FLWO Tillinghast 60-inch Telescope Log
September-December 2018

Tillinghast Log for the Month of September 2018

 August September October November December January 2019 Schedule PDF Schedules TDC
DateObserverInstObsLostWeatherInstTelObsComments
09/01/2018 PBerlind TRES 0.1 9 9 0 0 0 fog after one bright star
09/02/2018 PBerlind TRES 2.5 7.5 7.5 0 0 0 comps have lower counts. file 83 weak comp, 14k, most comps coming in low at 23k
09/03/2018 MCalkins TRES 6.5 4.5 4.5 0 0 0 Lost time to clouds and humidity... Observed in clear skies and good seeing. End of Tres run
09/04/2018 MCalkins FAST 5.5 4.0 4.0 0 0 0 Once clouds moved out observed in mostly clear skies and good seeing
09/05/2018 MCalkins FAST 9.5 0 0 0 0 0 Observed all night in clear skies and good seeing
09/06/2018 PBerlind FAST 10 0 0 0 0 0 _
09/07/2018 PBerlind FAST 10 0 0 0 0 0 roll around ln2 dewar was not pressurized, again. when filling dewar, close the valve and let the pressure build.
09/08/2018 MCalkins FAST 9.5 0 0 0 0 0 Observed in clear skies with good seeing..
09/09/2018 MCalkins FAST 9.0 0 0 0 0 0 The 48" dome was unresponsive at the beginning of the night leading to blank exposure frames due to the telescope not being aligned with slit. I replaced a blown fuze in the power box and it came back to life. However, the fuze that blew was rated at 8A 1
09/10/2018 MCalkins FAST 9 0 0 0 0 0 Observed all night in clear skies and good seeing
09/11/2018 MCalkins FAST 9.0 0 0 0 0 0 Observed in mostly clear skies and moderate seeing
09/12/2018 MCalkins FAST 8 1 1 0 0 0 Observed most of the night in clear skies and good seeing. Clouds at the very end. End of FAST run
09/13/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 10 0 0 0 0 0 Clear all night with slightly soft seeing. The power for the tip-tilt was not turned on leading to a confusing start of the night until that was discovered. Otherwise, no problems
09/14/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 9.75 0.25 0.25 0 0 0 Mostly clear but a bout of debris clouds at a couple times during the night. I was able to observe around much of it, but did have to pause observations for a little while. Otherwise, no problems
09/15/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 8.75 1.25 1.25 0 0 0 Mostly clear early but outflow from a storm south of the border caused a brief pause early on with thin cloud until a thicker batch of debris cloud came through for an hour starting at 2:00. Clear after that until the end of the night. No problems
09/16/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 9 1 1 0 0 0 Debris clouds from earlier storms were lingering around after sunset. Essentially sitting idle for the first hour of the night until the clouds broke giving a clear night with good seeing for the remainder. No problems
09/17/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 9 1 1 0 0 0 Debris clouds from storms to the south and east dissipated around sunset with about 30 minutes lost early then another 30 lost later from lingering debris clouds. Very thin cirrus when not properly overcast. Variable but generally below average seeing a
09/18/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 0 10 10 0 0 0 Clouds with some rain all night. Never opened
09/19/2018 PBerlind TRES 0 10 10 0 0 0 rain, clouds, road washed out and closed by sheriff
09/20/2018 PBerlind TRES 9.5 1 1 0 0 0 _
09/21/2018 MCalkins Tres 9.5 0 0 0 0 0 Observed all night with some clouds and soft to good seeing. No problems
09/22/2018 MCalkins TRES 9.5 0 0 0 0 0 getting stale
09/23/2018 MCalkins TRES 0.75 8.75 8.75 0 0 0 Observed through a few holes before whole clouds rolled in...
