MDM Trouble Report for 2009 Jul 8

Telescope: 2.4m
Observer(s): Mark Reynolds (UofM)
Instrument: TIFKAM

Problem(s) Encountered:
No problem with the Dome tonight following the tcs computer switch/encoder 
repair. Although the pointing was off by a lot at the start of the night,
by my estimation probably (from trying to center on M5) > 10'.

Guide/tracking problem occured again, more frequently at the beginning 
of the night. Tonight simply oborting the exposure and dithering the 
telescope back and forth didn't always work. On a couple of occasions I
had to resort to turning off the tracking and the drives (in addition to 
auto-guid) to get the ra/dec to wake up from the GUIDE2 state.

It appears to be a problem with how the drives are communicating with the
tcs/guider and or prospero.

While (very!) annoying, I can observe around this problem so I don't think 
is any need to go tearing the telescope apart yet....... It's probably best 
to see how this works out over the next couple of nights?  


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

Submitted on 2009 Jul 9 [5:41:31]