MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observing Report for 2018 Jun 01

Observer(s): Will Clarkson, Noah Vowell, Austin Blevins
Institution(s): University of Michigan Dearborn

Instrument: Andor

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

Seeing and Weather:
   Beg: Seeing 1.2 arcsec, Cirrus, Winds Calm
   Mid: Seeing 1.0 arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm
   End: Seeing 0.8 arcsec, Clear, Winds Calm

Observing Summary:


Conditions: some cirrus during the first part of the night, seeing improved for the second half of the night.

We encountered three technical problems during the first two hours of the night, which will be described more fully in a 
separate trouble report, here is a summary: when attempting to focus we were unable to change from an R-band to B-band filter.  
At the same time, the TCS stopped receiving all input from JSkyCalc. 
We were unable to slew from the TCS and the telescope continued to track even after setting HA rate to zero. 
We were able to fix both issues by following the instructions provided by Eric Galayda.

After fixing these issue we proceeded to Feige34 with no issues. 
We encountered guiding problems that impacted the first datacube on target CSS1735+15. Guiding errors were very 
large in both directions but much worse in X causing the science target to visibly drift.
This issue was also fixed with Eric Galayda's guidance. 

The second datacube on CSS1735+15 proceeded without difficulties. Then on to V404 cyg until morning Twilight, 
again with no issues. Wrapped up the night with a flux standard during morning twilight. 

At the very end of the night we accidentally reproduced the TCS problem from earlier in the night, by slewing to a 
target when the HA tracking rate had been set to zero. Following the same procedure as before to restart TCS GUI 
fixed the problem.




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Submitted on 2018 Jun 2 [5:21:20]