----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mauna Loa Solar Observatory Observer's Log ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tue Nov 16 17:23:25 GMT 2021 Year: 21 Doy: 320 Observer: mlso GENERAL COMMENT BY mcotter: Tue Nov 16 17:46:09 GMT 2021 Opened windows upstairs ___end___ GENERAL COMMENT BY mcotter: Tue Nov 16 17:46:16 GMT 2021 PM Blew off UCoMP O1 ___end___ GENERAL COMMENT BY mcotter: Tue Nov 16 17:46:26 GMT 2021 PM Blew off Kcor O1 ___end___ WEATHER COMMENT: mcotter: Tue Nov 16 17:55:59 GMT 2021 Temp: 47.0f, Humidity: 59%, Pressure: 28.73in, Wind: 6mph from 92degs, Skies: The skies have high altitude Cirrus sporadically spread across the sky, also a few bits of Altocumulus, but the area of the sky that we are currently viewing appears good enough to observe.There is a heavy inversion layer visible on the horizon just below Haleakala. ___end___ KCOR COMMENT BY mcotter: Tue Nov 16 18:05:23 GMT 2021 Kcor instrument up and running. SGS offsets: X(RA): 30, Y(Dec): -5. Polarization checked good: Mid, Bright, Dark, Mid. ___end___ UCoMP COMMENT BY mcotter: Tue Nov 16 19:20:36 GMT 2021 I tried starting the Ucomp instrument but the" Ucomp-Controller" software seemed to hang up, additionally a GUI came up that stated the following: Standa stage: Cal Pol Rot was not found. To continue running UcoMP with this stage in simulation mode press OK. If this is a real problem press Cancel to QUIT now. The GUI had two buttons on the bottom: OK and Cancel. I had not seen this GUI before, so I closed the Ucomp controller program and the Ucomp mech-controller program and restarted them. Again this GUI came up. I hit cancel and I tried running the Ucomp-Controller program but it was unresponsive. I called Ben and he asked me to manually unplug from the rack power the "Camera Power" plug and the "Heater/CL/Shutter Power" plug and wait 15 seconds. I plugged both units back in after 15 seconds but the Ucomp-Controller program was still unresponsive. At this point the GUI that I described earlier came up again. Ben had me manually unplug the "Standa/USB Power" plug wait 15 seconds, then plug it back in. We also shut down and restarted the Ucomp-Controller and mech-controller programs. This time the Ucomp-Controller and mech-controller programs appeared to power back up normally. We started the Ucomp instrument and initiated the "daily-menu" program and everything worked correctly. ___end___ WEATHER COMMENT: mcotter: Tue Nov 16 19:21:23 GMT 2021 Clouds have moved into the viewing area and Kcor and Ucomp have both been stopped. ___end___ WEATHER COMMENT: mcotter: Tue Nov 16 19:29:50 GMT 2021 High altitude Cirrus clouds have moved into the viewing area from the west, additionally loads of Altocumulus clouds have begun to form over the summit of Maunaloa and in the viewing area. Sometimes this will happen but many times clouds will form and then dissipate rather quickly and it turns into a temporary inconvenience. The Altocumulus clouds now forming over the summit are not readily dissipating and seem to be rapidly increasing in size and numbers. Though we cannot observe at this time, the clouds do not look threatening so I will leave the dome open and see if conditions improve. ___end___ **GONG PROBLEM COMMENT BY mcotter** : Tue Nov 16 19:56:34 GMT 2021 Yesterday Ben had stowed the turret for the GONG instrument because the weather was very poor, and also because there was site work being performed near the GONG trailer that was generating dust and airborne particles. This morning the weather is relatively good so I uncovered the GONG turret and began to reinitialize the GONG instrument. In the GONG procedure to un-stow the turret the instructions state that the indicator lights for the "Pitch" & "Roll" functions of the instrument must not be illuminated. Both lights were illuminated. The instructions state that if this occurs, to power cycle the "Instrument Computer". I have not previously encountered this problem before and with all the computers present in the area of the rack I was unsure which computer was the GONG Instrument Computer. I called Ben and he told me that the GONG Instrument Computer was contained within the rack itself, located just above the mid-point of the rack, with a "Red" reset button and a "Green" power button (both buttons have a small clear plastic cover that can be moved in and out of position so as to access the buttons below) on the front panel. I power cycled the Instrument Computer, as stated in the instructions, and both indicator lights went out. After this I continued to follow the instructions and the GONG instrument appeared to have come back up normally. ___end___ GONG COMMENT BY mcotter: Tue Nov 16 20:00:01 GMT 2021 I swept out the GONG trailer this morning because lava dust and bits of lava debris was present. ___end___ GENERAL COMMENT BY mcotter: Tue Nov 16 20:05:26 GMT 2021 On the display for the MLSO comment Logger, I changed the display setting from 100% to 125%. The display size was a little difficult for me to see and read. ___end___ Tue Nov 16 20:33:52 GMT 2021 Running UCOMP Cookbook dark_80ms_2beam_16sums_BOTH.cbk line 0 Tue Nov 16 20:36:46 GMT 2021 Running UCOMP Cookbook dark_80ms_2beam_16sums_BOTH.cbk line 0 Tue Nov 16 21:09:51 GMT 2021 Kcor Focus/alignment program exited UCoMP COMMENT BY mcotter: Tue Nov 16 22:15:51 GMT 2021 Found the UCOMP lyot filter was cool today ~19C. Both Cropico and ILX temps reflected this lower time. Looks like after yesterday’s power shutdown for UPS work the ILX did not turn its heater back on. OUTPUT was off so temp came down to ambient. We are were able to get the OUTPUT on and start the header by sending the to come back up by sending the “OUTPUT ON” command to the ILX. From what I can tell we didn’t normally set this in software so the ILX must have been configured a few months ago and just kept its configuration this whole time. We have added a new VI to the ucomp-controller initialization sequence to command the ILX to setpoint 35 and turn on the OUTPUT. So that now even if the ILX were to get out of its normal output mode again it will recover when we start the observing code. ___end___ GENERAL COMMENT BY mcotter: Tue Nov 16 22:38:34 GMT 2021 The MLSO logger crashed and I could not get it to come back up. I called Ben and he was able to remotely find a bug in the code that was hanging up and repaired it so it should not happen again. ___end___ GENERAL COMMENT BY mcotter: Tue Nov 16 23:06:30 GMT 2021 Emptied trash receptacles in control room. ___end___ GENERAL COMMENT BY mcotter: Tue Nov 16 23:11:11 GMT 2021 The day started a little bright with some high altitude Cirrus spread in various areas across the sky, but I was able to get some Kcor data this morning before clouds began to thicken and obscure viewing. The Ucomp instrument had a few problems with the software this morning before the instrument was ready to observe and by that time the clouds were prevalent and both instruments were stopped. ___end___ ONSITE STAFF: mcotter