Night Log 2012-09-29

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: Charl, Amanda

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Full moon and a photometric night with good seeing. Engineering
time partially in an attempt to quantify new telescope throughput
values since the primary mirror is in the best condition EVER (thanks
Tech.Ops!). Bright time science for:

2012-1-GU-003
2012-1-POL-011
2012-1-RSA-009
2012-1-RSA-014
2012-1-IUCAA-002 (x2)
2012-1-UC_OTH-003 (MOS)
2012-1-RU_UNC-001 (FP)
2012-1-UW-006 (cals)

Night Log 2012-09-28

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: Charl

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All night lost to high humidity.

Night Log 2012-09-27

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: charl, keith, amanda and cherry picker crew

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Snow and rain, never opened

Night Log 2012-09-26

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: Charl, Amanda visit

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Good seeing, but high winds preventing good alignment, humidity shot up at 23.30 - data taken until then for:

2012-1-HET_OTH-001 (ToO)
2012-1-GU-003 (LS)
2012-1-RU_UNC-001 (FP)
2012-1-RSA-001 (LS)

Night Log 2012-09-25

SA: Brent
SO: Thea
Others: Petri, Siphelo, Charl

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A smooth mostly clear night with good seeing.
Accepted observations for:

2012-1-UKSC_OTH-001 MOS
2012-1-UC_OTH-003 MOS
2012-1-RU_UNC-001 FPx2
2012-UNC_RSA_RU-002 FPx2
2012-1-RSA_OTH-032 longslit

Night Log 2012-09-24

SA: Brent
SO: Thea
Others: Charl

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A frustrating night with lots of tech problems. A shame given the seeing was routinely less than 1.5 arcsec.

Took data for
2012-1-DC_RSA-001
2012-1-RSA_OTH-021
2012-1-RSA-011
2012-1-RSA-003
2012-1-RSA-001
2012-1-RSA_OTH-019
2012-1-RSA_OTH-028

Night Log 2012-09-23

SA: Brent
SO: Thea
Others:

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High humidity and, you guessed it, ...

http://cheezburger.com/5821708800

Did not open.

Night Log 2012-09-22

SA: Brent
SO: Thea
Others: Charl

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Clear night with revolting seeing.
Data taken for
2012-1-GU-003
2012-1-RSA_OTH-021 (ooooh pretty FP blobs)
2012-1-RSA_OTH-002
2012-1-RSA-001
2012-1-DC-001

International Observe the Moon Night from Sutherland

Click for a bigger version. For more info see: http://observethemoonnight.org
Image taken outside of SALT before a night of observations with a SONY HX200V camera.

Night Log 2012-09-21

SA: Brent
SO: Thea
Others:

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"Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain-storms in the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting; when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves.
...
Men frequently say to me, "I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and nights especially." I am tempted to reply to such -- This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by SCAM or RSS? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way?"

--Walden, H. D. Thoreau

(High humidity, heavy clouds and rain)

Night Log 2012-09-20

SA: Brent
SO: Thea
Others: Charl, Keith

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Data taken for these programs:
2012-1-UKSC_OTH-001
2012-1-RSA_OTH-030
2012-1-RSA_OTH-023
and tried many others that were thwarted by warm SALTICAM...

Night Log 2012-09-19

SA: Brent
SO: Thea
Others: Charl

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A clear relatively stable night with seeing mostly around 1.7". Difficult to schedule many programs due to many being equatorial with stricter track timings.

Took data for
2012-1-RSA_OTH-010
2012-1-POL-010
2012-1-RSA_OTH-030
2012-1-RSA_UKSC-005

Night Log 2012-09-18

SA: Tim
SO: Fred
Others: brent, thea

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night mostly lost to wind, clouds, humidity, and light rain. conditions cleared after midnight and humidity dropped significantly after 0300. opened and tried to get some data, but the quality of the alignment was poor and changed very quickly. managed to observe one block for 2012-1-RSA-014 which is better than nothing. took a lot of FP engineering data to help characterize the erroneous header issue. also helped train brentski how to do FP.

