MDM Trouble Report for 2007 Jan 13

Telescope: 1.3m
Observer(s): Halpern (Columbia)
Instrument: 4-inch Filter Wheel

Problem(s) Encountered:
I wrote a nice script in ccdcom to step automatically through UBVRI
filters, which worked very well the first four times I used
it.  But then, it got stuck in the I filter without clearly
indicating (i.e., the yellow continued to cycle among filter
buttons in MIS window).  In retrospect, I figured out that an
error message was flashing very briefly in the MIS window, like
a subliminal message.  I could reinitialize the MIS, and that
would solve the problem for a while.  But it happened a couple
of more times, including once when it got stuck out of line
with a filter, as I could tell by seeing a partial occultation
of the image.  I have the feeling that it wasn't the script
per se that was the cause of the failure, but it may be
intrinsic to the mechanics of the wheel.  I recall that the
previous observer also had this problem a couple of weeks ago,
and she wasn't using scripts as far as I know.
  I'm not going to do anything about this until Monday, but
I will have to keep a closer eye on the MIS window for errors.
Now, I have a few dozen images to sort out manually which
filter they used.

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Submitted on 2007 Jan 14 [7:45:26]