MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2002 Mar 14

Observer(s): Noel-Storr
Institution(s): Columbia

Instrument: CCDS

Worked for 11 hours (all night)
Conditions were Non-Photometric most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the separate trouble report for details.

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

Observing Summary:

There was dust visible all around the horizon at the start of
the evening, and conditions didn't get that good all night. The
temperature fell steadily through the night, without stabilizing
until the early hours.

The previously much discussed  skipping  /  jumping  problem
repeated itself... tonight on several different occasions. On
each occasion there were no parameters that were the same
(different positions on the sky, different truss temps.,
different air temps.) Some lengthy exposures may have been
impacted by the shifting.

It seems like when this occurs that the tracking is not able to
move the telescope properly, and it jumps a little a few times -
as if not quite being able to move, and then jumping to catch 
up. After it has done that a few times, it then just 'gives up'
and drifts east (i.e. telescope not moving) for a while (of the
order of a few seconds). There was one incident where this 
continued for the order of 30 seconds - 1 min, and I was unable 
to push the telescope back to the correct place with the hand 
control - in the end I did a  send  and  go  from xtcs which
put it back in the right place and cured the problem for a 
while. 

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Submitted on 2002 Mar 15 [7:05:51]