Dome on the Range (abridged)

Oh, give me a dome where the Springbok roam
Where the Astronomers and the Humidity fight;
Where seldom is heard a demoralizing groan,
And the sky is not cloudy all night.

Chorus:
   A dome! A dome!
   Where the Astronomers and the Humidity fight,
   Where seldom is heard a demoralizing groan,
   And the sky is not cloudy all night.

Oh! give me a spectrum where the exquisite planetary nebulae
Send their light in strong emission lines,
Where soareth along the majestic Verreaux's eagle,
High above the Cape's prized vines

   Chorus

How often at night, when the heavens were hidden,
With the bane of the Ridge Cloud
Have I stood here amazed, and asked as I gazed,
Where the hell are our stars?

   Chorus

The air is so pure and the breezes so gale-force,
The zephyrs so balmy and light,
That I would not exchange my dome here to range
Forever in azures so bright.

   Chorus

Night Log 2012-09-17

SA: Tim
SO: Fred
Others: benoit, kelley, charl

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thick high clouds in the first half of the night gave way to clear skies and high wind in the second half. humidity spiked during morning twilight as a harbinger of ridge cloud to come tomorrow night. temperature dropped almost 13 C over the course of the night. seeing was good at times, but high winds prevented an alignment good enough to take advantage of it. IQ was so dire at the end that CAL_SPST and a P4 were the only viable options. ultimately completed 5 blocks and rejected two others. fabry-perot was again shown to be compromised by software bugs.

Night Log 2012-09-16

SA: Tim
SO: Fred
Others: benoit, claude, kelley, danielle, charl

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frustrating and unproductive night with cirrus and thick haze and numerous technical issues. seeing was steady, if unspectacular. lost much of the first half to some weird PCON bugs that prevented us from successfully taking any fabry-perot data. lost another hour each to alignment issues and the cable wrap under the structure. managed to get some data towards the end, but the clouds steadily thickened as well.

Night Log 2012-09-15

SA: Tim
SO: Fred
Others: claude, kelley, benoit, danielle, charl, thea & family

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finally worked dusk to dawn. the southeaster and northeaster fought an epic battle early on and left heavy turbulence in their wake. seeing in excess of 5" at times and highly variable. the northeaster was eventually victorious and the seeing settled down to 1.5" or better later in the night. unfortunately, lost almost 3 hours of the good part of the night to primary mirror/SPS problems. observed 7 blocks with 5 accepted. also caught up with all outstanding CAL_SPST.

Night Log 2012-09-14

SA: Tim
SO: Fred
Others: kelley, danielle, clause, benoit, charl, jonathan

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snuck in three quick observations before humidity and ridge cloud had their way once again. in addition the seeing was as bad as i've ever seen with long stretches of 4-5" or worse.

on the bright side, i now have a working python interface to BCAM. w00t!

Night Log 2012-09-13

SA: Tim
SO: Fred
Others: claude, benoit, danielle, kelley

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another night largely lost to ridge cloud. attempted one block for 2012-1-RSA_OTH-010 before getting closed, but the seeing blew up in the middle of it so had to reject it.

Night Log 2012-09-12

SA: Tim
SO: Fred
Others: claude, kelley, danielle, benoit, charl

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first 3/4 hour of the night lost to alignment issues, 1 3/4 hours of science, and then humidity and ridge cloud socked us in the rest of the night. observed a block each for 2012-1-RSA_OTH-003 (rejected because seeing blew up) and 2012-1-GU-003 (accepted).

Night Log 2012-09-11

SA: Amanda
SO: Thea
Others: Tim, Keith, Charl, Ockert

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. Mostly dark night with decent seeing (~1.2-2").

. Data taken for the following programs:
ENG_RSS (slotmode timing tests)
2012-1-HET-003
2012-1-POL-009
2012-1-IUCAA-003 (x2)
2012-1-RSA-016
2012-1-RSA-018
2012-1-RU-001
2012-1-UKSC-001

Night Log 2012-09-10

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Dave C.

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. Mostly dark night with variable seeing (0.8"-3"), the middle part being stable at 1"-1.5".

