ended, Michelle running diagnostics. Michelle back, got response so running another target OB so we can try to get an image through the blue channel and look for vignetting from an offset filter wheel. 07:51 - NGC925B Focus/Co-Point OB 08:02 - NGC925B Science OB - blue and red running. Blue is working again, running with it. Seeing 0.9" in red, 1" blue. Images are round. 08.26 - NGC2403B Focus/Co-Point OB 08:41 - NGC2403B Science OB - 0.7" red, 0.8" blue 08:52 - NGC3077B Foucs/Co-Point OB 09:00 - NGC3077B Science OB - 0.8" red, 0.9" blue 09:11 - M81 Focus/Co-Point OB - had to restart IRAF/RB_Science because of mystery fault on lbcrangebal. 09:19 - M81 Science OB - 0.8" red stars round, 0.9" blue but stars not round 09:30 - M82 Focus/Co-Point OB 09:38 - M82 Science OB - blue images mishapen, red round and 0.75" 09:50 - NGC2903 Focus/Co-Point OB, long slew to unwrap azimuth (~5min!) 10:03 - NGC2903 Science OB - 0.7" in red and round, 0.9" in blue, slightly elongated, but better later in the sequence. Very steady seeing on the DIMM. 10:46 - IC2574 Focus/Co-Point OB, red convergence slow (5 iterations) 10:59 - IC2574 Science OB - red 0.75" and round, blue 0.8" and slightly elongated. 11:11 - NGC3489 Focus/Co-Point OB, 11:22 - NGC3489 Science OB - red 0.85" round, blue 0.93" slightly oval During sequence seeing increased to 1.1" in red/blue, also on DIMM Air temp also up 1C in past 10min, blob of warm air passing by? T=7C. 12:00 - NGC4236 Focus/Co-Point OB 12:13 - NGC4236 Science OB - red 0.8" round, blue 0.9" slight elongation 12:25 - NGC4214 Focus/Co-Point OB 12:33 - NGC4214 Science OB - 18-deg twilight starting. red 0.8" round, blue 0.95" and round 12:42 - NGC4395 Focus/Co-Point OB 12:50 - NGC4395 Science OB - pushing towards 12-deg twilight red 0.95" round, blue 1.0" slightly elongated. Background coming up. 13:00 - All Done.