MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observing Report for 2012 Aug 24

Observer(s): Rhiannon Griffin
Institution(s): University of Oklahoma

Instrument: OSMOS

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: Clear, Winds Calm, humidity: 50%
   Mid: Seeing 0.41 arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm, humidity: 60%
   End: Seeing 0.41 arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm, humidity: 60%

Observing Summary:

Humidity was around 50 to 65% all night and it was clear.  Had some
moisture on the detector, so I started the afternoon by taking long 
exposures (with dome closed and mirror covers down to reduce the 
light) to dry the detector.  The moon was 58% illuminated.  I am not
sure why but all night (even after the moon set) I had saturation
for a full exposure in i band, some of the night I had saturation
in the r band and the g band seemed to be ok (although I only tried it
after the moon set).  I tried a few things (changed fields, changed
filter, restarted IC, restarted IC and IE (just in case)), but by 
midnight I gave up trying to fix the problem and observed with
full exposures (7 minutes) for g and r and several shorter exposures
(7 200-second exposures) for i.  

Not sure if it is related but the full ccd readout time is really fast, 
less than 5 seconds.  Seems too fast to me.

And completely unrelated, the in button to focus on the slew inside 
the control room sticks.  I used the in button on the slew attached 
to the telescope in the dome.

Also, with the other issues I had tonight, I am not sure I trust the 
seeing measurements I got.

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Submitted on 2012 Aug 25 [5:49:11]