MDM Trouble Report for 2009 Sep 21

Telescope: 1.3m
Observer(s): S. Lepine (AMNH)
Instrument: MkIII + Nellie

Problem(s) Encountered:
Serious problems controlling the telescope. Tracking
would be lost. Telescope would stop midway through
a move. Pointing would be lost. Things seemed
to go progressively worse as night went on.

Bob drove up to try and make sense of everything.

I got the impression that tracking would be lost and/or 
telescope would stop during a move whenever there
were more than one motor (HA, DEC, or DOME) working at
the same time. For instance we could successfully move
the telescope in HA, or in DEC, with the dome off, but
things would go bad whenever the scope would move when
the dome was also moving. Bob is under the impression
that there are communication problems with the TCS.

We also could not consistently home the dome. And 
sometimes the dome could not even be moved.

Only one sure things: all the problems only seemed
to get worse the more tests we were trying.


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Submitted on 2009 Sep 22 [3:32:11]