MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observer's Report for 2008 Apr 29

Observer(s): Atlee
Institution(s): OSU

Instrument: 4k Camera

Worked for 8.5 hours (all night)
Conditions were Non-Photometric most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Beg: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Moderate, gusting winds
   Mid: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Moderate, gusting winds
   End: Clear, Winds Moderate

Observing Summary:

I completed two set of long observations tonight.  The first was a
~3 hour series for Joe Patterson of SDSS1239-03.  The image
quality for these exposures was generally poor due to gusting
winds causing vibrations in the telescope.  Wind gusts also
made it very difficult to focus the telescope, so these day may be
difficult to calibrate.

The second set was an approximately 4 hour series of exposures for
Jason Eastman of the transiting system TrES-3.  This series was
interrupted in the middle to verify the telescope pointing, as
both Jason (whom I contacted part way through the run) and I had
difficulty locating the target star.

The remaining 1-1.5 working hours were spent attempting to locate
the target star, as mentioned above, attempting to focus the
telescope, which proved largely impossible beyond a very rough
level due to unpredictable wind gusts, and performing various
other basic functions like searching for guide stars.

Note: Seeing values for beginning and middle of night were
estimated from the best images available.  The end of the
night has no relevant seeing estimates since attempting to
focus the telescope would have moved the target star on the
detector.

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Submitted on 2008 Apr 30 [6:40:53]