MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2004 Feb 14

Observer(s): Matthew Walker
Institution(s): Michigan

Instrument: 8k

Worked for 10 hours (most of the night)
Conditions were Non-Photometric most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the separate trouble report for details.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds all night.
   Beg: Overcast, Winds Calm
   Mid: Seeing 1.1 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Calm
   End: Seeing 1.3 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Calm

Observing Summary:

Began badly with a detector failure (this apparently coincided with
an aborted exposure).  The trouble-shooting available online was
ineffective, so I sought help, first from Arlin Crotts at Columbia, 
then from Bob Barr.  We discovered that the online manuals need to be
updated so that there is no directive to shut off chichon in the
event of a detector problem.  Repeat: Do not shut off chichon!  Vesuvius
runs the detector.

All this happened during full cloudcover, so no huge loss.

The rest of the night saw intermittent cloud cover.

Seeing was pretty good most of the night, hanging around 1.2 arcsec.

Was able to image several target fields in Leo and Sextans

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Submitted on 2004 Feb 15 [7:36:40]