MDM Trouble Report for 2007 Jan 10

Telescope: 2.4m
Observer(s): Jules Halpern (Columbia U.)
Instrument: CCDS/RETROCAM

Problem(s) Encountered:
1.  Internet was down for about the first 1/2 of the night
due to a problem at U. of A.  Normally, this would not be
filed as a trouble report for MDM.  However, since I am
doing queue observing for OSU, and since all of the SNe and
lensed QSOs require web access for target selection and
finding charts, I was not able to do most of that work for
half the night.  Fortunately, I had a few paper charts on hand,
but I could not check their priorities, or see if I was really
detecting faint SNe.
     This incident just reinforces my existing impression that
the queue scheduling of SNe could use more active queue
management on a nightly basis, and fewer choices for the 
observer to make.  There is something in human psychology that
reduces efficiency when too many choices are available.

2.  I noticed a couple of anomalies with the guider.  First,
about half of the image of an out-of-focus star is blocked
by the RETROCAM mirror, even when the guide probe is well
away from the center.  Second, I had to insert a value for
the rotator angle in the guider parameter list that differs 
from the actual angle by 180 degrees in order to get the
guider to work.   All of this makes me suspect that the guider
is looking somewhere on the CCDS slit plate rather than
straight up.  That is, there is an extra reflection, plus more
obscuration by the RETROCAM mirror.  However, since I am very 
tired on my first night, I could be wrong about this and I 
don't want to fiddle with the plunger when the guider is working 
well enough as it is.  Please check out this setup item in the
morning.

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Submitted on 2007 Jan 10 [1:54:33]