MDM Observatory 2.4m Telescope Observing Report for 2019 Jun 29

Observer(s): John Thorstensen
Institution(s): Dartmouth College

Instrument: OSMOS/B

Worked for 6 hours (most of the night)
Conditions were Photometric most of the night.
No equipment or software problems were encountered.

Seeing and Weather:
   Beg: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Light & Variable
   Mid: Seeing 1.5 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Moderate
   End: Seeing 2 arcsec, Patchy Clouds, Winds Moderate

Observing Summary:

Very uneven sky quality as banks of high cloud drifted through 
from time to time.  Closed for a half hour around midnight when
whole sky was covered; there were other times when it was 
mostly clear. 

Rather eventful night in terms of technical issues, though none
rise to the level of trouble:

1) When I turned on the monitors of the TCS computer, I found 
the TCS program and Maxim DL had both stopped running -- I wonder
if the machine had rebooted for a Win10 update or something. 
One result was that the telescope focus setting was way off -
the first star of the night was a donut that would have tempted
Homer Simpson.  Also, prospero needed a TCSINIT and I restarted
JSkyCalc for good measure.

2) There was (is?) a bug or something in the instrument - I mean
a literal insect, not a software problem! -- that blocked 
chunks of the detector.  It had to be between the camera
lens and the CCD, because it appeared as a large blob on 
spectral exposures but was not dispersed.  There wasn't much
to do about it, so I soldiered on and it appears to have 
gone away.  I hope!

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Submitted on 2019 Jun 30 [5:13:53]