MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observer's Report for 2005 Apr 13

Observer(s): Martin Bureau, Bettina Gerken
Institution(s): Oxford University

Instrument: Direct Imaging, f/7.6, echelle

Worked for 09:30 hours (most of the night)
Conditions were Non-Photometric most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Beg: Seeing 2.1 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Calm
   Mid: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Calm
   End: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Calm

Observing Summary:

Continuation of an optical imaging follow-up of the Sauron sample of
early-type galaxies. The sky was covered with fairly thick cirrus for
the first part of the night. We stayed put for an hour or so and then
started to work as the cirrus thinned, increasing our planned
exposures times by factors of a few... By the middle of the night the
conditions were much better and we worked almost normally until the
end. The seeing was 2.1  at the beginning but got to about 1.5  from
the middle of the night on.

Like yesterday, no technical problem to report, except that the
auto-guider  amplifier  triped by itself a couple of times, and the
dome encoder jumped by over 30 degrees all by itself once (which we
fortunately saw... seems to have happened as the telescope crossed the
meridian in the South).

A quick question: What is the device name for Hill's DAT tape
(non-rewinding option). The name on it does not work, neither do all
the obvious names I tried. The DAT tape on kilauea systematically
rejects my tape within seconds...

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Submitted on 2005 Apr 14 [6:04:01]