MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2002 Oct 25

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

Instrument: Modspec + echelle

Worked for 12 hours (all night)
Conditions were Mixed most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the separate trouble report for details.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds from 0 until 6.
   Beg: Seeing 1 arcsec, Clear, Winds Moderate
   Mid: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Moderate
   End: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Moderate

Observing Summary:

Spectroscopy of cataclysmic binaries.  Weather started off 
reasonably nice but deteriorated around midnight with brightly
moonlit high cloud, which thickened and finally rolled off to
the east just before dawn.  The telescope is singing again --
while tracking it occasionally emits a rhythmic, high-pitched 
tone, the pitch being nearly constant.  Also, at HA 2E16 and
dec -16, the tracking failed -- the stars (and HA readout)
jumped back and forth by about 5 sec of time.  The telescope 
was not squealing at the time.  I was just finishing that 
target anyway, so I resolved the problem by slewing to the 
next target (slew worked fine) and the telescope worked normally
for the rest of the night.

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Submitted on 2002 Oct 26 [6:39:08]