Date: 2021 Mar 19 UTC LBTO Observer: O. Kuhn Lead Partner Observer: P. Vallely (OSU) Other Partner Observers: N. Emami (UM), R. Pogge (OSU) Special Assistants: Trim Telescope Operator: David Gonzalez Huerta Moon phase: 1d before first quarter (37% illuminated) Summary: LUCI first half, then MODS the second half. Problems on startup, first with the left enclosure door not opening, solved a little after start of 18-degree twilight, then LBT pointing on the SX side was difficult to zero, and slow to converge on the WFS. Once settled, seeing and transparency were good all night, 0.5-arcsec at one point. Last of the LBC sky flats done before sunset Completed targets: LUCI: UM_Flashlights: MOS mask1, and OSU_XMDs/UM461 + tellurics MODS: UVa_FRAGN/J1248+18, OSU_XMDs/SBS1331 and HS1442 Calibrations: MODS: flux stars Feige67 LBC sky flats, closed-dome biases Details (All times UT): ---------------------------------- 01:34 sunset, David is opening the enclosure. There are some problems with the left shutter door and Rick Hansen, Pat Hartley and David are working on it. 02:24 12-deg twilight. 02:53 18-deg twilight. Thanks to mountain crew the left door is now open. 02:55 Checking pointing. David had to search for a star on the left aside - it did not immediately show up in the acq camera. 03:09 Collimation preset. We had the star on the left but lost it. 03:22 The star is back and we're ready to let the active optics collimate after some manual corrections were made. Seeing is ~0.8-arcsec UM_Flashlights/mask1 03:26 Running the edited_mask1_sci.xml script. Slewing On LUCI2, mask to detector alignment was not correct. Reference slit #6 wasn't auto-identified but with pressure to make up for lost time and the lags in panning to the other side of the image in ALADIN, it was missed. Backed out offsets, -2, -2 and then 1.25, 4.89, -0.59 deg. Redo alignment based on original acq images: 5,6,7 Now offsets are 0.76 -4.5 -0.03 deg and I gave these manually through the telsvc gui. I manually took an image, 10. On it, the stars looks centered in the boxes. 04:16 Starting science. 05:10 guide star FWHM 0.5-arcsec on left side - collimation is a tad off on right side so FWHM is not as good, but still is ~0.6-arcsec 05:36 Slewing to telluric. Copointing limit hit (but sync preset - a feature - David disabled copointing warning). 05:52 Observations started on telluric --- using N3.75 came 05:57 Edited the script to use the N1.8 camera Seeing 0.8-0.9-arcsec OSU_XMDs_LUCI/UM461 06:04 Slewing to UM461. Seeing about 0.7/0.8-arcsec while aligning. 06:25 Starting spectroscopic observations Seeing 0.6 to 0.7-arcsec, HeI bright in difference pairs 07:29 Slewing to telluric HIP60030. No star found on SX side. David is checking pointing. 07:34 Resending the preset 07:42 starting spectroscopic series - this star is very bright in this great seeing, 55k ADU in peak, had David stop WFS and defocus telescope to reduce counts. ********************** Reconfiguring for MODS ********************** 08:04 Reconfiguring to MODS 08:16 Checking pointing UVa_FRAGN/J1248+18 08:21 acquiring J1248+16.acq Seeing is ~0.6-arcsec on average. Dual mode 1.2-arcsec slit. Flux Star Feige67 09:07 acquiring feige67.acq -- No star found on the right side. 09:11 acquiring feige67.acq -- 2nd try. 09:22 Starting the spectroscopic series 0.6-arcsec/0.63-arcsec OSU_XMDs_MODS/SBS1331 09:37 acquiring SBS1331_UT0930 Seeing is <0.5-arcsec on SX during the acquisition. 09:50 starting spectroscopic series Seeing great: 0.5-arcsec 10:50 DX guide star jumped - first to the upper right corner, then to the lower left corner. This happened when the 3rd exposure had about 2.5 min remaining (m2b 11 and m2r 21). The guide star did go back and the exposure was not interrupted. OSU_XMDs_MODS/HS1442 10:57 acquiring HS1442_UT1030.acq There were 3 compact objects - we centered on the brighter one at the lower left. A little tricky to get modsAlign to centroid, had to bck out and repeat. 11:13 executing science script Seeing 0.6-arcsec 11:57 second exp ended 12:01 18-degree twilight, third exposure started, 12:19 done 12:30 12-degree twilight **************** LBC Calibrations **************** 11:30 Started a series of 25 LBC biases, since the LBCR ones taken yesterday morning (20210319 UT) were affected the horizontal banding issue. The ones taken now are better, though there is still some horizontal banding. 11:55 Repeated the set of 25 LBC biases after noticing that the last LBCR one showed banding. 12:21 Reconfiguring telescope for the LBCs 12:44 Taking test biases at B+R 12:53 Starting a series of B+R skyflats at PA=0 12:57 Starting a series of Us+R skyflats 12:59 Scale Us+R by 0.25 at PA=0 -- starts at 17k and finished at 30k 13:03 Scale Us+R by 0.1 and PA=0 --- all 5 Us flats are fine (R is saturated). 13:07 Finished with the flats and David is closing up. 13:19 sunrise