Night Log 2012-12-30

SA: Amanda
SO: Fred
Others:

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Summary
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. Bright night, with thick cloud followed by high humidity. Got only a few spectra before the clouds were too thick to do anything else.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-2-RSA_UKSC-003 (block incomplete because of cloud)

Night Log 2012-12-29

SA: Amanda
SO: Fred
Others:

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. Bright night, with thin cloud and good seeing (steady at ~1", then up to 1.5", then back down to 1").

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-2-RU-007 (x2; FP)
2012-2-RSA_UKSC-003
2012-2-RSA_DC_OTH-001
2012-2-IUCAA_RSA_OTH-001

Night Log 2012-12-28

SA: Amanda
SO: Fred
Others:

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. Clear, bright night, with excellent seeing (mostly 0.5"-1.1").

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-2-RU-007 (FP! x2 loooong blocks)
2012-2-RSA_UKSC-003
2012-2-POL-003
2012-2-UNC_RSA_RU-002 (more FP!)

Night Log 2012-12-27

SA: Amanda
SO: Fred
Others:

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. Thick cloud and high humidity. Unlike your Christmas presents, there was nothing being opened tonight!

. BCAM testing data for 2012-2-POL-007.

Night Log 2012-12-26

SA: Amanda
SO: Fred
Others:

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. Warm, clear night with good seeing (0.9"-1.5"). Bright night: 98% moon from twilight through twilight.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-2-UKSC-002
2012-2-RU-007 (rejected, with LR calibration problem)
2012-2-RSA_UKSC-003
2012-2-POL-007 (BCAM calibrations)
2012-2-POL-003
2012-2-UNC_RSA-001
2012-2-RSA-004
2012-2-RSA_DC_OTH-001

Night Log 2012-12-25

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Charl as SO

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Summary
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=> Clear night, but we were closed by humidity at midnight.
Seeing degradated from 1.1 to 3.2

=> Data were taken for programs:
2012-2-UKSC-002 (x2)
2012-2-RSA_UKSC-003

Night Log 2012-12-24

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Tamara, Dima and Matthias for a while

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=> No any observations.
Repeat of previous night: completely cloudy, RH near 100% ...

Night Log 2012-12-23

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Tamara, Dima and Matthias for a while.

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No any observations because heavy clouds and rain.

Night Log 2012-12-22

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Tamara, Dima and Matthias for a while.

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=> Clouds up to the middle of the night and stable weather after that with variable seeing.

=> Science data for:
2012-2-RSA_POL-001
2012-2-GU-001
2012-2-POL-003
2012-2-UNC_RSA_RU-001

Night Log 2012-12-21

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Tamara, Dima and Matthias for a while

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=> Cloudy, very unstable night with seeing around 1.2-1.3".
Heavy clouds in the evening time and some fields of clouds during the night.

=> Data were taken for the following programs:
2012-2-RSA_POL-001
2012-2-AMNH-003
2012-2-RSA_OTH-015
2012-2-UNC_RSA_RU-001

Night Log 2012-12-20

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Tamara, Dima and Matthias for a game of Bohnanza

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=> Clear, stable night with good seeing. Productive.

=> Data were taken for the following programs:
2012-2-RSA_OTH-003
2012-2-RSA-010
2012-2-RSA-002
2012-2-GU-001
2012-2-RSA_OTH-015
2012-2-RSA_DC_OTH-001
2012-2-UNC_RSA_RU-001
2012-2-DC_RSA-001

Night Log 2012-12-19

SA: Alexei
SO: Siphelo
Others: Charl, Tamara, Dima and Matteas for some time

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=> Unstable night with variable seeing.

=> Some data were taken for the following programs:
2012-2-DC_RSA-001
2012-2-RSA-001
2012-2-UW-003

Night Log 2012-12-18

SA: David
SO: Thea
Others: Emma, Siphelo initially; Deatrick & Jean-Marc later on.

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Thick clouds hampered first half of night, but mostly clear by midnight.
Good seeing (subarcsec initially).

Attempted the following programs:
2012-2-RSA_OTH_UKSC-004 (Crawford; P1; MRC0316-257)
2012-2-DC_RSA-001 (Fesen; P0; PSN J0949-47544)
2012-2-RSA-004 (Pickering; P0; GRB 542441)
2012-2-RSA_OTH-015 (Vaisanen; P1; ESO440-IG058B)

Plus another swag of spectphot stds & flats

Night Log 2012-12-17

SA: David
SO: Thea
Others: Emmna (learning the ropes from Thea!)

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Clear weather at sunset - at last.
Quite a productive night in the end, despite seeing steadily deteriorating as wind swung from SW to SE.

Managed to observe an SN ToO for Dan Milisavljevic at short notice.

