Night Log 2013-03-30

SA: Brent
SO: Thea
Others: Ridge cloud

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Summary
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Rain and ridge cloud. Did not open.

Night Log 2013-03-29

SA: Brent
SO: Thea
Others:

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Summary
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High humidity and persistent cloud cover. Ridge Cloud par excellence. Did not open.

Night Log 2013-03-28

SA: Brent
SO: Thea
Others: Clouds, Full Moon

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Summary
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Bright night with mostly 1.2 arcsec seeing but lots of cloud made things difficult. Took data for 2012-2-RSA_OTH_UKSC-003 and 2012-2-RSA_UW-002 before closing up at 22:25. Later on we took some off-sky RSS engineering data for Ken.

Night Log 2013-03-27

SA: Brent
SO: Thea
Others: Charl, Hitesh (via Phone)

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Summary
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Spent first few hours diagnosing mirror alignment quality at various azimuths. Full moon with mostly thin/scattered clouds and variable seeing. Successfully took some data for 2012-2-RSA_DC_OTH-001 and 2012-2-RSA_OTH-011. Then the RSS slitmask gave us mechanical troubles, which will need to be fixed during the day.

Night Log 2013-03-26

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Brent, Keith, Thea, David

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Summary
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. Bright night. Closed due to thunderstorms, opened for just over an hour, then closed due to heavy cloud and lightning.

. Data taken for 2012-2-RSA_OTH-011.

Night Log 2013-03-25

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Dave K + 20" observer

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Summary
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. Bright night. Open only for calibrations at the start and were closed due to cloud and high humidity for the remainder of the night.

Night Log 2013-03-24

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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Summary
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. Bright night, foiled by ridge cloud after midnight.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-2-RSA-016 (scam filters in rss test)
2012-2-RSA_OTH-011
2012-2-RSA_OTH-UKSC-001
2012-2-UNC_RSA-001

Night Log 2013-03-23

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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Summary
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. Bright night with cloud and rising humidity. High humidity forced closure 02:00.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-2-RSA_OTH_UKSC-001 (x2)
2012-2-RSA_OTH-011
2012-2-UNC_RSA-001 (x2)

Night Log 2013-03-22

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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Summary
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. Gray to dark night with clouds and high wind. Could only achieve coarse alignment for the majority of the night. Closed a few times due to thick cloud, once for ~2 hours.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-2-UW_OTH-001
2012-2-RSA_OTH-001
2012-2-RSA-016 (commissioning)
2012-2-UNC_RSA-001 (aborted b/c of moonlight and then clouds)
2012-2-RSA_OTH_UKSC-001
2012-2-RSA-002
2012-2-UKSC-001
2012-2-RSA_OTH-015

Night Log 2013-03-21

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Markus Poessel + teacher & two students (German/ZA program), Antony M.

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Summary
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. Grey to dark night, seeing subarcsec for first half, then between 1-2" the second half. Hardly any wind, temperature inversion. Struggled with mirrors, especially at start.

. Visitors from Germany for education and public outreach, including a teacher and some students.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-2-RSA_UKSC-006 (x2)
2012-2-RSA-001
2012-2-UNC_RSA-001
2012-2-RSA-002
2012-2-RSA_OTH-019
2012-2-UNC_RSA_RU-001 (FP!)
2012-2-POL-007 (3 blocks, first asteroid spectra+solar analogs!!)
2012-2-IUCAA-001

Night Log 2013-03-20

SA: Amanda
SO: Siphelo
Others: Simon

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Summary
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. Gray to dark night, with stable conditions. Seeing was good, ranging mostly from subarcsec to ~1.5". Struggled with mirror falling apart.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-2-UW_OTH-001
2012-2-UNC_RSA-001 (x3)
2012-2-RSA_OTH-003 (MOS, one successful one aborted because of stack falling apart)
2012-2-POL-007
2012-2-RSA_OTH_UKSC-002
2012-2-RSA_OTH-015
2012-2-IUCAA-001

Night Log 2013-03-19

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others: Amanda, Simon, Sudhanshu

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Summary
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Well this was more like it! Full night of observations without
a major hitch. Seeing mediocre, but clear and stable
otherwise. Science for:
2012-2-POL-003
2012-2-RSA_OTH_UKSC-003
2012-2-RSA-001
2012-2-RSA_OTH-002
2012-2-RSA-010
2012-2-HET_OTH-001
2012-2-GU-002
2012-2-DC-002 (x3)

