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ENR CTIO Blanco 4-m 2014-06-16

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Date: 
Monday, June 16, 2014
Telescope: 
CTIO Blanco 4-m
Submitter: 
Will Clarkson
Submitter Email: 
Observer Support: 
Kathy Vivas
Night Assistant: 
Claudio Aguilera
Problems: 

Calibration error during the day Jun 16th 2014:
Calibrations were started around 3:30pm and by 5:49pm they were not done. There was no obvious error and observations continued, but digitizing the images took a long time. The Alaarm History page shows numerous Timeout warnings and one Alert related with the comfort Display. This is the same problem we saw during the run (about 23:00 local). At this point Javier Rojas + Kathy Vivas decided to inetrrupt the script and restart SISPI, which solved the problem. 
Result: no z and Y dome flats for the (16/17) night.

White light left activated on exterior of dome:
At about 21:30 local time, we noticed strong scattered light in u-band images (e.g. image 324087 chip N24). This structure was only apparent in u, not obvious in any other filter.It is not fixed on the detector but moves with the sky.  I suspect the culprit is uv-bright * kap Sco (u 1.32, v 2.4...) which was a short distance outside the field of view at the time. On inspecting the telescope for stray light, the telescope operator found a light left on. This has been turned off.  

Guiding difficulties;
No worse than (14/15) and (15/16). Upon advice of Kathy Vivas, we attempted set guideexptime 200 but stil experienced occasional guiding failures. Note that the (16/17) run (this night) pointed at denser starfields than the previous two nights.

Comments: 

Smooth operation again. Decent progress made.

Conditions: 
General Conditions
Comment: 
None.
1st Quarter
Clouds: 
Thin Clouds
Wind: 
Low
Seeing Value: 
1.10
Seeing Variability: 
0.2
Seeing Source: 
The Telescope I used
Sky : 
1
2nd Quarter
Clouds: 
Clear
Wind: 
Low
Seeing Value: 
0.90
Seeing Variability: 
0.2
Seeing Source: 
The Telescope I used
Sky: 
0
3rd Quarter
Clouds: 
Clear
Wind: 
Low
Seeing Value: 
0.90
Seeing Variability: 
0.2
Seeing Source: 
The Telescope I used
Sky: 
0
4th Quarter
Clouds: 
Clear
Wind: 
Low
Seeing Value: 
1.00
Seeing Variability: 
0.2
Seeing Source: 
The Telescope I used
Sky: 
0
Program: 
Proposal: 
2014A-0480
Target of Oportunity: 
No
Time Observed: 
11.5
Time Engineering: 
0.0
Time lost technical: 
0.0
Time lost weather: 
0.0
Time lost other: 
0.0
Description: 
Blanco DECam Bulge Survey
Primary Investigator: 
R. Michael Rich
Institution: 
UCLA
Instrument: 
CTIO 4m DECam
Organization: 
NOAO
Total Program Time: 
11.5
Total Times Time Observed Time Engineering Time lost technical Time lost weather Time lost other Total Program Time
2014-06-16 11.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11.5