MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observing Report for 2010 Sep 11

Observer(s): Schroeder
Institution(s): Columbia

Instrument: Echelle

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

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds from 6 pm until 2 am.
   Beg: Seeing 1.4 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Calm
   Mid: Seeing 1.4 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Calm
   End: Seeing 1.2 arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm

Observing Summary:

Still having problems with pointing tonight. Had to reset the encoders three times before it finally seemed to work.

At closing I was running a flat script that went something like this

et xxx
go
tel offset 20 20 
tel sleep 6
et yyy
go
tel offset 20 20
tel sleep 6
...

This has been my preferred way to do flats.

However, I think the encoders were set to the wrong part of the sky because the telescope slewed a great distance
and hit the hard limits on the second run.

Trying to get the telescope out of the hard limits was fruitless for almost an hour.

I called Bob and woke him up (Sorry!) and we worked out a way to get the telescope out of the limits.

However, on restarting the TCS, the telescope slewed significantly off zenith and then refused to move in dec.

Additionally, the air conditioning hose fell off the mirror covers.

Bob agreed that we should leave the scope this way and he may come up to work on it.

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Submitted on 2010 Sep 12 [6:56:13]