Night Log 2013-05-30

SA: Encarni
SO: Thea
Others: Keith and Francois at the beginning

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Entire night lost to high humidity.

Night Log 2013-05-29

SA: Encarni
SO: Thea
Others: Francois at the beginning.

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Cloudy start to the night that made us close at ~23:00 due to a spot of rain and it also became too humid and windy from around 1am.

Data acquired for:
2013-1-RSA_OTH_UKSC-001 (P2)
2013-1-RSA_POL-001 (P3)
PSR J1723-2837 for 2013-1-UW-002 (P2) - time restricted

Night Log 2013-05-28

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others: Amanda, Keith, Paul, Encarni, Thea, Nimrod

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Lost first few hours to technical issues, then some time to humidity,
but could observe the latter part of the night under Gray moon and
pretty decent seeing:

2013-1-GU-002
2013-1-UW_OTH-001 (x2)
2013-1-IUCAA (x2)

Night Log 2013-05-27

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others:

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No observations due to high humidity. Half the night spent
doing dummy tracks as well as instrument calibrations.
Encouragingly no tracker errors at all after work done by tech.ops.

Night Log 2013-05-26

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others:

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Whole night lost to rain, strong winds and fog.

Night Log 2013-05-25

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others: Paul

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Thin and thick clouds throughout, but not enough to hinder obs.
However, continuing tracker woes unfortunately. Managed just a couple
of bright star blocks in between errors, and finally gave up soon after
midnight. Data for:
2013-1-RSA_OTH-014
2013-1-RSA_POL-001
2013-1-AMNH-002

Night Log 2013-05-24

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others: Jonathan, Paul, Vic, Eben; Hitesh on phone.

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Lost couple of hours in the beginning to tracker issues, fairly
smooth sailing after that, conditions were stable. Time was spent
on throughput tests during a photometric spell, science for:

2013-1-UNC_RSA_RU-001 (x2)
2013-1-IUCAA-004
2013-1-RSA_OTH-006
2013-1-HET_OTH-001
2013-1-RSA_OTH-007
2013-1-HET-005
2013-1-POL-001

Night Log 2013-05-23

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others: Paul

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Fairly productive bright moon night, though time lost to
tracker problems again, but many accepted science blocks:

2013-1-HET-005 (x3)
2013-1-UKSC-010 (x4)
2013-1-RSA_OTH-014
2013-1-GU-002
2013-1-AMNH-002
2013-1-RSA_POL-001 (x2)
2013-1-RSA_OTH-007
2013-1-UW-002

Night Log 2013-05-22

SA: Petri
SO: Veronica
Others: Eben, Nimrod, Amanda, Paul

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Difficult night with a cloudy beginning and a string of technical issues
once it partially cleared up, with bright Moon. Managed only two
blocks for 2013-1-RSA_POL-001 before the morning.

Night Log 2013-05-21

SA: Tim
SO: Siphelo
Others: petri, kai

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highly variable night mostly lost to clouds and some light rain. managed to squeeze in a couple of P4 blocks for 2013-1-RSA_POL-001 and an attempt at a P3 block for 2013-1-UKSC-010. also caught up on almost all outstanding CAL_SPST request.

Night Log 2013-05-20

SA: Tim
SO: Siphelo
Others: amanda gr., keith, dave c (phone), kai

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another night with a very rocky start that settled into smooth sailing under good weather. the RSS detector repair during the day had some very bad side effects. keith and amanda sorted it out, though, and it behaved well the rest of the night. fairly steady seeing ranging from 1.1 to 1.8 and photometric for much of the 2nd half of the night. successfully acquired data for the following programs:

2013-1-UKSC-010
2013-1-UW-002
2013-1-RSA_OTH-006
2013-1-UW_OTH-001 (x2)
2013-1-UKSC_HET_OTH-001
2013-1-UW-005
2013-1-POL-001
2013-1-AMNH-002
2013-1-DC-001
2013-1-HEC_RU_RSA_OTH_001

got a little more burst data for thruput measurements, but it was left a bit late and the sun got too bright before i could finish everything. tough to find the right star for doing this. feige 110 was the best bet and it's not available until 05:40 or so.

Night Log 2013-05-19

SA: Tim
SO: Siphelo
Others: amanda gr.

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a night that started off with a bang in the form of a fairly hectic thunder and hail storm settled into a relatively routine second half. only significant technical issue was a cable wrap limit. managed to complete 6 blocks in spite of some clouds, haze, and 1.7-2" seeing plus two more that were rejected due to too much cloudiness. got data for the following programs:

2013-1-GU-003 (P1; rejected due to clouds)
2013-1-UW-005 (P2; rejected due to clouds)
2013-1-POL-001 (P2)
2013-1-RU-001 (P0 SN folllow-up)
2013-1-RSA_POL-001 (P4)
2013-1-UW-008 (P3)
2013-1-HET_RU_RSA_OTH-001 (P1)
2013-1-RSA_OTH-011 (P1)

High Resolution Spectrograph: Red Arm Lab first-light

Following on from the HRS blue-arm laboratory first-light, this week also saw the red-arm achieving the same milestone.  The photo below shows a red solar echellogram covering orders from n=52 (~890 nm) to n=82 (~560nm).

