MDM Observatory 1.3m Telescope Observing Report for 2026 Jan 25

Observer(s): John Thorstensen
Institution(s): Dartmouth

Instrument: Templeton direct

Worked for 11 hours (most of the night)
Conditions were Photometric most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Beg: Seeing 1+ arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable
   Mid: Seeing 1+ arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable
   End: Clear, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

A very nice night, almost all clear with reasonable seeing.  

This doesn't merit a trouble report but startup was a little 
challenging -- I had to restart the telescope server (telescope
stop/telescope start) and restart JSkyCalc13mGS a few times to
get things talking to each other (there were likely a few user
errors in there too).  Then the pointing was off by about 12 
minutes of time - I had to point to HA=0:12:00 or so to level
the tilt meters.  And then in the confusion I forgot I'd left the
dome lamp on, which meant my first half-hour of data had high
background - I wondered how the moon could be so bright! -- but
the data were still usable (and improved significantly once I 
turned the lamp off!)

The rest of the night was basically tracking a single target 
until it hit the limit a bit before 4 AM MST.  Then I had to close
to drive my wife to work; I hear our excellent plow guy working 
on the 900-foot driveway as I type this ...

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Submitted on 2026 Jan 26 [4:21:48]