MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observing Report for 2010 Jun 16

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

Instrument: modspec + echelle; retrocam

Worked for 8 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 2 arcsec, Clear, Winds Moderate
   Mid: Seeing 1+ arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable
   End: Seeing 1+ arcsec, Clear, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:


Echelle has gone on the fritz again.  Early in the night it 
produced a bizarrely bad exposure, and then never produced a good
one after that.  It's clearly the same problem that Josh had. 
Flatfields look OK, but they're probably not; comparison lamps
have prominent trailing in the wake of the lines; and exposures 
on sky show weird streaks of very high numbers.  I did get some 
useful spectra before it went bad, and used Retrocam after that.
A silver lining -- it turns out Maxim DL autoguides fine, as
long as you don't bin the chip!  

Please pull Templeton from the 1.3m and mount it on Modspec,
and give Jules whatever is handy for his final night.  I'm 
back to plan B, with Nellie as the detector for the direct time
next week.  

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Submitted on 2010 Jun 17 [5:06:51]