MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2005 Dec 25

Observer(s): Tyagi
Institution(s): Columbia U.

Instrument: Retrocam

Worked for 11 hours (all night)
Conditions were Photometric most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the separate trouble report for details.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds from 05:00 until end.
   Beg: Seeing 1.2 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Moderate
   Mid: Seeing 0.9 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Calm
   End: Seeing 1.0 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Calm

Observing Summary:

We continued with queue observing.  Cirrus all night.
We ran into thicker clouds towards morning and shut down at 5am.  

We encountered the usual problem with the tracking.
It was at -4 HA, +24 Decl., an extreme position for
this run.  The problem was fixed by re-sending the 
telescope to the appropriate coordinates and re-setting 
the autoguider on a star.  It didn't happen again after
that first incident, even when we were at +5 HA.
Note that it was not particularly cold tonight, in fact,
warm for this time of year, 10.5 C.

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Submitted on 2005 Dec 26 [5:46:35]