MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observing Report for 2009 Apr 21

Observer(s): REJ & GAW
Institution(s): Dartmouth College

Instrument: 4K

Worked for 7 hours (most of the night)
Conditions were Non-Photometric most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the separate trouble report for details.

Seeing and Weather:
   High Winds all night.
   Beg: Seeing 1.8 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Moderate
   Mid: Seeing 1.6 arcsec, Clear, Winds Moderate
   End: Clear, Winds Moderate

Observing Summary:

The weather started out with some high cirrus, and winds gusting around 15 mph.  We had about 3 hours of good time before midnight where the seeing was excellent.  
Around midnight the wind began coming out of the SW and the telescope began oscillating in a North-South direction coinciding with the wind gusts.
The objects we were observing were generally south (-17:00 and 00:00 declination respectively), though the oscillation also occurred when trying to observe a standard field towards the east.
We tried off and on to continue observations but the telescope was oscillating so bad that the guide stars were being tossed out of the probe.  
We gave up observing at ~3:15 am as our object was going below 2 airmass and we still couldn't take exposures longer than about 30 seconds due to the north-south oscillation and the wind.

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Submitted on 2009 Apr 22 [6:34:01]