MDM Trouble Report for 2008 May 28

Telescope: 2.4m
Observer(s): Roberto Assef (The Ohio State University)
Instrument: MDM 8K

Problem(s) Encountered:
When focusing at the beggining of the night, I tried to do a focus
sequence, that means exposing the CCD several times without reading
out until after the last exposure. When I tried to read out the camera
I got the following error:

Invalid command: `readout'; Type `help' for information

I have use this command before and it is well documented in the 
8K manual, so it is not a typing mistake. I must point out also
that when doing a regular observation exposure, the camera does 
read out properly, automatically after the exposure is done.

I tried reseting the camera as described in the manual. I typed pof 
and the same error message as before poped up. I then proceeded to call 
Bob Barr for help. We tried several things but none of them worked, 
so we decided that the best thing would be to continue the 
observations doing the focusing in the much more inefficient way of 
reading out every exposure taken. I also asked some people at OSU
that have previously used the instrument but nobody had run into 
anything like this before.

I do not recall doing anything particularly different than
yesterday, when everything worked correctly, so I really don't 
know what could have caused this. 

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Submitted on 2008 May 29 [5:47:17]