MDM Trouble Report for 2006 Mar 8

Telescope: 2.4m
Observer(s): Peeples, Molly (Ohio State)
Instrument: 8k

Problem(s) Encountered:
Trouble pointing telescope and keeping it that way ...

Sometime between midnight and 1:30 the telescope went from being 
pointed correctly to not at all.  Following the instructions for
 I totally lost my pointing!  didn't work the first half dozen
times... (incidentally, I couldn't find the hand paddle it claims
is in the dome?)  ... When it was supposed to be pointing at a
bright star, there wasn't a bright star in the entire field of
view.  Restarting xtcs while at zenith seemed to do the trick,
though.

Then, about half an hour later, this was two fields later, it
lost the pointing again.  Nearest guide star... not there.  By
the time I got it repointed (with going to zenith, restarting
xtcs,looking for the nearest bright star there, etc.) it was too
bright to take any more data.

I've also noticed (not just tonight) that when I'm trying to point
on just a bright star using  tcs offset  that if I try to offset
by much more than about 100  in any direction the star just... 
goes off the field, even if it really shouldn't.  But using
smaller increments seems to be OK, but takes a really really
long time.

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Submitted on 2006 Mar 9 [7:01:16]