MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2007 Jan 26

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

Instrument: Echelle direct + 2in FW

Worked for 13 hours (all night)
Conditions were Photometric most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Beg: Seeing 0.8 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable
   Mid: Seeing 0.8 arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable
   End: Seeing 0.7 arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm

Observing Summary:

Spectacular night, photometric with consistently excellent seeing.
Fortunately it was a bit warmer tonight so the fact that the 
mirror A/C is down didn't affect the seeing.  Telescope behaved
very nicely.  Observed many parallax targets, a GRB, and a number
of proper motion targets for Chris Peters.  Seeing dipped under
two pixels x 0.275 arcsec per pixel on one 60-sec guided
exposure, was under 3 pixels for long stretches.  

One microscopic glitch at the beginning -- RETROCAM indicated 
OUT but was actually IN, so I lost the first skyflat.  It might
be a good idea to establish the retrocam position as part of the
instrument change procedure, i.e. just move it in and out once.

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Submitted on 2007 Jan 27 [7:30:22]