MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2005 Jul 02

Observer(s): Jules Halpern
Institution(s): Columbia U.

Instrument: Echelle CCD Direct

Worked for 8 hours (all night)
Conditions were Mixed most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds all night.
   Beg: Seeing 1.1 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Light & Variable
   Mid: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Light & Variable
   End: Seeing 1.7 arcsec, Overcast, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

Similar to last night, got gradually cloudy during the night,
and the seeing was poor.  Unlike last night, it did not get
better toward the end, so I closed a few minutes before
twilight as it was no longer possible to observe.

At the beginning of the night, got several CCD read errors,
such as:

#6
Cleared chip 1 time
Beginning CCD read of 2080 by 2048 (4259840 pixels)...
ccd_aread: timed out
*** Error encountered in asynchronous read: data suspect
Failed, return code = 4227072, elapsed = 140.858002

df echelle

006> util init
Utility board status:
 +40 V at +40.0           CCD temp at -100.6   (Temp diode reads 3092)
 +15 V at +15.3       CCD set temp at -100.0     Elapsed time    0.000
 -15 V at -15.0   Electronics temp at  +43.6   Requested time    6.000
  +5 V at  +4.87       Heater voltage    0%       Heater rate  0x1000
006> status

Frame: 006   File prefix: 'ccd.'   File suffix: '.fits'
Format: origin (0,0), size (2048,2048), binned 1x1, 32 bias
Object name: 'bias'  type BIAS
Exposure: Set  0.00, Total int.  0.00 (Unix)
Autowipe:  1, shutter off, readout  on, write  on, idle off

006> go
Cleared chip 1 time
Camera not responding
006> clear
Cleared chip 1 time
006> go
Cleared chip 1 time
Beginning CCD read of 2080 by 2048 (4259840 pixels)...

Eventually, was able to recover just by trying exposures again.

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Submitted on 2005 Jul 3 [3:56:36]