MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observing Report for 2010 Mar 11

Observer(s): Schroeder and Corrales
Institution(s): Columbia

Instrument: 4K

Worked for 12 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 1.0 arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm
   Mid: Seeing 0.8 arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm
   End: Seeing 1.0 arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm

Observing Summary:

Had a number of problems with the guider tonight.

The indicated locations for possible observations through skycalcdisp.py are actually unavailable especially toward the edges.

The 4K page gives limits for vignetting which sometimes makes it difficult to find guide stars.

In the early night, we called Bob because we were behind pieces of metal trying to get guide stars.

Later in the night, as the focus went out, we began to get a strange oscillation of the images in declination. This made it difficult to focus the images.

In all, we probably lost an hour and a half over this issue and have a number of images that are of dubious quality.

I mostly chalk up these problems to my inexperience with observing on the 4K.

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Submitted on 2010 Mar 12 [6:21:46]