MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observing Report for 2014 Dec 13

Observer(s): John Thorstensen
Institution(s): Dartmouth

Instrument: Modspec + Echelle CCD

Worked for 4 hours (last half of the night)
Conditions were Photometric most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Beg: Clear, Winds Calm, Too humid to open
   Mid: Clear, Winds Calm, Too humid to open
   End: Seeing 1+ arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm, Finally, OK!

Observing Summary:

Rain and then fog almost all day, clearing by late 
afternoon but -- humidity was too high to open for most of 
the night, despite it being beautifully clear.  Ran hour-angle
limit tests on the 1.3m with the dome closed.  Finally, around
2 AM, the humidity started easing as the ambient temperature
dropped below freezing, and I opened both telescopes.
RH dropped quickly after that.  Seeing was reasonable despite
quite warm telescope mirrors (it's a lot colder tonight than
previous nights).  

At the end of the night, dome was a few degrees off the contact.
Not enough to be a problem, but might bear watching.

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Submitted on 2014 Dec 14 [7:07:32]