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-1-RSA_UKSC_OTH-001 (first RSS slotmode imaging!)
2012-1-IUCAA-003 (x2)
2012-1-IUCAA-001
2012-1-UW-005
2012-1-RU-005 (rejected with only 2 of 4 setups; payload failure)
2012-1-RSA-001
2012-1-RSA-019

Night Log 2012-09-09

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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. Cloudy, stormy night -- unable to open.

. It is with great sadness that we are memorializing SALT Operator Patrick Matshaya. He will be remembered and missed. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family and friends.

Night Log 2012-09-08

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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. Dark to gray night with good seeing (1.3"-1.8") and high wind. Closed a few hours early because of wind.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-1-POL-001 (x2)
2012-1-RSA_OTH-003
2012-1-POL-009
2012-1-GU-003
2012-1-IUCAA-003 (MOS)
2012-1-UW-005
2012-1-DC-001 (MOS)
2012-1-RSA-001

Night Log 2012-09-07

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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. Half dark, half gray, photometric night with great seeing (1-1.5").

. Data taken for the following programs - many long blocks tonight!
2012-1-POL-009
2012-1-IUCAA-001
2012-1-IUCAA-003 (MOS)
2012-1-UW-005
2012-1-DC-001 (aborted, couldn't get MOS aligned)
2012-1-UC_OTH-003 (MOS)
2012-1-RU_RSA_UKSC_OTH-001
2012-1-UKSC-002

Night Log 2012-09-06

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Jonathan, Keith

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. Dark to grey night with good seeing at start (mostly 1-1.5"); closed before midnight due to high humidity and cloud.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-1-RSA_UKSC_RU-001
2012-1-RSA_OTH_UKSC-002 (aborted because of focus loss and degrading conditions)
2012-1-RSA_OTH-011

Night Log 2012-09-05

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Dave C.

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. Dark to gray night with the majority of time lost due to high humidity.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-1-POL-001 (x2)
2012-1-POL-009 (terminated and rejected)

Night Log 2012-09-04

SA: Tim
SO: Thea
Others: luke, amanda

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clear, photometric night with mediocre to terrible seeing until a sudden wind shift after about 0200. then steady 1.0-1.3" from then until the end of the night. smooth night as well with the only technical issue being the payload falling over once. mirror alignments went much more smoothly than previous nights.

accepted 7 out of 9 blocks plus a couple targets that were aborted before any observations. also collected some FP engineering data along the way.

Night Log 2012-09-03

SA: Tim
SO: Thea
Others: luke

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cirrusy night with highly variable and sometimes awful seeing. humidity spiked after 1:00 and closed us up by 01:45 for the rest of the night. still managed 10 accepted blocks plus a couple more attempts.

Night Log 2012-09-02

SA: Tim
SO: Thea
Others: luke

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very stable night with good seeing start to end. with the exception of a few blips of 1.5-1.7" the seeing was 0.8-1.2" the entire time. mostly clear as well with some light cirrus passing through at times. mirror alignments worked much better tonight. thanks to hitesh for helping out over the phone at the beginning.

a total of 10 blocks accepted plus another couple rejected. could have done more if there were more programs with southern objects. almost everything in the 2nd half was clustered on the equator within 25 deg of the moon. not ideal. did acquire some pointing data which showed good repeatability all around the vis strip, but with a large offset from the RSS field center.

Night Log 2012-09-01

SA: Tim
SO: Thea
Others: luke

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clear, stable, bright night. battled a bit with mirror alignment and with the moon washing out a few targets, but accepted seven blocks from the following programs:
2011-3-UC-001
2012-1-POL-011
2012-1-GU-003
2012-1-RSA_UKSC-006 (x2)
2012-1-IUCAA_RSA_OTH-001
2012-1-RSA_UKSC-005

attempted one for 2012-1-RU_UNC-001, but too much moon. also attempted 2012-1-RSA-005, but moon plus sick SCAM plus PA error made acquisition take way too long that the window was missed.

Night Log 2012-08-31

SA: Tim
SO: Thea
Others: luke

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entire night lost to cold front. high wind, rain, fog, and then ice. took a bunch of F-P engineering data to pass the time. wheee!