MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observer's Report for 2008 Mar 07

Observer(s): Andrea Kunder
Institution(s): Dartmouth College

Instrument: Echelle

Worked for 8 hours (most of the night)
Conditions were Mixed most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the separate trouble report for details.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds from 4:30 until 6:30.
   Beg: Seeing 2 arcsec, Clear, Winds Moderate
   Mid: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable
   End: Seeing 1.2 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

Throughout the night, I had numerous problems with ccdcom crashing on me.  As my observations are sensitive to the exact timing of short exposures, this was frustrating to me.
ccdcom crashed on me about 7 times during the night.  I tried  df  and  unit util  multiple times, but had to restart ccdcom in order to continue with my observing.

I also had a problem at the beginning of the night.  I pointed at a bright star near my first target (and my first target was not at the zenith) and synched the telescope on this star.  Unfortunately, the telescope was on the east side of the metal bar, and this resulted in chaos for the system.  I called Bob, and I had to re-align the telescope using the tilt meter.  I then synched the telescope on a bright star on the zenith, and things went smoothly from there on out.  But nothing appears to be damaged.

I was able to take ~130 images of 11 different targets.  The weather got bad the last hour of the night, but I observed through the clouds until I took dawn flats.

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Submitted on 2008 Mar 8 [6:55:22]