MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2005 Dec 31

Observer(s): Halpern, Zimmerman, Tyagi
Institution(s): Columbia U.

Instrument: RETROCAM + CCDS

Worked for 5 hours (part of the night)
Conditions were Mixed most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds from 5pm until 2am.
   Beg: Overcast, Winds Moderate
   Mid: Patchy Clouds, Winds Moderate
   End: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

We opened as 5pm as usual.  But since it was overcast, we got 
cloud flats.  It ended up being cloudy for most of the night.  
When it finally cleared, we got data on several lensed QSO's.  

We have encountered a problem with the DEC encoder drifting which
has become evident after several nights.  Even after setting the 
encoders the previous night, the pointing the following night 
seems to drift too far north by about an arc-minute.

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Submitted on 2006 Jan 1 [6:36:26]