MDM Trouble Report for 2009 Mar 6

Telescope: 1.3m
Observer(s): John Thorstensen (Dartmouth)
Instrument: templeton direct

Problem(s) Encountered:

It was cloudy at the start but I took some sky flats.  When I 
enabled the telescope power by unlocking the emergency stop, the
HA drive motor immediately started making quite a racket -- I 
looked at the drive and the pulley was chattering back and forth.
This stopped pretty soon thereafter (less than a minute).  But
when I went to point the telescope, it would not respond in HA.
And when I turned the tracking on, the drive would not move 
either -- though the gui claimed the telescope was moving, for
something like 10 sec, before signaling that the tracking had 
turned off.  I called Bob, and we found that the HA fuse (on the
left wall of the TCS electronics box) had blown.  I replaced it
with an identical 5 Amp fuse, and the telescope functioned
normally later in the night when I started it up again.

I did have some trouble establishing pointing after all this,
and I suspect the tilt meters may not be on the real zenith,
or that Templeton's field is not boresighted with the 
telescope, or something.  I should be able to quantify this
better as the run goes on - it's not worth worrying about 
just now.

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

Submitted on 2009 Mar 7 [7:02:23]