MDM Trouble Report for 2007 May 10

Telescope: 1.3m
Observer(s): Bentz (OSU)
Instrument: CCDS

Problem(s) Encountered:
While attempting to run our nightly calibration script in the 
afternoon, Propero failed at the line where the flat lamp is 
turned on and gave the following error message:

ERROR: Could not change MIS lamp
GOTO label: OTHERERR was not found
Subroutine stack line number:
PROSPERO   0
startcal   104
Execution error in line 104, command lamp 0 on

Trying to start the calibrations again resulted in:

Error: requested operation timed out

I restarted all the software and had the same experience.  I
then rebooted all the computers and restarted the software, to
no avail.

MIS at one point was printing several messages that were 
changing too rapidly to be noted.  I changed virtual desktops, 
and when I returned to the virtual desktop with the data 
acquisition software running, all the text in all the boxes
on the MIS GUI had disappeared and didn't come back.

After another restart of the software, I attempted to turn on 
the flat lamp and take the flats without the aid of the script.
The lamp GUI did not respond immediately, and after ~30s of 
waiting, the  flat  box turned yellow, as if the light was on,
but the MIS message window printed  bad command  and then 
 done .  I took an image to determine if the lamp was actually
on, but it was not.

I talked with Steven on the phone and he thought the most likely
explanation was that the quartz lamp had burned out.  I also 
double-checked the cables for the lamps on the telescope and 
wiggled them a bit to make sure the connections were solid.

The other lamps (Xe and Ar, anyhow) were operating as usual,
so I skipped the internal flats for the night and just took
the arc lamps and biases.

The guider seems to have acquired a light leak that appears in 
the form of a very bright arc of light across the rightmost
1/3 of the guider monitor.  The light flickers when the guider
is being moved to a new position, and at one point decreased
in intensity when at a specific (x,y) location.  I tried to 
re-seal the metal tape covering the opening to the guider focus
mechanism as best I could, but the tape has lost some 
stickiness, and the shape and brightness of the light leak 
didn't seem to change on the guider monitor.

I was able to successfully focus the guider by hand in the
dome.  However, this didn't work with the guider at y=2222.  
Even though it was a nice position for reaching the guider
focus mechanism with my hand, at this position, the guide 
camera is shadowed and one cannot see any stars for focusing.  
In any case, I was able to focus with just a little time and
effort.

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Submitted on 2007 May 11 [5:06:02]