09/24/2018 PBerlind TRES 8 2 2 0 0 0 _
09/25/2018 PBerlind TRES 8 2.5 2.5 0 0 0 _
09/26/2018 MCalkins TRES 9.5 0 0 0 0 0 Full night of observing in clear skies and good seeing
09/27/2018 MCalkins TRES 9.5 0 0 0 0 0 Late afternoon scattered clouds gave way to clear skies and good seeing. Nice night
09/28/2018 MCalkins TRES 9.5 0 0 0 0 0 Observed all night in clears skies with initially poor seeing which improved throughout the night
09/29/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 8.5 2 2 0 0 0 Clouds around sunset took their time breaking then the leading edge of clouds Hurricane Rosa combined with the bright moon had me idle later on in the night. Looks like it might get soggy for the next few nights
09/30/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 0 10.5 10.5 0 0 0 Cloudy all night with periods of rain ahead of now tropical storm Rosa. Never opened

Tillinghast Log for the Month of October 2018

 August September October November December January 2019 Schedule PDF Schedules TDC
DateObserverInstObsLostWeatherInstTelObsComments
09/01/2018 PBerlind TRES 0.1 9 9 0 0 0 fog after one bright star
10/01/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 0 10.5 10.5 0 0 0 Fog all night. Never opened
10/02/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 0 10.5 10.5 0 0 0 Fog all night with a brief, light rain late. Never opened
10/03/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 2.5 8 8 0 0 0 Clouds early, clearing briefly, then fog and over limit-humidity for a bit before clearing for about two hours. Fogged over again and remained over-limit humidity for the remainder of the night. Less productive than I hoped, but at least open and observ
10/04/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 10.5 0 0 0 0 0 Clear all night with good seeing early and again late while a bit squishy in between. Nice to finally get to observe after the effects of Rosa
10/05/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 10.5 0 0 0 0 0 Clear all night with relatively good seeing. No problems
10/06/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 7 3.5 3.5 0 0 0 Variable clouds throughout the night as bands passed ahead of a storm system forecast for at least tomorrow. Finally shut down for good in the last 90 minutes of the night. Soft to poor seeing all night
10/07/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 2.25 8.25 0 0 0 0 Rain and thunderstorms early eventually breaking a bit allowing some observing for about an hour then again at the very end of the night. Poor seeing when I was open, and it was never truly clear when I was. Frustrating night, but still got some useful
10/08/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 10.5 0 0 0 0 0 Dissipating clouds at sunset broke giving way to mostly clear skies until the very end when some pesky scraps from the system that's been to the north for the last few days decided to slide on through at dawn. Soft seeing most of the night becoming quite
10/09/2018 PBerlind FAST 10.5 0 0 0 0 0 _
10/10/2018 PBerlind FAST 6 4.5 4.5 0 0 0 _
10/11/2018 MCalkins FAST 0 10.5 10.5 0 0 0 Rain, fog, clouds
10/12/2018 MCalkins FAST 0 10.5 10.5 0 0 0 It is extremely important not to overfill the roll-around dewar for FAST. Sufficient empty volume must remain to allow the roll-around dewar to build pressure.... Sustained pressure was only 2-3 psi for the beginning of night fill requiring a large dewar
10/13/2018 MCalkins FAST 0 10.5 10.5 0 0 0 Fog, rain, etc
10/14/2018 MCalkins FAST 5.5 5.0 5.0 0 0 0 Observed in mostly good seeing with occasional, thin cirrus.... Has the guide camera shifted in it's mount on FAST? In order to keep spectra in the center of the chip guide position as it appears on the monitor has shifter noticeably to the right, approxi
10/15/2018 MCalkins FAST 0 10.5 10.5 0 0 0 Fog, soaking rain...
