MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2001 Apr 12

Observer(s): Ali Kinkhabwala
Institution(s): Columbia

Instrument: MDM8K

Worked for 9 hours (all night)
Conditions were Mixed most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the summary for details.

Seeing and Weather:
   Beg: Clear, Winds Calm
   Mid: Clear, Winds Calm
   End: Clear, Winds Calm

Observing Summary:

Due to a number of complications, this observing run was not
paricularly successful.  First, the  guider pc  was not 
connected, as the DVI guider had been used the previous 
night.  I managed to connect the  guider pc  with Bob Barr's 
assistance.  Another problem was the lack of  mdm8k  and  vista 
on the  detcom  computer.  I spent a long time playing with the
saoimage of the  *-B8.fits  files before realizing that the 
image does not have correct relative ccd alignment.  I realized
too late that I should've used the saoimage of the fits files 
rather than the  *-B8.fits  files for focussing and positioning. 
The  scp  command does not seem to work for transferring files
(though I found out how to ftp the following day).  Fortunately, 
the problems i had this first night were eventually all sorted 
out for the following two nights.  Conditions were close to 
photometric throughout the night, but due to the software 
problems, i was unable to estimate the seeing, and most of the 
images are likely out of focus.

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Submitted on 2001 Apr 15 [3:21:10]