Other programs attempted:
2012-2-AMNH-003 (LMC88b; Shara), but seeing might compromise later spectra
2012-2-RU-002 (SN2012Z; Jha)
2012-2-UKSC-003 (T Pyx; Maxwell), bit only time for one spectrum
2012-2-DC_RSA-001 (PSN J0949-4754; Fesen & Milisavljevic) ToO
2012-2-RSA_OTH-002 (NGC2917; Kniazev) only option in bad seeing

Plus knocked off most of the outstanding accumulated spectrophot & Lick standards.

Night Log 2012-12-16

SA: David
SO: Thea
Others: Amanda when the power tripped & dome troubles; Emma (till 2 a.m) & Jean (only until midnight)

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"Thunderbolt & lightning, very very frightening me, Galileo, Galilieo...." at the start of the night.
Lost power, so on generator.

Eventually opened after midnight and managed to do:
2012-2-AMNH-003 (Shara)
2012-2-IUCAA-001 (Srianand)
condition were photometric and seeing 1.2-1.8"

Night Log 2012-12-15

SA: David
SO: Thea
Others: Emma & Jean for a bit

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Clouds dispersed during the first half of the night, but humidity increase and dew point limit was hit all night.

Night Log 2012-12-14

SA: David
SO: Thea
Others: Emma, Jean, Amanda

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Repeat of previous night: completely cloudy, rain drops at times, RH near 100%...

Night Log 2012-12-12

SA: David Buckley
SO: Thea
Others: Amanda, Emma, Jean-Marc, Hannes

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Welcome to Anti-Doomsday Day Night!

Electrical storm from early evening, culminating with loss of Eskom, a strike on SALT, loss of comms to CCAS, BMS and excternal weather/ELS, and general crippling.

Did some stray light tests.

Twister in Karoo

I don't think we are in Kansas anymore.

Thanks Martin for the pictures and Willie for posting them!

Night Log 2012-12-11

SA: Brent
SO: Fred
Others: Jonathan, Nimrod, Paul R, Charl, Lucian, David B, Emma, Jean-Marc, Thea, Francois, Kevin, Sarah, and by phone Deneys, Garith and Janus

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Lots of tech issues resolved by a talented team of elite SALT personnel. Seeing was an awful 2.5-3.0". Accepted one observation for 2012-2-RSA-001 before ridge cloud forced us to close at 00:35.

Night Log 2012-12-10

SA: Brent
SO: Fred
Others:

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Night lost due to high humidity.

Night Log 2012-12-09

SA: Brent
SO: Fred
Others:

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An evening storm, a twister(!!!!), a spectacular sunset and a night of thick clouds, high humidity and lightning. Sutherland put on quite a show. No observations.

Night Log 2012-12-08

SA: Brent
SO: Fred
Others:

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Data taken under poor conditions of bad seeing and high humidity for:

2012-2-RSA-005
2012-2-RSA_OTH-003

Do or do not, there is no try.

Closed around 23:10 due to high humidity.
Ominous clouds arrived later to impart their own touch of... je ne sais quoi...malice?

Night Log 2012-12-07

SA: Brent
SO: Fred
Others: Steve C, Laure

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Unstable night with poor seeing, closing up at 23:00 due to high humidity. Data taken successfully for

2012-2-GU-001
2012-2-UKSC-002

Night Log 2012-12-06

SA: Brent
SO: Fred
Others: Eben, David

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A clear, productive and relatively stable night with seeing around 1.5", but with some good stretches between 1.1-1.3". Data taken for the following programs:

2012-2-POL-004
2012-2-RSA_UKSC_RU_UC_OTH-001
2012-2-UKSC-004
2012-2-UW-004
2012-2-RSA_POL-001
2012-2-POL-003

Night Log 2012-12-05

SA: Brent
SO: Fred
Others: David Buckley, Steve C

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An unstable with abysmal seeing, thick clouds and ridge cloud.
Only had chance to take a few specphot stds from backlog.

Night Log 2012-12-04

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: Brent, Fred, David, Tim, Laure

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Short night, humidity went over at 10pm already. Science for:
2012-2-RSA_OTH-004
2012-2-GU-001
2012-2-RSA_OTH-002

Night Log 2012-12-03

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: David B, Steve C, Tim, Laure, adaptive opt school

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Science in-between clouds. In addition to couple of incomplete
blocks, finished data for:
2012-2-RSA_OTH-004
2012-2-POL-004
2012-2-UKSC-002
2012-2-RSA_OTH-005 (x2)
2012-2-RSA-010
2012-2-UKSC-004

Night Log 2012-12-02

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: Keith, Steve C and David B.

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Half night of observations, until humidity forced us to close
down. Shame, it was clear all night for a change. Science for:
2012-2-RSA_OTH-001
2012-2-RSA_OTH-002
2012-2-UKSC-002 (x2)

Night Log 2012-12-01

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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All night lost to rain and clouds.

Night Log 2012-11-30

SA: Petri
SO: Siphelo
Others: Thea, David

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A day of power outage and internet downtime gave way
to a night of extreme winds and ridge cloud. No science.