The beginning of observing campaign 54 was greeted by photometric skies and a distinct coolness in the air. Unfortunately, this campaign is coinciding with a general shutdown of the federal government. Therefore, many of the dedicated people responsible for the success of the Fermi mission must wait to go back to work. Also, NRAO announced just prior to the start of this campaign that they are immediately suspending science operations in the northern hemisphere. So, there will be no chance of getting any simultaneous radio-optical polarization measurements of gamma-ray bright blazars until Congress decides to fund the government again.
The night was very productive at the Kuiper Telescope
even though the seeing was often worse than
2 arcsec. During the best parts of the night, the seeing approached 1.5
arcsec, but for most of the second half of the night, it bounced between
2-3.5 arcsec.
