MDM Trouble Report for 2006 Sep 25

Telescope: 2.4m
Observer(s): Sharma, Statler, McCowan (Ohio University)
Instrument: 8k CCD

Problem(s) Encountered:
After taking dome flats in the afternoon, we went to manually
return the dome to its home position. The  left-right  rotate
control knob on the dome control panel in the chamber came off
in the observer's hand, leaving the dome rotating. It was
possible to shove the knob back in against spring tension and
turn it to start/stop the dome, but the switch appeared to be
jammed in the on (left) position. We shut off power on the TCS
box and that appeared to stop the dome, although in hindsight
the switch probably recentered itself because we did not
switch off dome power.

We phoned Bob, who heroically drove back up the mountain 
despite being almost home. Bob's work-around was to disable
the manual dome switch, and to control the dome through the
TCS computer, which worked fine for us.

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Submitted on 2006 Sep 26 [6:22:03]