MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observing Report for 2020 Nov 15

Observer(s): Jules Halpern
Institution(s): Columbia U.

Instrument: Echelle Direct

Worked for 12 hours (all night)
Conditions were Photometric most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Beg: Seeing 1.7 arcsec, Clear, Winds Moderate
   Mid: Seeing 1.6 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable
   End: Seeing 1.6 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

Lots of excitement this night.  I watched the SpaceX launch on
TV at sunset.  About an hour later there was a tornado warning 
and I left the 'control room' for a few minutes to take shelter
in an interior hallway.  Despite all this, no calibration or
science observing time was lost.  The seeing was quite good all 
night, although I could not always measure it because I was
observing at very high airmass.

I also took a look at the previous observer's frames from the
final night that Templeton was used (20201110).  They are 
consistent with the reported increase in temperature in that
the bias level dropped from the usual 1000 to about 400 in 
frame #93, which was taken at 2:26am, just before the dewar 
was refilled and the CCD was presumably at its warmest 
(its temperature is not recorded in the file header.) 
The previous night's bias (20201109) looks normal

The substitute Echelle CCD which I have been using looks
like a suitable replacement for Templeton when the subarray 
is set to the same size.  I left it in such a configuration. 
Thanks to Eric for installing Echelle at the last minute
during a very busy week.

The all-sky camera stopped updating at 4:48am.

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Submitted on 2020 Nov 16 [6:21:09]