Date: 2020 Feb 26 UTC Observers: Duck, Vallely TO: Josh Williams SA: Barry Rothberg Moon phase: Waxing crescent (illumination 3%) Summary: A fairly bad night, with a little bit of productive MODS observing completed. Calibrations: MODSPhotCal/g191b2b MODSPhotCal/hz44 Completed Programs: OSU_ASASSN/PS18kh OSU_ASASSN/ASASSN18zj* UVa_FR_AGN/J1246+18* OSU_ASASSN/ASASSN20bs *partial exposures Details (All times UT): ---------------------------------- 01:00 - Logging in and setting things up. Seeing is looking pretty bad for the night, so the plan is to use MODS. 01:30 - Planning to start with PS18kh once it gets dark. Seeing FWHM is around 2". 02:25 - Starting PS18kh science observation, seeing is around 1.9". Source is noticeably weaker in MODS2 images. 03:30 - Wrapping up PS18kh, and moving on to get standard star G191B2B. 04:05 - Moving on to target SBS0940+544. Having a hard time acquiring the guide star, even after manually updating the acq script to pick a new guide star not near the edge. 04:25 - Moving instead to J0837 since it has a brighter guide star that is not near the detector edge. 04:40 - Couldn't get that one either, likely due to the 4.7(!) arcsecond seeing. We are now closing due to wind. 06:30 - Back open, trying to get ASASSN18zj if seeing and wind permit. 07:30 - Seems to be succesfully getting science data. Seeing is still awful (5" per the DIMM), so added an additional 10 min to the science exposure length. 08:10 - Have again lost guiding, so note that the last image taken may not be viable as the target will have shifted somewhat. Now going to try J1246+18 with an extra exposure to compensate for the poor seeing. 08:30 - That target also lost guiding, so Josh is trying to troubleshoot an apparent software issue with the azimuth control. Currently the telescope cannot (or will not) move in azimuth. 09:00 - Issue has been resolved, now trying to focus/collimate again and get back to J1246+18. 09:25 - Starting J1246+18 science observations. Mirror panicked on MODS1, so we got 2 out of 3 images on each side. 10:00 - Tried to go back to J1246+18, but still seem to be having issues with the problematic actuator. Had to abort and move to zenith to attempt to fix it. 10:30 - Back on sky, but J1246+18 is now low so we're going to try to get ASASSN20bs. Having some difficulties getting the preset to send, though. Apparently this was because the TCS disconnected from MODS2 somehow. 10:50 - Struggled to get on target and quickly lost the guide star. Now forced to do another round of collimation. 11:15 - Finally got that sorted out, so going to try ASASSN20bs again. 11:35 - Starting ASASSN20bs science exposures. Seeing is reasonable, around 1.2". 12:15 - Moving to get standard Hz44. 12:35 - Done with standard. Closing up shop as it's now passed twilight.