MDM Trouble Report for 2003 Mar 26

Telescope: 1.3m
Observer(s): Martin Bureau, Kambiz Fathi (Columbia, Nottingham)
Instrument: Echelle f/7.5 direct imaging

Problem(s) Encountered:
At certain pointing positions, or most likely certain altitudes/azimuths, the telescope slewed wildly in the North-South direction. If continuing to track at the same position, the sudden slewings would become more and common, up to the point where the telescope was essentially continually wildly slewing.The telescope would always move North first, up to 80 arcseconds, and then come back to the pointing center. This would occur whether or not we were guiding.

This first happened after tracking/guiding on a given object/position for a long time. Moving to another object/position solved the problem. But it occured again on a subsequent object/position from the moment we acquired it

We took careful notes of when and where (in both RA/DEC and ALT/AZ) the problem occured. It is also easily visible in recorded images from the tracks left by bright stars as they  slewed  around the field.

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Submitted on 2003 Mar 27 [6:30:49]