MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observing Report for 2011 May 06

Observer(s): S. Lepine
Institution(s): AMNH

Instrument: MkIII + Wilbur

Worked for 10 hours (all night)
Conditions were Photometric most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Beg: Seeing 1.0 arcsec, Clear, Winds Moderate
   Mid: Seeing 1.0 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable
   End: Seeing 1.0 arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm

Observing Summary:

Excellent observing conditions. Spent the night observing
targets at high declinations (above +60).

Two issues were noted. First, the telescope would often lose the
tracking while moving to a target. This happened about 
a dozen times, and particularly for larger moves, possibly
while dome was also moving. No instance of this happening
while on a target. Second, the guiding motion in Dec was 
very jerky, at times moving only in jumps of 1-3 arcsecs. 
Had to guide manually (and only in RA) for a few stars,
or else the jumps would send the star out of the guide box.
This seemed to happen especially for negative values of the HA;
was especially bad at DEC=+70, HA=-1.

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Submitted on 2011 May 7 [5:34:46]