Night Log 2013-03-18

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others: Eben, Charl, Janus over the phone

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Summary
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Another good seeing bad technology night. Humidity rose
to closing limits after midnight but had lost the time before
that already to payload. Then last 2h RH dropped again.
Only one potentially successful block for: 2012-2-UW_RSA-001

Night Log 2013-03-17

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others: Charl, Jonathan, Chantal

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Summary
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Miserable night. But not because of conditions: a full night
of sub-arcsec seeing, dark and clear after a cirrusy beginning.
But everything which can fall over technically, fell over...
A single short lucky science Block for 2012-2-RSA_OTH-009.

Night Log 2013-03-16

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others: Charl, Jonathan help in the beginning, Francois, Hitesh over phone

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Summary
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Remarkably good seeing, stayed below 1" all night. Dark and clear.
Unfortunately battled with alignments first half of the night, but
great afterwards. Science data for:
2012-2-RSA_OTH-009
2012-2-IUCAA-001
2012-2-UNC_RSA_RU-001 (FP)
2012-2-RSA_UW-001 (FP)
2012-2-POL-002

Night Log 2013-03-15

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others: Charl

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Summary
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Short night, closed very early due to humidity. One ToO block for:
2012-2-RSA-004

Night Log 2013-03-14

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others: Deneys, Charl, Jonathan, Martin

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Summary
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Some structure testing, and new MOS functionality testing, mostly
clear night first with average seeing, but got better later, ranging from
1.2 to 2.5". Science for:

2012-2-RSA_OTH-013 (MOS)
2012-2-RSA_UKSC_RU_UC_OTH-001
2012-2-RSA_UW-002 (MOS)
2012-2-IUCAA-001
2012-2-DC-002 (x2)

Night Log 2013-03-13

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others: Deneys, Charl, Francois

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Summary
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Clear dark night with poor to atrocious seeing, until humidity
closed us down at 00.30. Data for:

2012-2-RSA_UW-003 (MOS, twilight)
2012-2-RU-005 (MOS)
2012-2-RSA_DC_OTH-001
2012-2-RSA_UW-002 (MOS, aborted)
2012-2-UW_RSA-001
2012-2-RSA-001

Night Log 2013-03-12

SA: Alexei
SO: Thea
Others: Denis, Petri

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Summary
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=> Dark, photometric night with highly variable seeing from 0.9" to 2.5".

=> Data were taken for the following programs:
2012-2-RSA_UW-003
2012-2-UW_RSA-001
2012-2-RSA_OTH-015
2012-2-DC-002 (x3)

=> Preliminary version of new MOS software
was tested.

Night Log 2013-03-11

SA: Alexei
SO: Thea
Others:

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=> Dark, photometric night with good and stable seeing.

=> Data were taken for the following programs:
2012-2-DC-002 (x2)
2012-2-IUCAA-004
2012-2-RSA_OTH-009
2012-2-IUCAA-001 (x2)
2012-2-GU-002
2012-2-RSA_OTH-015
2012-2-RSA_OTH_UKSC-002

Night Log 2013-03-10

SA: Alexei
SO: Thea
Others:

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Summary
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=> Clear, photometric night with highly variable and poor seeing.

=> Some data were taken for the following programs:
2012-2-RSA_UKSC_RU_UC_OTH-001
2012-2-UW_RSA-001
2012-2-RSA_OTH-015
2012-2-DC_RSA-001
2012-2-DC-002 (x3)
2012-2-RSA_OTH-002
2012-2-POL-005

Night Log 2013-03-09

SA: Alexei
SO: Thea
Others:

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=> Clear, photometric night with highly variable and poor seeing.
Finally, were closed by humidity.

=> Some data were taken for the following programs:
2012-2-GU-001
2012-2-IUCAA-001
2012-2-RSA_DC_OTH-001
2012-2-DC-002 (x2)
2012-2-RSA_OTH-015

Night Log 2013-03-08

SA: Alexei
SO: Thea
Others:

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=> Entire night lost to clouds and humidity.

Night Log 2013-03-07

SA: Alexei
SO: Thea
Others:

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=> Entire night lost to clouds and humidity.
No any observations.

