MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2003 May 27

Observer(s): Fesen
Institution(s): Dartmouth

Instrument: Direct Echelle

Worked for 8.5 hours (all night)
Conditions were Non-Photometric most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds from 4:00 until 4:30.
   Beg: Seeing 1.7 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Light & Variable
   Mid: Seeing 1.4 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable
   End: Seeing 1.1 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

No tracking problems tonight even though I was 3 or so hours
over to the East. Seeing was only fair (1.1 to 1.8 arcsec).
But I obtained good (beginning of the night) to excellent 
(near the end of the night) echelle images of my targets.
Thick clouds showed up at near the very end of the night 
(4:10 am). Timing is everything...

FYI:
As in past nights, the temperature reading for the secondary
mirror starts the evening off some 3 - 4 degrees C above
that of the ambient air. This is true no matter if one opens
the dome up in the late afternoon. Only at end of the night
does it's temp approach that of the air (less than 1 C). I 
wonder if having such a warm secondary is limiting our resulting
image quality. Spoke to Bob and he may have an easy solution.


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Submitted on 2003 May 28 [4:50:13]