ENR CTIO Blanco 4-m 2016-10-24

Observing Plan

1. standard bias and dome flat sequence
2. evening standard stars
3. run ObsTac queue
4. end of the night standard star
5. end of night calibrations

Conditions

1. weather in afternoon: CLEAR!
2. weather summary: clear all night.
3. Seeing conditions: Median: 2.0” RMS: 0.4”
4. Wind conditions: 5-25 mph NE.
5. Humidity: Had to close louvers when humidity at camera rose and outdoor humidity was up to 60%. Dropped to 20% by end of night.

Accomplishments

1. Afternoon: zeros done, dome flats done – OK.
2. Evening: Standards: SDSSJ0100, J0000, J2140
3. SN exposures (seeing >1.5”) E1, E2 585826-837
4. Wide exposures mostly g, 585838-868 (being taken in horrible 2-3” seeing because no SN fields are visible yet).
5. SN X1, X2, C2, X3gr, S1, C1, 585869-906 (seeing 1.5-2.5”)
6. Wide Exposures gr 585907-958 (still terrible seeing, 1.5-3”; why isn’t OBSTAC doing other SN fields?)
7. SN X3i, C3g 585959-968
8. ...a few more Wide grzY 585969-577
9. SN C3zr 585978-994
10. End of night: Standards J0933, J0843, MaxVis
11. Wildlife report: cosmological theorist has taken up residence in control room.

Minor Problems and Relevant Information

1. Rasicam: Webpage interface is not working but rasicam.sh works.
2. See below, why did OBSTAC slew 60 degrees to take a shot of Canopus? I hope this is not an unintended consequence of blacklisting an earlier exposure of this star.

Notes for Data Management

1. Expect most exposures to fail quality cuts.
2. Say hello to Canopus on 585947. Full of ghosts. And 3.5” seeing for this exposure also. OBSTAC slewed 60 degrees just to get this one exposure on the Eastern edge of the footprint. Why?

Summary

Terrific, bigly clear night. But the seeing: so sad, so sad.