MDM Trouble Report for 2008 Dec 19

Telescope: 1.3m
Observer(s): Nathan Crockett (University of Michigan)
Instrument: Nellie

Problem(s) Encountered:
While observing, the tracking switch turned off without warning 
(that is, the telescope stopped tracking even though I did
not press the tracking button on the TCS GUI. When this 
happened, I pressed the tracking button to turn on the tracking 
again, but it would turn off automatically within a few seconds. 
Homing the telescope seemed to help for a few minutes but the
problem persisted throughout the night. Even when the telescope
was tracking the guider monitor shook more than I thought it
should. so much so that the guide star would be bumped out of
its box.

In addition, the 1.3m server shut down several times throughout 
the night causing problems with TCS. When this happened, I 
turned on the server from the terminal window and refreshed the 
TCS GUI which helped for a time, but the server would 
eventually shut down again.  

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Submitted on 2008 Dec 19 [7:47:55]