10/16/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 4.5 6.5 6.5 0 0 0 Over limit humidity and cap clouds for the first half of the night, breaking around 1:30 and remaining clear for the rest of the night. Poor seeing
10/17/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 11 0 0 0 0 0 Clear all night. Bad seeing for the first half of the night then below average for the second half
10/18/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 8 3 3 0 0 0 Mostly clear all night with variable but thin cirrus for the majority of the time. Had a three hour pause when humidity went over limit (railings are still soaking wet as the sky is getting brighter). Soft seeing all night. No problems
10/19/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 10.5 0.5 0.5 0 0 0 Mostly clear early with high humidity, going over limit and closing me down for only 30 minutes. Became clear after that bit still with elevated humidity. Seeing was poor all night. No problems
10/2012018 GEsquerdo TRES 10.5 0.5 0.5 0 0 0 Mostly clear but had dodge clouds at times, sitting idle briefly a couple times then fighting some pesky clouds at the very end. Bad and variable seeing all night. Mostly worked brighter targets with 3-4x typical exposure times. No problems
10/21/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 4 7 7 0 0 0 Thunderstorms before sunset breaking a couple hours later allowing four hours of observing in poor but improving seeing conditions. Cap clouds settled in around midnight persisting for the remainder. A surprising, brief night. No problems
10/22/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 0.25 10.75 10.75 0 0 0 Mostly clouds all night with high humidity and a cap cloud at the very end. When looking at the satellite loop before starting, I thought I'd be able to get more time on sky at the start than I did
10/23/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 10 1 1 0 0 0 Clouds from today's storms breaking at sunset giving way to rapidly clearing skies letting me open an hour in. Skies continued to clear giving way to a very clear conditions with remarkably good seeing for the bulk of the night. A refreshing change comp
10/24/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 11 0 0 0 0 0 Mostly clear then clear. Good seeing early then a little soft to end the night. The AC in the chamber didn't appear to be working when I opened this evening. The thermostat was reporting 61 degrees despite being set at 53. Looking at the display of te
10/25/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 11 0 0 0 0 0 Clear all night with average seeing to start which quickly degraded with the start of a strong north wind. Remained crummy until the end
10/26/2018 MCalkins TRES 11 0 0 0 0 0 Observed in clear skies with initially poor seeing which tightened up quite a bit by the end of the night
10/27/2018 MCalkins TRES 11.5 0 0 0 0 0 Observed all night in clear skies and excellent seeing..... 48" dome is inoperative for the time being. Wayne intends to head up to see if a fix can be made
10/28/2018 MCalkins TRES 10 1.5 1.5 0 0 0 We had great seeing all night, but had to suffer through numerous interruptions due to clouds
10/29/2018 PBerlind TRES 0.1 10 10 0 0 0 _
10/30/2018 PBerlind TRES 0 11 11 0 0 0 _
10/31/2018 MCalkins TRES 10 1.5 1.5 0 0 0 Observed in initially clear skies with soft seeing, then clouds moved in at end of night

Tillinghast Log for the Month of November 2018

 August September October November December January 2019 Schedule PDF Schedules TDC
DateObserverInstObsLostWeatherInstTelObsComments
11/01/2018 MCalkins TRES 11.5 0 0 0 0 0 Observed all night in mostly clear skies with good seeing in the beginning and end and very soft seeing in the middle
11/02/2018 MCalkins TRES 10.75 0.75 0.75 0 0 0 Night started with clear skies and sub-arcsecond seeing which grew somewhat soft after midnight with cirrus at the very end
11/03/2018 PBerlind TRES 11 0 0 0 0 0 _
11/04/2018 PBerlind TRES 6 5 5 0 0 0 clouds, poor seeing late
11/05/2018 MCalkins TRES 11.5 0 0 0 0 0 Clear night with mostly good seeing
11/06/2018 MCalkins TRES 11.5 0 0 0 0 0 Observed all night in clear skies with mostly good seeing
11/07/2018 MCalkins TRES 12 0 0 0 0 0 Observed all night in clear skies and good seeing. End of Tres run
11/08/2018 Lambert
Macri		 FAST 11 0 0 0 0 0 N/A
11/10/2018 Lambert
Macri		 FAST 11 0 0 0 0 0 N/A
11/11/2018 Lambert
Macri		 FAST 11 0 0 0 0 0 Great run!