Night Log 2013-03-06

SA: Alexei
SO: Thea
Others:

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=> Stable night with very good seeing about 1 arcsec most of the night.
Unfortunately, there were cirrus over the sky during whole night.

=> Some data were taken for the following programs:
2012-2-GU-001
2012-2-RSA_OTH-015 (x2)
2012-2-IUCAA-004
2012-2-RSA_OTH_UKSC-002
2012-2-RSA-002
2012-2-RSA_OTH_UKSC-003

Night Log 2013-03-05

SA: Tim
SO: Veronica
Others: alexei, martin, jonathon

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smooth first half with stable, excellent seeing and excellent IQ gave way to a second half that was almost completely lost due to inability to align the mirror sufficiently well. temperature and conditions were reasonably stable all night and wind was in the 20's so i really don't understand why we couldn't make it work any better. a real shame because the seeing was 1.5" or better all night and photometric outside of the first couple of hours.

took a first stab at setting up TF mode for operation. it still requires a few mods to PCON to support it and some more calibration data, but it otherwise seems to be working fine.

accepted blocks for the following programs:
2012-2-RSA_DC_OTH-001
2012-2-DC_RSA-001
2012-2-RSA_OTH-010
2012-2-IUCAA-004
2012-2-UNC_RSA-001 x2

observed, but rejected, blocks for the following programs:
2012-2-RSA_POL-001 (clouds)
2012-2-UNC_RSA-001 (bad alignment)
2012-2-UNC_RSA_RU-002 x2 (bad alignment)

Night Log 2013-03-04

SA: Tim
SO: Veronica
Others: jonathon, martin

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very warm night with good, steady seeing. mostly clear until the clouds rolled in thickly after 04:00. lost some time to mirror alignment issues at the beginning, a cable wrap limit, and then PCON stopping without warning very early in a FP scan. accepted blocks for the following programs:

2012-2-RU-005 (after a couple of repoints)
2012-2-IUCAA-001
2012-2-UNC_RSA_RU-002 (x2; one observation needed a repoint and redo)

lost another observation of 2012-2-UNC_RSA_RU-002 to clouds at the end. otherwise a fairly smooth night. and very comfortable with temps in the low 20's throughout....

Night Log 2013-03-03

SA: Tim
SO: Veronica
Others:

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another photometric night with poor to abysmal seeing, aside for ~2 hours in the 2nd half. between a hot chamber during the day and then a sharp temperature swing at 02:00 the mirror had a difficult time keeping its figure. outside of that it was smooth sailing for the most part. only technical issue was PCON crashing a few times without warning.

accepted blocks for the following programs:

2012-2-GU-001
2012-2-UW_OTH-001
2012-2-RU-002
2012-2-UW_RSA-001
2012-2-RSA_OTH-003

the following programs were observed, but the observations rejected:

2012-2-RSA-010 (no suitable guide star in field. alignment star way too bright)
2012-2-UNC_RSA_RU-002 (x2; poor conditions and poor mirror figure)

Night Log 2013-03-02

SA: Tim
SO: Veronica
Others:

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Summary
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clear, photometric with highly variable and often poor seeing. fairly smooth night with no significant technical issues. took some FP calibration data during the afternoon and the etalons remained stable through the night.

accepted blocks for the following programs:
2012-2-RSA_RU-001
2012-2-UNC_RSA-001
2012-2-RSA_UW-002
2012-2-RSA_OTH-003

attemped blocks for the following programs, but did not accept them:
2012-2-RU-002 (P0 SN follow-up; terrible IQ)
2012-2-RSA_UW-002 (no suitable guide star which is crucial for MOS)
2012-2-UNC_RSA_RU-002 x2 (poor mirror alignment and then seeing blew up terribly)

Night Log 2013-03-01

SA: Tim
SO: Veronica
Others: charl, paul r (by phone)

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Summary
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good weather for a change with somewhat variable seeing (1" at some times, up to 2" at others). photometric conditions outside of the first couple hours. lost chunks of time to balky mirror alignment system and then the payload. accepted blocks for the following programs:

2012-2-RSA_DC_OTH-001
2012-2-UW_RSA-001
2012-2-RSA_RU-001 x3

also cleared out the backlog of CAL_SPST and CAL_LICKST in the calibrations queue.

Night Log 2013-02-28

SA: Tim
SO: Veronica
Others: charl

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entire night lost to clouds and humidity. no observations.