MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2007 May 04

Observer(s): Sebastien Lepine
Institution(s): AMNH

Instrument: Direct + Echelle

Worked for 6 hours (most of the night)
Conditions were Non-Photometric most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the separate trouble report for details.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds all night.
   Beg: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds High
   Mid: Seeing 1.3 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Moderate
   End: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Moderate

Observing Summary:

We never saw the Sun set because a veil of cirrus
clouds took control in the evening, accompanied
by moderately high winds. But the veil ripped in
many places and by 10pm there were holes large
enough to collect photons throught. Scattered
cirrus kept the counts variable, but the seeing 
was just about decent for astrometry (~1.5 ). 
I took parallax sequences of 8 targets in all. 
Focus had to be readjusted constantly because of 
falling air temperature. The seeing improved 
trough the night, but degraded at the end when
the ambient temp. dropped below that of the primary.

On the first focus sequence, the focus  went crazy .
Commanded from CCDCOM to move  in  by 10 units, the 
focus reacted by quickly moving  out  without stopping.
By the time I realized the secondary had eloped, focus 
was off by 10,000+ units. I had to redo the focus
from scratch using a 2nd magnitude star, and using the
paddle only. Any command from CCDCOM or XTCS made
the focus try to run away. I adjusted the focus manually
(with the paddle) for the rest of the night.

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Submitted on 2007 May 5 [6:12:10]