MDM Trouble Report for 2005 May 29

Telescope: 2.4m
Observer(s): Frank (OSU)
Instrument: CCDS

Problem(s) Encountered:
--- Shortly before midnight, when I was preparing a tea in the kitchen, 
I was warned by the beeping guider that it had lost the guide star.
Rushing into the control room, I noticed the telescope slewing around 
madly : just within the 15 seconds it took me to go from kitchen to 
control room, it had already traversed about 5 degrees, mainly towards 
the north. Just before running into the hard-limit, I told the telescope
to 'stop'. Slewing manually to the zenith and resetting the ra/dec en-
coders did not take too long, as well as finding the nearest bright star.
However, whenever I then tried to check the pointing by going to another
bright star, the same trouble began again : shortly before reaching the 
goal, the telescope zoomed off into north direction and had to be stopped 
by force. By the fifth stubborn trial, I evidently then managed to wear
the machine out : it let me have my way and started pointing correctly 
from then on.

--- Is the wind meter working ?? Despite heavy wind gusts, it never read more
than 8 mph ....and my personal judgement is about 25-30 mph from time to time !

--- The flat-field lamp is (probably) dead !

--- RETROCAM runs in a very stable fashion (not once did it crash!) and provided 
yet again good help in quick searches and focusing.  
 

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Submitted on 2005 May 30 [6:36:43]