MDM Trouble Report for 2009 Feb 25

Telescope: 1.3m
Observer(s): Laura Ingleby & Thomas Brink (University of Michigan)
Instrument: 4K

Problem(s) Encountered:
We encountered two separate but possibly related problems last 
night.  In the middle of the night the telescope began to shake
in the E-W direction as observed on the guide camera tv.  The 
magnitude of the shake varied from 5-10arcsec, and it had a period of
about 0.5-1.0 seconds.  We were pointed away from the wind.  The 
shaking was very periodic, unlike wind shake.  Also, wind shake is 
usually in the N-S direction.  We tried pointing to another field, 
far away, but the problem persisted.  We waited, and it eventually
went away after about 45 minutes.
At the end of the night (5:20) the tracking spontaneously stopped.
Clicking on the tracking button would reestablish the tracking for
10 seconds to 1 minute before it failed again.  We tried shutting
down all of the telescope control and data acquisition windows and
restarting them.  The tracking still did not function properly
at first, but a few minutes later in began to work as normal.
We then slewed to a new field and upon arriving there the tracking
failed again and never worked for the remainder of the night. 
Very similar problems were reported by N. Crockett on 12/19/08.

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Submitted on 2009 Feb 26 [7:08:12]