MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observer's Report for 2001 Jan 21

Observer(s): Kemp, Giovanardi, Utton
Institution(s): Columbia

Instrument: Templeton/direct

Worked for 5 hours (first half of the night)
Conditions were Mixed most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the summary for details.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds from 12am until dawn.
   Beg: Seeing 2 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Light & Variable, Increasing cirrus
   Mid: Seeing 2 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Light & Variable, Begin overcast
   End: Overcast, Winds Calm, Thick overcast

Observing Summary:

Poor night got increasingly worse.  Had to manually push drop-
out shutter again to open it.  I note that the drop-out shutter
does not always stop when the open button is released, often
stopping only when reaching the bottom of the permitted travel
range.  Therefore, I suspect that something is perhaps broken
in the controlling arm and should be looked at lest the
continued harsh stopping of its downward travel damage the
controlling arm and/or the controlling arm ceases to function
when closing due to inclement weather.  While I noted this
problem last night (the second night of the observing run), I
recall that on the first night it didn't seem to open regularly
and took and extra try or two.

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Submitted on 2001 Jan 22 [6:15:36]