MDM Trouble Report for 2010 Sep 8 Telescope: 1.3m Observer(s): Dietrich (OSU) Instrument: CCDS Problem(s) Encountered: At the beginning of the night, the mirror covers didn't open. I called Bob and he told me to check the telescope status. rslit was not active. With telescope stop and start telescope this problem was solved and the mirror covers opened. When slewing to PG2130+099 resulted into an error message [2010-09-09T02:50:06.583]ERROR pointing m_dec fatal following error I refreshed TCS and pointed again and this time the slew was successfully completed. At 7:23 UTC I initiated a slewing to the position of NGC7603 (RA=23:18:56.6 DEC=+00:14:38). However, the telescope stalled. the following message was listen in the log-file of TCS TCS2010-09-09T07:27:44.227] TCS server connection established ... [2010-09-09T07:27:44.272] Executing point ra=23:18:56.60 dec=+00:14:38.0 equinox=2000 No response from the telescope, instead it stayed at the current position of NGC7469 (RA=23:03:47 DEC=+08:55:38). The problem appeard to be a movement in Dec. I tried to move the telescope by 60 arcsec to the west using the paddle of the TCS gui, but the following error message appeared Telescope slew in progress Paddle offset request denied. Wait until slew complete and try again Obviously TCS was still trying to slew to the new position. I exited TCS and started again, a few times but with no success. Instead, TCS responds very slow to commands. In addition the following error message: Send failed for command track: Network operation timed out MDM TCS Agent Console OUT: TC>IC DONE: TCSLINK=Active DATE-OBS=2010-09-09 TIME-OBS=06:41:14.978 TIMESY S=UTC RA=23:03:47 DEC=+08:55:40 EQUINOX=2000.0 HA=-00:36:10 LST=22:27:36 ZD=24.5 0 SECZ=1.10 JD=2455448.778646 MJD=55448.278646 TELESCOP=(1.3m McGraw-Hill) OBSER VAT=(MDM) OBSLONG=111.616111 OBSLAT=31.951667 OBSELEV=1925.0 TELFOCUS=870 GPROBE X=3339 GPROBEY=8285 MIRROR=Unknown LAMPS=OFF TC% IN: IC>TC TCSTATUS OUT: TC>IC DONE: TCSLINK=Active DATE-OBS=2010-09-09 TIME-OBS=07:02:02.637 TIMESY S=UTC RA=23:03:47 DEC=+08:55:39 EQUINOX=2000.0 HA=-00:15:19 LST=22:48:28 ZD=23.2 9 SECZ=1.09 JD=2455448.793086 MJD=55448.293086 TELESCOP=(1.3m McGraw-Hill) OBSER VAT=(MDM) OBSLONG=111.616111 OBSLAT=31.951667 OBSELEV=1925.0 TELFOCUS=870 GPROBE X=3339 GPROBEY=8285 MIRROR=Unknown LAMPS=OFF TC% Error on GetTCSInfo(): TCS info request timed out (TCS running?) Error on GetTCSInfo(): TCS info request timed out (TCS running?) *** TCS Link Initialized xtcs=Up xmis=Up *** Error on GetTCSInfo(): TCS info request timed out (TCS running?) *** TCS Link Initialized xtcs=Up xmis=Up *** I tried to point at the same position (NGC7469) which didn't help. Because TCS responded very slowly to input and because it appeared to be a network problem, I closed prospero, TCS, xmis, and logout of McGraw and shut-down McGraw and IC. This was also suggested by Josh. First, McGraw was restarted and when it asked for a login, IC was started and once booted ��was entered on the IC keyboard in the computer room while the monitor for IC is in the control room (hmm). Next, login on McGraw. On a window type telescope status� It should respond that three applications are active. If this isn't the case, type telescope stop and next telescope start. Next, start TCS and initialize. Then start xmis and initialize. In the next step, the OSU data-taking programs were started. First ISIS Server - IC and IE acknowledged with pings. Second, the MDMTCS Agent. When the window appears, cinit and cstatus were typed. The communication with the xtcs and xmis was fine. Third, start caliban and finally prospero. In the prospero window type startup and then runinit. I followed basically the cold start procedure in the 1.3m manual. The telescope was still pointing to the position of NGC7469, hence this needed to be taken care off. I used the home option on the TCS gui with RA home and Dec home. However, this took for ever. While the telescope slewed reasonable fast to an hour angle of HA=0.0, the movement in declination was just painfully slow - about 20min for 20deg to reach the zenith position. But at this point HA=00:32 and Dec=50deg12' and same arcsecs. To force TCS to take the current hour angle and declination value it turned out to type in the command line of the TCS gui the following: zero RA=(the current)hh:mm:ss LST Dec=31:57:12. Unfortunately, there is no obvious way to enter the current telescope coordinates in skycalc. Finally, the coordinates in skycal were those of the real telescope pointing. When slewing to the nearest bright star, a slew error occurred in skycal. This problem could be solved by logout from hill and ssh hill again since just re-start ./runjskgs didn't help at all because skycal had a pending slew. In the second attempt the pointing could be restored, however it a while to find HR0873 using the guiding camera field since the pointing was still about 40 arcmin off. With 50x50 arcmin field (dss chart from the digital POSS), by star hopping I could find the bright star. At 4:50 local time the pointing was restored and back in business. As a more general remark, during this entire process there were far too many error messages from TCS like 'send failed for command track: network operation timed out' It would be also very helpful, if TCS would display RA and Dec while the telescope is slewing. Finally, a stop or abort button on the TCS gui might be sometimes quite valuable. However, the end of the night TCS and the telescope were talking with each other. At 5:02 local time rtel went off-line and with telescope stop and telescope start rtel was active again. ------------------------------ Submitted on 2010 Sep 9 [7:22:44]