Night Log 2015-12-05

SA: Petri
SO: Fred
Others: Paul, Hitesh, Dan McIntosh, Simon Westerlund

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Night started with bad seeing, but the latter part saw even sub-arcsec
values. Dark and clear for most of the night as well, with no technical
problems. Thus, very productive, got some spectropolarimetry on-sky
commissioning done together with many science blocks:

2015-1-COM-002 P0 RSS (x2) (Polarimetry test proposal)
2015-2-SCI-061 P0 RSS (SALT follow-up of type Ia supernovae to study their spectral properties at targeted redshifts)
2015-2-SCI-045 P1 HRS (Radial velocity study of gamma-ray binary 1FGL J1018.6-5856 )
2015-2-MLT-003 P1 RSS (Redshift measurements of distant massive ACT galaxy clusters)
2015-2-SCI-018 P1 HRS (Evolved binaries in the Magellanic Clouds)
2015-2-SCI-052 P1 RSS (x2) (Detecting star forming galaxies in two distant, massive galaxy clusters.)

Happy 98th Independence Day Finland!

Night Log 2015-12-04

SA: Petri
SO: Fred
Others: Paul, Lisa, Thea, David

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Reasonably good night, dark and clear. However, seeing started out
horribly bad, though got better later. Couple of sudden humidity and
temperature jumps ruined alignments and at least one observation.
Eventually had to close due to humidity 1.5h before twilight. Data for:
2015-2-MLT-006 P1 RSS (Characterising Strong Gravitational Lensing systems)
2015-2-MLT-004 P1 RSS (Unraveling ring galaxies)
2015-2-SCI-019 P2 RSS (Searching for binaries in unusual central stars of planetary nebulae )
2015-2-SCI-056 P3 HRS (Tracing the chemical history of our galaxy)
2015-2-SCI-022 P3 RSS (Spectroscopy of early-type barred disk galaxies to investigate an ansae phenomena.)
2015-2-SCI-049 P4 RSS (Monitoring the X-ray bright sgB[e] stars in Magellanic Clouds)

A stunning night in Sutherland!

Summer's well on its way so we've had a few really gorgeous nights during the past week!  While observing dwarf novae in the Large Magellanic Cloud last night, Petri & Fred snagged a set of images through 3 of the Sloan filters (u, g & r).  Combining these has produced one of SALT's most beautiful colour-composite images to date.  The combination of 1" seeing & a freshly stacked primary shows what the telescope's capable of under good conditions.  If only Darragh could see this kind of image quality!

A SALTICAM view of the Large Magellanic Cloud, through Sloan u, g & r filters

Night Log 2015-12-03

SA: Petri
SO: Fred
Others: Paul

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A very productive clear night with great seeing, between 1 and 1.5" for most
of the time. Stable temperatures, and no other difficulties either. Lots of
high priority science done for such a short summer night. Data for:

2015-2-SCI-040 P0 RSS (SALT ToO observation, Magellanic Be X-ray binaries)
2015-1-MLT-002 P0 RSS (Observations of supernovae, near and far.)
2015-2-SCI-061 P0 RSS (SALT follow-up of type Ia supernovae to study their spectral properties at targeted redshifts)
2015-2-MLT-006 P1 RSS (Characterising Strong Gravitational Lensing systems)
2015-2-SCI-033 P1 SCAM (Observations of Dwarf Novae in the Large Magellanic Cloud)
2015-2-MLT-003 P1 RSS (x2) (Redshift measurements of distant massive ACT galaxy clusters)
2015-2-SCI-030 P1 RSS (x2) (Searching for high redshift quasars for the MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey (MALS))

Night Log 2015-12-02

SA: Petri
SO: Fred
Others: Paul, Simon, Hitesh, Thea

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Spent time doing engineering work in the beginning, under cirrusy clouds,
after which we were able to squeeze in two science observations before
humidity rose too high around mid-night. Data for:
2015-2-SCI-048 P1 RSS (DIBs towards the Red Rectangle)
2015-2-SCI-007 P3 RSS (Spectroscopic classification of pulsating stars. )

Night Log 2015-12-01

SA: Paul
SO: Thea
Others: Petri, Fred

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- Cloudy weather prevented us from obtaining any data tonight.

Night Log 2015-11-30

SA: Paul
SO: Thea
Others:

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- Had a very productive night in good weather conditions. Some technical issues crept in at the end of the night.

- Obtained data for the following programs:

2015-2-MLT-003 P1 RSS (Redshift measurements of distant massive ACT galaxy clusters)
2015-2-SCI-024 P1 RSS (Fabry-Perot observations to trace the narrow line regions in nearby Seyfert 2s)
2015-2-SCI-036 P2 RSS (Spectrophotometry of Magellanic symbiotic stars)
2015-2-SCI-019 P2 RSS (Searching for binaries in unusual central stars of planetary nebulae )
2015-2-SCI-030 P2 RSS (Searching for high redshift quasars for the MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey (MALS))
2015-2-SCI-059 P3 RSS (RESOLVE survey kinematics observations)