MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2003 Jun 24

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

Instrument: modspec + echelle CCD

Worked for 9 hours (all 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, seeing is guess.
   Mid: Seeing 1 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable
   End: Seeing 1 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

Finally, the winds have died down leaving clear, dark skies
and good seeing.  Spectroscopy of cataclysmic binaries.

Two items of note: (1) Forgot to mention last night that Bob
swapped the find and guide camera assemblies, so I'm looking at
the slit jaws with the former finder camera.  The image tube on
this is somewhat fresher and I think a bit better.  It responds
less to voltage so the cutoff voltage on the power supply is a 
little less than ideal (doesn't quite get the max gain) but it
was quite usable.  (2) During twilight I finally did a careful
check of my MIS guide star finding software, and it definitely
works.  Still needed are precise figures for the maximum X and Y 
values at which the xmis window no longer keeps track of the 
guider, and a fuller account of the vignetting radius, and 
also a really definitive mapping of the  safe  guide probe
coords for various detectors/instruments.  But the hard part --
grab the USNO and transform to MIS XY -- works correctly.

------------------------------

Submitted on 2003 Jun 25 [4:21:20]