MDM Trouble Report for 2008 Sep 25

Telescope: 1.3m
Observer(s): Atlee (OSU)
Instrument: 4k

Problem(s) Encountered:
The problems I experience tonight were basically similar to the
ones that appeared last night, but there were a few notable 
exceptions:
1)At the beginning of the night when I was setting the telescope
  home after coming back from shut-down, the focus read-out on
  the control GUI changed spontaneously.  It even made a foray
  into negative values, having already been sent to home.  This
  was resolved by  homing  the focus again.
2)The telescope again appeared to track without instruction.
  Alternately setting the track rate to zero or re-issuing the
   tracking off  command had no effect.  Interrupting power to
  the RA motor solved the problem.
  a)While this was happening, the RA motor appeared to move
    forward in jolts rather than turning smoothly as happens 
    when tracking correctly.
3)The -23:X hour angle problem appeared again, but this time the
  negative reading persisted until I slewed to a new object
4)The loss of control of the telescope's Dec recurred, this time
  within a few degrees of zenith.  Message:
  ERROR Point not converging dist=7.585 dra=0.003 ddec=7.521
5)Sending the focus to its home repeatedly required a re-start
  of the TCS GUI when the homing completed but failed to update
  the GUI.  In this state, the GUI simply sat waiting and
  refused to accept any commands.
6)During my brief CCD observations and during the slewing test,
  it looked like the problem with spontaneously changing focus
  of the telescope is worse at larger HA, though I didn't make
  any careful measurements to test/quantify this.

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Submitted on 2008 Sep 26 [6:50:42]