MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observing Report for 2009 Jan 05

Observer(s): John Thorstensen
Institution(s): Dartmouth

Instrument: Mark III + Templeton CCD

Worked for 6 hours (part of the night)
Conditions were Mixed most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds from 2100 until 0300.
   Beg: Seeing 2+ arcsec, Clear, Winds Moderate
   Mid: Overcast, Winds Moderate
   End: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

After last night's storm, it was trying to clear all day, and
got to be good by sunset -- but with humidity near the limit.  
Worked for a couple hours, and then a large area of fast-moving
midlevel cloud blew through from the NW -- it took over 6 hours
for this to pass, during which time no observations were possible.
It abruptly cleared off at 3, and we were back in business --
meanwhile, the RH had dropped to almost nothing.  Seeing was 
pretty mediocre, but got better at the end.

The big excitement of the night came when I crashed the 
telescope (boy, wait til the director hears about this).  I 
was way down in the SW, and slewed toward the NW -- I hadn't
pulled the storage dewar all the way out of the way, and the
box containing the CCD control electronics got wedged between
the handle of the LN2 storage dewar hand truck and the 
piping that sticks up out of the storage dewar (the detachable
part).  The telescope behaved beautifully -- it simply stopped
and indicated an error condition.  I walked it back out 
using the software offset paddle, freed it, and kept going. 
The telescope worked normally for the rest of the night --
it didn't even affect the pointing. The instrument seems fine,
it worked correctly for the rest of the night.  So, a close 
call, but fortunately the control system knows how to handle 
it when the telescope binds up.

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Submitted on 2009 Jan 6 [7:19:11]