MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2008 Aug 28

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

Instrument: modspec + echelle CCD

Worked for 2 hours (off and on through the night)
Bad weather most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Very bad weather from 21:00 until 03:00.
   Beg: Seeing 1 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Calm
   Mid: Overcast, Winds Moderate
   End: Seeing 1 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

Monsoon weather.  There was a usable hole at the start of the 
night, which helped with setup and netted one science observation.
Then a storm blew through to the north, which blossomed into a 
gigantic meso-scale cell centered around Phoenix; Kitt Peak got 
overcast skies and a little rain.  Around 3 AM it looked a little
better, and I opened with mixed results.  

I didn't have any trouble as such, but a few things are worth 
watching:
1) After way more than 12 hrs, the Echelle still isn't down to
the nominal operating temp.  Ambient temp isn't very warm, so 
this seems like a puzzle.  I don't remember having it do this
before.  Its temp does seem to be drifting downward very slowly.
2) A little more trouble with condensation on the dewar than
I would expect, though I could be mistaken. 
3) I had more trouble finding things than I'd remembered - 
setting seems less accurate than it should be.
4) tracking rate is pretty high.  15.03 (which is what I 
inherited) definitely seems too low.  



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Submitted on 2008 Aug 29 [5:46:51]