MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observing Report for 2009 Sep 01

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

Instrument: echelle CCD direct + Buckeye FW

Worked for 5 hours (off and on through the night)
Conditions were Mixed most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds all night.
   Beg: Seeing 1+ arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Light & Variable
   Mid: Seeing 1+ arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Calm
   End: Seeing 1+ arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Calm

Observing Summary:


Cloudy most of the time, but with breaks of various sizes from
time to time.  By being patient I got a few parallax targets; 
also, there was a very fortunately-timed opening that let me
grab an eclipse timing of a cataclysmic. The seeing -- when there
were stars to be seen! -- wasn't particularly good, but was 
better and steadier than last night.  

I had one glitch that I've seen on occasion before, which does
not require a fix. I went to set on an object around
-22 degrees and a bit to the east of the meridian, and the
telescope did not complete the set -- instead, it oscillated
back and forth by about 15 arcmin in dec.  I think it was caught
in some state where it would go into slew mode, go a little
too far, slew the other way, and so on; I could hear the
slew clutch going in and out as it oscillated.  This was
easily fixed by pressing the software STOP button and 
setting the last few arcmin with the paddle.  This happens 
rarely and my guess is it's best fixed in software eventually.

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Submitted on 2009 Sep 2 [5:54:58]