MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2004 Jan 16

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

Instrument: modspec + echelle CCD

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

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds from 7PM until 3AM.
   Beg: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Overcast, Winds High
   Mid: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Moderate
   End: Seeing 5 arcsec, Clear, Winds Moderate

Observing Summary:

A weird night, with clear intervals interspersed with banks
of heavy cloud.  Most of second half had quite poor seeing,
but went to brighter targets and got useful data.  Colder and 
often quite windy out of the north.  Lightning flashes in the
very far distance (E of I-10 according to weather radar on web).

At start, TCS timed out 2x in response to  clear link ; solved 
the problem by powering TCS down and back up in the order 
specified by the lightning shutdown procedure.  It worked fine
all night. A power glitch occured during the night, and the
A/C breaker did not apparently trip; perhaps it does so only
when under load?  Dome may have become more than ordinarily 
inaccurate at the very end, I'll see how it is tomorrow night
(I hope!).

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Submitted on 2004 Jan 17 [7:46:44]