Night Log 2013-05-18

SA: Tim
SO: Siphelo
Others:

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smooth, productive night with mediocre, but steady, seeing until the clouds arrived after 0300 and brought raindrops after 0430. accepted a total of 13 blocks and rejected two others. data were acquired for the following programs:

2013-1-HET_OTH-001 (x2; P0)
2013-1-IUCAA-004 (x2)
2013-1-HET-005 (x2)
2013-1-UW-007
2013-1-UW-002
2013-1-RSA_POL-001
2013-1-GU-002
2013-1-UW-005
2013-1-RU-003
2013-2-AMNH

Night Log 2013-05-17

SA: Tim
SO: Siphelo
Others: amanda gr.

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managed to be open long enough to get sets up burst mirror throughput data for SCAM and RSS. however, the humidity limit was reached at 20:45 and the dampness persisted through the rest of the night. took FP calibration data to check stability of MR and calibrate TF in the region from 6700 to 7200 A.

Night Log 2013-05-16

SA: Tim
SO: Siphelo
Others: amanda gr., kai, pierre, keith

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entire night lost to clouds and then humidity and then ridge cloud. took engineering data to measure gains for SCAM and RSS CCDs. also took some FP calibration data.

Night Log 2013-05-15

SA: Tim
SO: Siphelo
Others: keith, chris, martin

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clear, steady night with a few light cirrus at the beginning. decent to good seeing for most of the night, but poor for a spell when the wind shifted. a bout of bad dome seeing thwarted attempts to get good alignment until the wind picked up again. acquired data for the following programs:

2013-1-UNC_RSA_RU-001 (aborted and rejected due to poor IQ)
2013-1-RSA_OTH-005
2012-1-DC-003 (x2)
2012-1-RSA_OTH-010
2013-1-RSA-003
2013-1-RSA_POL-001
2013-1-UW-004
2013-1-RSA_OTH-011

Night Log 2013-05-14

SA: Paul
SO: Thea
Others: Deneys, Martin, Tim, Garith

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- long productive night with times where conditions were photometric. the seeing varied between 1'' and 1.5''. strong winds however meant we could not take full advantage of the good seeing conditions.

- obtained science data for the following programs:
- 2013-1-RSA_OTH-016
- 2013-1-DC-001
- 2013-1-DC-003
- 2013-1-IUCAA-001
- 2013-1-GU-002
- 2013-1-UKSC_HET_OTH-001
- 2013-1-RSA_OTH_UKSC-001 ?
- 2013-1-ESA_OTH-011

High Resolution Spectrograph: Lab "first light"

The HRS team at Durham University have just announced laboratory "first light" with the Blue arm (370-555nm). These are the first end-to-end tests, where light was injected into a fibre and a resultant spectrum recorded. This was done for the Medium Resolution mode (R ~ 37,000), which utilizes a 3-slice Bowen-Walraven image slicer. The image below is an echellogram of the Sun using a test fibre.  

Further optimization is continuing, leading up to the pre-ship testing in early June. Following successful completion of this, the instrument will be shipped to SALT for installation, hopefully in August.

David Buckley
SALT Science Director
15 May 2013

Night Log 2013-05-13

SA: Paul
SO: Thea
Others: Deneys, Garith

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- long non-photometric night with cirrus from the start. attempted a number of observations but had to be rejected due to the clouds.

- obtained data for the following programs:
- 2013-1-RSA_OTH-012
- 2013-1-RSA_OTH-019
- 2013-1-UW-007
- 2013-1-RSA-006
- 2013-1-RSA_POL-001 (x2)
- 2013-1-HET_OTH-001
- 2013-1-UKSC-002

Night Log 2013-05-12

SA: Paul
SO: Thea
Others: Deneys, Garith

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- attempted some more throughput observations, with no success. had some trouble recovering after bursting the mirror. conditions was not photometric. after a slow start to the night we obtained some science data for the following programs:

- 2013-1-AMNH-003
- 2013-1-RSA-004 (x2)
- 2013-1-UW-002 (x2)
- 2013-1-RSA_OTH-024
- 2013-1-RSA_OTH-010
- 2013-1-RSA_POL-001 (x3)

Night Log 2013-05-11

SA: Paul
SO: Thea
Others: Deneys, Garith

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* a very busy night with SCAM throughput observations at the start, followed by science observations. We had ideal conditions and seeing for the SCAM throughput observations, but a low wind made obtaining a well aligned mirror very difficult. We had fairly poor IQ at the start of the night.

