MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observer's Report for 2008 Oct 08

Observer(s): S. Lepine
Institution(s): AMNH

Instrument: Direct + Echelle

Worked for 11 hours (all night)
Conditions were Photometric most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the separate trouble report for details.

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

Observing Summary:

Very good night for observing, with not a trace of cloud
and excellent seeing. 

Due to the use of the new filter wheel, the instrument had 
to be rotated -90 degrees for proper alignment. As a result 
the cables were touching a counterweight at low Decl., so 
I had to be careful and slew from the dome for a few southern
targets. Also, with this rotation of the instrument (-90), 
guide stars do not show up on the camera when dialed in with 
the XY coordinates from SkyCalc. The easy fix is to add 
a +500 units offset in Y.

The filter wheel itself didn't behave, and got stuck 
on the I-filter at some point (see trouble report). 
Fortunately, I-band is the primary filter used in 
this program, so observing went on anyway, and 14 
parallax targets were observed: a very good haul.


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Submitted on 2008 Oct 9 [6:35:22]