MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observing Report for 2013 May 05

Observer(s): Jules Halpern, Jia Liu
Institution(s): Columbia

Instrument: Modspec/Templeton

Worked for 2.3 hours (last half of the night)
Conditions were Overcast most of the night.
Problems were encountered, see the separate trouble report for details.

Seeing and Weather:
   Clouds from 20:00 until 02:00.
   Beg: Overcast, Winds Moderate
   Mid: Overcast, Winds Moderate
   End: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Clear, Winds Moderate

Observing Summary:

After some early rain, it finally cleared around 2:00am.
As this is the final night of the run, I summarize a 
couple of known, recurring problems.

There is something wrong with the RA encoder. 
Even when resetting the encoders before
slewing to a new target, it will sometimes
lose pointing by the time it gets there,
necessitating use of the tilt meters.
This happened three times during the run, 
I think, including tonight.

On the previous night the coarse focus (motor mic)
of the guide camera slipped inward to the point where
it was not possible to focus.  Today, I manually pulled
it back to where I thought it should be centered, and
it is fine now, although it probably should be looked
at as part of the instrument change.


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Submitted on 2013 May 6 [5:04:35]