LBT OSU/RC Observing Notes Date: 2015 Dec 07 Observers-- Brown, Skillman Summary: Evening's plan was to observe in LBC to do a complete sweep through the OSU_monitor targets and then to end with the highest priority ND program ND_sext. Weather etc. looked promising. Sometimes things don't go exactly as planned. We started the night observing OSU_monitor/N6496 (to be followed by OSU_monitor/N6496rot). We had some troubles with image quality (first red side and then blue side) likely due to temperature gradients across the mirrors. After a couple trys we got observations of good quality on N6946 and N6946rot. Then we had a mirror panic which took some time to recover from. On the next target, OSU_monitor/N672, the LBC housekeeping dropped out in the middle. Olga restarted it and we redid the OB. On the next target, OSU_monitor/N925 we had real problems getting good image quality - fpia was happy but the images weren't. After struggling with this (with Olga's help) for a while, we called John Hill. He suggested that the problems were probably due to a combination of being close to the zenith, using the 32 second option on fpia, and probably a jumpy guider to boot. After all of this thrashing, we had moved away from zenith and things appeared to be working again. Next target, OSU_monitor/N2403, appeared to go smoothly. Not sure why. I have had a long and happy relationship with this galaxy, so that probably is why. Next target, OSU_monitor/M81, we lost LBC housekeeping mid observaton. Olga had the good sense to go home by then, so Dave was called and got us back running. During the next target, OSU_monitor/M82, the telescope experienced a total power failure during the last integration. After being down for 1:50, we came back up, and went to ND_sext/sext_1. After that, we started sext_2, but we had an LBC filter hardware failure during that program. Olga helped us get restarted, but lost time so that the program did not finish before the skies became too bright. At that time the computers in the remote observatory locked up. Olga helped us regain control of the LBC in time for sky flats. Completed science targets: OSU_monitor/N6496 OSU_monitor/N6496rot OSU_monitor/N672 OSU_monitor/N925 OSU_monitor/N2403 OSU_monitor/M81 OSU_monitor/M82 ND_sext/sext_1 (MAYBE?? ask PI??) _______________________________________________________________ UT 00:19 Start of night Setting up to Observe with LBCs UT 00:23 Moving to field for sky flats Sky flats in Bessel U, Bessel V, Sloan g, Sloan i obtained successfully UT 01:30 Moved to NGC 6946 field and running fpia UT 01:38 Running focus OB on OSU_monitor/N6946 UT 01:45 starting N6946 seeing appears to be quite good ~0.7 arc sec mirror on red side not in equilibrium yet, so seeing is not as good as on the blue side UT 02:05 Interrupting program in order to work on the image quality on the red side UT 02:20 Re-running OSU_monitor/N6946 from start Seeing is improved on red side guide stars are showing ~0.8 arc sec images showing 0.7 arc sec in last images, blue side seeing is deteriorating UT 02:56 Go to N6946 focus field running fpia fpia isn't truly converging on blue side UT 03:16 Acquired and running OSU_monitor/N6946rot blue side seeing still looks a little problematic UT 03:30 At start of move to next target blue side mirror panic UT 03:52 Acquired OSU_monitor/N672 Concerns about the authorizing and initializing UT 04:19 Starting N672 seeing is ~0.9 arcsec (red) slightly worse blue UT 04:50 Housekeeping on the red side dropped out after 3 integrations so there are only half of the red images Doing an LBC software restart (lbckill lbcstart) UT 05:00 Restarting N672 (to get 3 more cycles in red) seeing holding at ~1 arc sec UT 05:19 Acquring OSU_monitor/N925 doing fpia UT 05:27 starting N925 terrible image quality in first set of images stopped program to re-run fpia UT 05:45 re-starting N925 guide stars looked bad again UT 05:55 re-authorized and initialized LBC doing fpia UT 06:07 re-starting N925 UT 07:00 After discussing with John Hill and deciding there were a number of factors (near zenith, using 32 s instead of 16 s in fpia) we retried fpia again, and re-started N925 with some improvement. However, after one set of integrations, the focus seems to be degraded with time. UT 07:22 Acquiring OSU_monitor/N2403 UT 07:30 starting N2403 seeing ~1.0 arc sec UT 07:39 Acquiring OSU_monitor/M81 UT 07:46 Starting M81 During last exposure, lost housekeeping re-starting housekeeping required a call to Olga will re-do OB, after restarting housekeeping fpia, co-pointing UT 08:27 Re-Starting M81 seeing ~1 arcsec UT 08:37 Acquiring OSU_monitor/M82 fpia UT 08:51 Starting M82 seeing ~1.0 arcsec UT 09:00 Total Power Outage at Telescope Failed during the last of the 6 integrations, resulting in a stripy image (loss of guiding). UT 10:54 Telescope returned to operations UT 10:58 Restarting LBC UT 11:03 Acquiring ND_sext/sext_1 UT 11:15 start sext_1 seeing ~1.1 arc sec thicker bands of cirrus thinning out over the course of the program UT 12:08 sext_1 finished, running fpia UT 12:05 sext_2 started UT 12:21 LBC filter hardware error (blue side) UT 12:38 cleared error and restarted sext_2 UT 13:10 Computers in remote observing room locked up Lost LBC control panel UT 13:25 Recovered computers, ended observing program started sky flats UT 13:42 Ended sky flats, Telescope closed up UT 13:57 Running LBC biases