MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2005 Apr 22

Observer(s): John Ouellette
Institution(s): AMNH

Instrument: DIRECT + Echelle

Worked for 7 hours (last half 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 1900 until 2200.
   Beg: Overcast, Winds Moderate
   Mid: Seeing 1.4 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Moderate
   End: Seeing 1.2 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

First few hours lost due to clouds: didn't open dome until 
after 10pm.

Lost about half an hour due to problems with the guider PC: it
was frozen and would not respond.  I didn't notice this until I
was on my first field.  According to the guider manual, rebooting
the PC is a possible remedy for such problems: however, it also
states that the PC should not be rebooted while there is power
to the telescope drives.  Rather than risk anything, I followed
the first bit of the shutdown procedure to park the telescope, then
rebooted the PC (I had to turn the power off).  When the PC came
back up, everything seemed fine. 

Seeing highly variable through the remainder of the night. 
Humidity rose from about 40% to 77% from the time that I opened
the dome to about 4am.  Scattered high cirrus through most of
the night.

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Submitted on 2005 Apr 23 [5:55:23]