MDM Trouble Report for 2008 Mar 9

Telescope: 1.3m
Observer(s): Kunder (Dartmouth College)
Instrument: Echelle

Problem(s) Encountered:
CCDCOM keeps crashing.  I have no idea why.  I point the telescope
at my target, at the exact moment in time that I need to monitor
the target's varying brightness, and I take the image.  Then
I wait 2 min for the read out.  Right before reading the image 
out, I get this message:

ccd_ared: wrong aio finsihed; expected 3. This is bad.
*** Error encountered in asynchronous read; data suspect
Failed return code = ####.######, elapsed=##.#######

(##### is some number)

Also, often when I restart ccdcom, it doesn't always establish
a connection right away when you type  df echelle .  
Sometimes I have restard ccdcom a bunch of times and type
 df echelle  before a connection is established. 

After crash #18, it took 20 minutes before ccdcom established
a connection.

I also want to point out that the total hours lost does not
necessarily reflect the significance of the images that 
did not read out and that I subsequently lost.  I plan 
VERY CAREFULLY the exact time I need an image, and in a 
strategic order.  If I do not obtain the image 
(since ccdcom crashes), this
propagates through the whole strategy I have set up, and I
have to readjust on the fly, at the expense of my
observations.  It is hard having unreliable software--it
just makes things hard to plan.

------------------------------

Submitted on 2008 Mar 10 [6:37:02]