11/14/2018 MCalkins FAST 7 4.5 4.5 0 0 0 Lost first part of night to clouds, smoke, moon. Observed second part in clearing skies and excellent seeing. End of FAST run
11/18/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 12.5 0 0 0 0 0 Mostly clear all night with only extremely light cirrus part way through. Good seeing
11/19/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 9 3.5 3.5 0 0 0 Mostly clear to start but thin clouds leading a disturbance started to come in around midnight. I was able to poke through the clouds for a little over three hours with varying degrees of success before being shut down for the night a bit after 3:00
11/20/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 12.5 0 0 0 0 0 Clear with only some light and dissolving debris clouds at sunset with soft seeing. Quickly became clear with improving seeing throughout the night becoming very good in the last few hours. No problems
11/21/2018 MCalkins TRES 8.5 3.5 3.5 0 0 0 Observed with thin cirrus and excellent seeing before clouds got thick
11/22/2018 MCalkins TRES 4.5 7.5 7.5 0 0 0 Lost the first part of the night to weather, observed the remainder with occasional, thin cirrus and excellent seeing... The set button on the hand paddle in the control room seems to be sticking causing the telescope to overshoot whenever cardinal butto
11/23/2018 MCalkins TRES 9.5 2.5 2.5 0 0 0 Observed most of the night in variable skies (clear - cirrus) and good seeing. Hand paddle fix worked. Thanks
11/24/2018 PBerlind TRES 11.5 0 0 0 0 0 _
11/25/2018 PBerlind TRES 11.5 0 0 0 0 0 _
11/26/2018 MCalkins TRES 12 0 0 0 0 0 broke
11/27/2018 MCalkins TRES 12 0 0 0 0 0 Clouds present at the beginning and end of the night, otherwise observed in excellent seeing
11/28/2018 MCalkins TRES 12 0 0 0 0 0 Observed all night in variable but mostly good seeing with thin cirrus for the last few hours
11/29/2018 PBerlind TRES 0 11.5 11.5 0 0 0 _
11/30/2018 PBerlind TRES 4 7 7 0 0 0 Found 48 stuck on limit, harvey TCS not running. Dome handpaddle has stuck buttons, now disconnected. Bad pointing, TCS PC clock off by 30-minutes. Reset ok

Tillinghast Log for the Month of December 2018

 August September October November December January 2019 Schedule PDF Schedules TDC
DateObserverInstObsLostWeatherInstTelObsComments
12/01/2018 MCalkins TRES 0 12 12 0 0 0 48" Harvey computer crashed.... When I went into the control room the windows desktop was displayed and I had to restart TCS. No idea what happened...