* obtained science data for the following proposals:
- 2013-1-UW-007
- 2013-1-IUCAA-001
- 2013-1-IUCAA-002
- 2013-1-HET-004
- 2013-1-UW-009 (x3)
- 2013-1-RSA_POL-001

Night Log 2013-05-10

SA: Paul
SO: Thea
Others: Deneys, Garith

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- first night with Salticam back on the telescope. we could not attempt any throughput observations due to very poor seeing and cirrus. had some teething issues which should be sorted out by tomorrow night.

- we did however obtain science data for the following programs :
- 2013-1-HET_OTH-001 (P0)
- 2013-1-HET_GU-001
- 2013-1-RSA_POL-001 x2
- 2013-1-RSA_OTH-010 x2
- 2013-1-GU-002
- 2013-1-RSA_OTH-024
- 2013-1-RSA_OTH-011

Night Log 2013-05-09

SA: Paul
SO: Thea
Others: Deneys, Garith

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- no observations tonight. engineering downtime due to the installation of Salticam.

Night Log 2013-05-08

SA: Paul
SO: Thea
Others:

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- no observations tonight due to the reinstallation of SALTICAM

Night Log 2013-05-07

SA: Amanda
SO: Veronica
Others: Paul K., Thea, Fred Watson & company

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. Dark night with heavy cloud. Closed the majority of the night.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2013-1-RSA-015 (abbreviated attempt at non-sidereal target spectra)
2011-2-UW-001 & 2013-1-RSA-014 (RSS tests)

Night Log 2013-05-06

SA: Amanda
SO: Veronica
Others: martin

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. Dark night with decent seeing (1-2").

. Data taken for the following programs:
2013-1-IUCAA-001
2013-1-UKSC_HET_OTH-001
2013-1-RSA_OTH-019
2013-1-IUCAA-004 (x3)
2013-1-UW_OTH-001
2013-1-RSA-006
2013-1-DC-003
2013-1-UW-009
2013-1-IUCAA-002

Night Log 2013-05-05

SA: Amanda
SO: Veronica
Others: Keith, Paul, Pierre

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. Mostly dark night with decent seeing (1-2").

. Data taken for the following programs:
2012-2-HET-002 (BVIT)
2012-2-RSA_OTH-020 (BVIT)
2013-1-DC-003 (x4)
2013-1-IUCAA-004
2013-1-UW-009 (rejected; mirrors fell apart)
2013-1-HET-002
2013-1-RSA-013 (commissioning; SCAM filters in RSS)

Night Log 2013-05-04

SA: Amanda
SO: Veronica
Others: Rudi & Joey (KELT), Paul, Keith

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. Photometric, mostly dark night with good seeing (1-2"). Issues with the instruments, and smaller ones with the telescope, resulted in some loss of time.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2013-1-UKSC-010 (first try rejected; retried and accepted)
2013-2-IUCAA-001 (first try rejected; retried and accepted)
2013-1-GU-002
2013-1-RSA-013 (commissioning, rejected)
2013-2-DC-001

Night Log 2013-05-02

SA: Amanda
SO: Veronica
Others: Chris, Deon, Mr. (or Ms.?) Karoo Mouse

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. Dark to gray night with mediocre seeing (1-3"), haze, climbing humidity, and brisk wind. Closed around 02:00 due to high humidity.

. Special guest in the form of a very cute mouse in the control room.

. Data taken for the following programs:
2013-1-UKSC_HET_OTH-001
2013-1-UNC_RSA_RU-001
2013-1-RSA_OTH-002
2013-1-RSA_UKSC_RU-001 (x2)
2013-1-IUCAA-004 (x2)

Night Log 2013-05-01

SA: Amanda
SO: Veronica
Others: Deon, Pierre, Ted, a contingent from George (outreach)

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. Dark to gray night with thin cloud and good seeing (~1"). Struggled with mirror alignment due to the strong wind.

. We didn't touch Petri and Thea's record, but it wasn't too bad of a night as measured in blocks observed. Data taken for the following programs:
2013-1-RSA_OTH-011
2013-1-DC-003
2013-1-RSA-004
2013-1-UW_OTH-001
2013-1-IUCAA-004
2013-1-UW-008
2013-1-UKSC_HET_OTH-001
2013-1-RSA_POL-001 (x3)
2013-2-DC-001

Night Log 2013-04-30

SA: Petri
SO: Thea
Others: Amanda, Veronica, Deon, Simon, Vic, Hamish

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Well, the 2012-2 Semester went out with a bang. We've
had a 10 day stretch of good weather without major
technical issues and with good mirror alignments. And
the outgoing weekly shift exits with exactly 101 accepted
(mostly bright and gray) blocks under their belt from the
last 7 nights ;) Tonight's data are for:

2012-2-RSA_OTH-010 (MOSx2)
2012-2-RSA_OTH-013 (MOS)
2012-2-DC_RSA-001
2012-2-UW-004
2013-1-IUCAA-002
2013-1-RSA-006
2013-1-GU-006
2013-1-AMNH-002
2013-1-UW_OTH-001
2013-1-RSA_POL-001