MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2004 Jan 10

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

Instrument: Echelle CCD + 2-in FW

Worked for 10 hours (most of the night)
Conditions were Overcast most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds all night.
   Beg: Seeing 1.2 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Light & Variable
   Mid: Overcast, Winds Light & Variable
   End: Seeing 1 arcsec, Overcast, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

Varying amounts of high cloud around all night, heavy
at times, with opaque lower cloud coming in late.  Even so,
managed to get some good data in the lighter periods.  Seeing
was generally good and attained 0. 8 at times.  Shut down for
two hours in the middle of the night when the clouds were 
particularly heavy.  

The last couple of nights are the first opportunity I've had to
use the MIS guide star selection program  gs24  extensively
in ordinary operations.  It's proven to be a BIG help - I
haven't had to raster-scan for guide stars at all, and I've
even been able to use the pre-selected guide stars to tweak
up fields sight unseen (at high latitudes).  Anyone using the
MIS for offset guiding should consider using it, it's a real
time-saver and very straightforward.

The strongly moonlit clouds presented an opportunity to test the
 safe  limits of the guide probe.  For my setup (2-in FW),
the bottom line is that if either X or Y is < 4000, the guide 
probe will not shadow the chip at all.  I also tried getting sky
flats from the moonlit cloud, attempting to make a silk purse
out of a sow's ear.

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Submitted on 2004 Jan 11 [6:40:16]