12/02/2018 M Calkins TRES 1.5 11 11 0 0 0 Clouds, fog, and humidity for most of the night. Observed some objects through cirrus in poor seeing
12/03/2018 MCalkins TRES 12.5 0 0 0 0 0 Observed all night in mostly good seeing and clear skies until cirrus moved in at the very end. End of Tres run, counter-weights are off
12/04/2018 WBrown FAST 7.5 4 4 0 0 0 Observed through variable heavy clouds until clouds shut us down around 2:30am. No major issues, just a single hang of the TCS system when I loaded a new target while a comp exposure was finishing, but I killed the processes and everything restarted fine
12/05/2018 WBrown FAST 0 11.5 11.5 0 0 0 Heavy clouds and 90% humidity, the storm is moving in
12/06/2018 WBrown FAST 0 11.5 11.5 0 0 0 Rainy night. I noticed water dripping in the chamber, near and onto the table for the FAST gratings. I moved the table over to avoid the drip
12/07/2018 WBrown FAST 0 11.5 11.5 0 0 0 Rain, thunder, and snow today, clearing tonight but telescope remained closed to 90% humidity. Since there is no observer this weekend, we left FAST connected to the auto-filler
12/10/2018 WBrown FAST 4 8 8 0 0 0 Heavy clouds. I did 15 min exposures on 10th mag stars for a few hours until clouds got too thick to acquire targets, and closed
12/11/2018 MCalkins FAST 4.5 7.5 7.5 0 0 0 Took over at midnight for Emilio after summit was weathered-out. Observed through and around cirrus in decent seeing. End of FAST run
12/12/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 11.5 0.5 0.5 0 0 0 Poor seeing all night with a strong wind from the northwest then north. Gusts became very high at the very end of the night shutting me down at 12 degree twilight. No problems
12/13/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 12.5 0 0 0 0 0 Clear all night with poor seeing most of the night, improving to average towards the very end. No problems
12/14/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 3.5 9 9 0 0 0 Cloudy at sunset clearing a little a few hours in. Progressive clearing becoming mostly clear for about 45 minutes before clouding over for the remainder of the night just after midnight. No problems
12/15/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 1 11.5 11.5 0 0 0 Cloudy until the last hour when it mostly broke allowing a couple brighter targets to be observed and a few giants during twilight. Surprised I was able to do anything tonight
12/16/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 2 10.5 10.5 0 0 0 Clouds and rain most of the night, clearing for the last two hours
12/17/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 7.25 5.25 5.25 0 0 0 Clouds and rain to start, then lots of on again, off again clouds until about 4:00 when it became mostly clear for the remainder. Seeing poor early, improving as the night went on. A very frustrating night with the rapidly changing conditions
12/18/2018 MCalkins TRES 12 0 0 0 0 0 Observed in clear skies and excellent seeing despite stiff winds all night
12/19/2018 MCalkins TRES 12.5 0 0 0 0 0 Observed all night in clear skies with good seeing. Note: bench enclosure was entered early yesterday morning and may not have thermally stabilized by start of observations last night
12/21/2019 MCalkins TRES 12.5 0 0 0 0 0 Observed all night with good to excellent seeing with cirrus moving in the last couple of hours
12/21/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 2.25 10.25 10.25 0 0 0 Cloudy to mostly cloudy for the majority of the night breaking for the last 90 minutes. No problems
12/22/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 11.5 1 1 0 0 0 Clouds at sunset quickly gave way to clear to mostly clear skies with good seeing but with an annoyingly bright moon I spent most of the night having to dance around. No problems
12/23/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 11.5 1 0.5 0 0 0 Mostly clear to clear with a brief bout of thicker clouds early. Good seeing most of the night. Sat idle for about half an hour with the moon high overhead waiting for targets to rise in the east. No problems
12/24/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 7 5.5 5.5 0 0 0 Clear to start with relatively good seeing. The leading edge of the incoming storm combined with the moon kept me idle/closed except for an hour near the end with a sucker hole that allowed me to get a higher priority target before being shut down for th
12/26/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 3.25 9.25 9.25 0 0 0 Snow early then fog for most of the night. Broke late and was able to observe for a while under high humidity and poor seeing. Otherwise, no problems
12/27/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 0 12.5 12.5 0 0 0 Clouds and fog all night with snow most of the time. High winds most of the night, quieting near the end. Never opened
12/28/2018 GEsquerdo TRES 12.5 0 0 0 0 0 Clear all night but with variable seeing from poor to below average then back to poor to end the night
12/29/2018 MCalkins TRES 2 10.5 10.5 0 0 0 dome blew a fuse which has since been replaced. I left the robot off as I would like to inspect the snow fall around the 48
12/30/2018 MCalkins TRES 12.5 0 0 0 0 0 A bit of a late start due to dome being lost. Wayne has stated he'll reposition the fibers for the home sensor
12/31/2018 MCalkins TRES 0 0 12.5 0 0 0 A bit of snow....