MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observer's Report for 2004 Feb 18

Observer(s): M. Bureau, M. Damen
Institution(s): Columbia University

Instrument: Direct imaging with Echelle

No Observing (see comments below)
Conditions were Non-Photometric most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   High Winds all night.

Observing Summary:

We started tonight our 3rd run of optical broadband imaging of the early-type galaxies part of the Sauron sample.

The night started with clouds that went rapidly away and we were soon able to set up everything for our run. Unfortunately, the seeing prove too bad to yiedl any useful data for our purposes (just above 3.0 , our acceptable limit), so we waited for the seeing to get better. The central third of the night was then plagued by fairly high winds, with occasionnal gusts exceeding the limit. We closed/opened the dome a number of times and refocused the telescope only to find seeings of about 4.5 . The last third of the  night was better wind-wise but the humidity rose and hovered around the limit (with still bad seeing). We thus closed and remained so until the end.

All in all, a disapointing night with, in succesion, clouds, bad seeing, high winds, and high humidity. We did get a few galaxy exposures, but none usable.

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Submitted on 2004 Feb 19 [7:02:31]