MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observer's Report for 2007 Dec 15

Observer(s): armstrong
Institution(s): columbia

Instrument: 4k

Worked for 13 hours (all night)
Conditions were Photometric most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the separate trouble report for details.

Seeing and Weather:
   Beg: Seeing 4 arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm
   Mid: Seeing 3 arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm
   End: Seeing 1.6 arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm

Observing Summary:

Beautifully clear, and low humidity all night.  Got three time 
series of cataclysmic variables.  Had a few issues ...

Around 22:00, McGraw froze - all processes, including integrations,
stopped.  All I could do was unplug it.  To get Caliban working
again, I also had to turn off Caliban, the IC, the TCS, and 
toggled instrument power in dome.  Did this procedure twice, and
then things worked again.

Around 1:00 the IC failed.  Shut it down and restarted.

The telescope did a little jumping, as it had the previous night.  
At: HA 2:32; RA  2:29, DEC  39:59; LST  5:02; Airmass 1.175,
I tried four times to start guiding.  The first three times I 
hit  start  on a guide star, the telescope would suddenly jerk 
by several seconds - losing the star.  Fourth time was a charm.

If you want my two cents, I've got an uneasy feeling the deer
mouse is somehow responsible for all of this.

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Submitted on 2007 Dec 16 [5:28:44]