MDM Trouble Report for 2010 Jul 9

Telescope: 1.3m
Observer(s): Mager, Boettcher, Gusbar (Ohio University)
Instrument: Templeton

Problem(s) Encountered:
We had 2 major problems with the telescope that caused us to
lose time:

1) Telescope had trouble slewing: Most of the time, when the 
telescope was directed to go somewhere (either through the
command line or by pointing to a specific RA/DEC), it would move
a few degrees, and then suddenly halt. We had to resend the 
move command several times to get it to go to its destination.

2) Issues with tracking and guiding: When not guiding, the 
telescope would sometimes suddenly jump a few arcseconds in
the North/South direction, and then move back to the original 
position. This caused us to have to redo about half of our 
exposures, as there were double images of the stars or severe 
trailing/elongation. When guiding, the problem was much worse, 
and we decided not to guide at all because of it. The telescope 
would jump back and forth more often while guiding. We noticed 
that often times there were double star images in the guider, 
and sometimes we could even see the stars wobbling continuously 
back and forth in the north/south direction.

Additional, more minor problems: Sometimes the guider 
intensity knob would not change the intensity on the guider
monitor. At times it would not change at all and other times 
it would change drastically and not go back to its original 
intensity.  Also, the north/south directions on the 
paddle would stop working randomly (perhaps this is related
to the tracking problem?).

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Submitted on 2010 Jul 10 [4:42:26]