MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observer's Report for 2003 Oct 29

Observer(s): Bureau, Kamphuis
Institution(s): Columbia, Groningen

Instrument: Echelle, f/7.6 Direct Imaging

Worked for 10 hours (all night)
Conditions were Non-Photometric most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds all night.
   Beg: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Calm
   Mid: Seeing 2.8 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Light & Variable
   End: Seeing 2.2 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Calm

Observing Summary:

We continued our program of imaging early-type galaxies from the Sauron sample. The conditions ranged from passable to totally cloudy during the night, so we increased substantially our exposure times to compensate (up to a factor of 2). We nevertheless worked most of the night, but much of the data (3 galaxies only!) will not be useful, either because of substantial cloud coverage (low counts, loss of guide star), or low seeing (3  in the middle of the night).

We had no technical problem, except that the focus button in the control room is very  sticky , leading to frequent overshoot when focusing.

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Submitted on 2003 Oct 30 [5:42:58]