MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observer's Report for 2001 Feb 06

Observer(s): M. Gale
Institution(s): Dartmouth

Instrument: ONIS

No Observing (see comments below)
Bad weather most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the summary for details.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds all night.

Observing Summary:

1.3m
The sky was covered in thick clouds until about midnight. 
It took another 2 hours for the clouds to clear, but I 
tried opening up to do pointing and focus fields while I 
waited.  The winds were gusting at 15-30mph at this point.  
I didn't realize that was dangerous until I heard the bottom 
half of the shutter banging around as I opened the dome.  I 
thought the shutter might be blown off by the winds,so I closed
back up.  The winds stayed at a steady 15mph average for the 
rest of the night, with a few heavier gusts near 35mph.  

2.4m
I don't know if this has happened before, but the winds caused a 
weird resonance (feedback?) thing with the microphone in the 2.4m 
'scope room.  The noise was so loud, I thought it was a fire alarm 
going off and rushed up there. It could be clearly heard from the 
1.3m control room.  I got the noise to stop by moving the mike in 
closer to the center of the dome. 

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Submitted on 2001 Feb 7 [5:15:03]