MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observing Report for 2010 Sep 11

Observer(s): Dietrich & Henderson
Institution(s): OSU

Instrument: CCDS

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

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds all night.
   Beg: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Calm
   Mid: Seeing 1.2 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Calm
   End: Seeing 1.1 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Calm

Observing Summary:

At the beginning of the night there was strong cirrus which was
clearing up towards the end of the night leaving some cirrus in 
the west. We could observe 5 AGN of the AGN monitoring campaign 
and three standard stars. Around 3:20 local time, tracking in
declination failed, pointing was lost since no paddle commands
were accepted (error message: socket is not connected). Telescope
was moved with the hand paddle to zenith and the pointing was 
restored. Around 3:55 local time we lost tracking in dec again,
rtel was not active and ERROR: where m_dec not homed. Moving the
telescope with the TCS command 'home RA Dec' was only successful
in RA while in dec the telescope movement abruptly stopped at a 
declination of ~21deg. Again moved telescope with hand-paddle
to zenith position and restored pointing. At 4:35 local time the
telescope and the dome were back. We continued to record two 
more spectra. Still there were error messages that the socket 
was not connected and rtel was not active. Around 4:50 local time
the telescope was jittering in dec with an amplitude of 5 to 10
arcsec and then settled down again.

------------------------------

Submitted on 2010 Sep 12 [5:49:29]