MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observing Report for 2011 Feb 25

Observer(s): Kathryn Kreckel & Brenden Miller
Institution(s): Columbia & U. Michigan

Instrument: CCDS

Worked for 8 hours (part of the night)
Conditions were Mixed most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the separate trouble report for details.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds all night.
   Beg: Seeing 2 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Calm
   Mid: Seeing 2 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Calm
   End: Seeing 2.5 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Light & Variable

Observing Summary:

The clouds thinned around sunset so we were able to observe 
for about 2/3 of the night before they set in more thickly 
just before sunrise.  This was not so good for my faint galaxies
but OK for Brenden's brighter stars.

We encountered problems with the focus, as what is focused in
the acquisition camera (in the reflection off the slit) is not 
focused on the CCD image.  We were still able to observe much 
of the night by first finding the proper focus for the CCD, then 
focusing on the acquisitions camera to move the object into the
slit, then refocusing on the CCD and tracking changes in focus 
with the guider.  This took significantly longer than usual, and
a total of ~2 hours was lost.  I imagine we should be able to 
move objects into the slit with just the guider but I haven't
quite mastered the new guider system yet. 

We also lost the connection with the CCDS Acquisition camera twice,
and found we had to unplug and re-plug in the USB cable on the 
camera on the telescope to fix the connection.  Once it happened 
without moving the telescope, the second time it happened while 
rotating the spectrograph.  Both instances happened at the start
of the night and it was fine for the rest of the night, so we 
only lost ~15 minutes.

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Submitted on 2011 Feb 26 [6:44:04]