MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observing Report for 2019 Jul 08

Observer(s): Jules Halpern
Institution(s): Columbia

Instrument: Templeton

Worked for 8.5 hours (all night)
Conditions were Photometric most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Beg: Seeing 1.8 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable
   Mid: Seeing 1.8 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable
   End: Seeing 1.8 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

Last scheduled night of the regular semester was excellent.
Photometric night with light wind let me see a couple of
telescope effects.  Tracking all night on one star at
declination -8 degrees, same as last night.  The image
drift is large, about 60 pixels in the SSE direction. 
There was also a jump at the same position/time, as last
night, HA = +2:41 versus HA = +2:45 last night.  The jump
is in the same direction as the slow drift. I've seen this
behavior several times in past years, where the jump is at
the same location each night on the same star.

Take a look at the tracking error graph that is still on the
monitor.  All night, tracking in RA was excellent, ~0.2 pixels.
But NS there is an oscillation of about +/-0.8 pixel.
These are guider pixels, which are about 0.67 arcseconds.
So it's a significant effect on the quality of the images.
Maybe it's a balance or preload issue?

Images are still triangular or comatic.  See the one in the
guide box, for example.  Should work on collimation during
shutdown.

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Submitted on 2019 Jul 9 [4:31:11]