MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observing Report for 2011 Sep 08

Observer(s): Gaidos
Institution(s): University of Hawaii

Instrument: CCDS

Worked for 10 hours (all night)
Conditions were Mixed most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the separate trouble report for details.

Seeing and Weather:
   Beg: Patchy Clouds, Winds Light & Variable
   Mid: Clear, Winds Calm
   End: Clear, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

Weather: Scattered clouds at sunset. Light and variable winds. Clouds disappeared after sunset. High patchy clouds drifted
through at 12:30 AM. 2:45 AM: clear, wind has picked up. Seeing looks poor in CCDS acquisition camera. At dawn, only a
couple of very small clouds about.

Problems/comments: Pointing problems with telescope; could not identify target star so went to bright star; could not find bright
star so homed telescope and zeroed using tiltmeters (took out -276 in east/west and -16 in north/south), but still could not find
bright star; rehomed telescope and saw tiltmeters were still zero; went to another bright star, found that scope was pointing 10' to
the north; zeroed on the bright star (that removed 3.1 deg (!) in RA), found first bright star and then target star without a problem.
Problem with IE not talking to Prospero continues, despite swap out of fiber optic cables. May have become more acute with a
slew to the far north; a reset of the IC seems to have mitigated it. Overall, the IE problem was much less severe tonight.

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Submitted on 2011 Sep 9 [5:52:30]