MDM Trouble Report for 2010 Mar 21

Telescope: 2.4m
Observer(s): Gaudi, van Saders, Shappee (OSU)
Instrument: CCDS

Problem(s) Encountered:
Summary: Dome stopped tracking correctly around 12:30 local time.  
After trying to fix the problem for several hours, we finally gave
up and just continued with observations, moving the dome manually.

Around 12:30am, after noticing that target guide stars were 
invisible, we went into the dome and saw that the dome was
occulting the telescope.  We then tried to send the dome home,
at which point it kept spinning.  We switched the dome to 
manual control, brought it to home, and reset the AZ encoder.
We then switched the dome to auto, at which point it kept
spinning again.  We noted that the dome azimuth did not
change unless we were moving the dome manually. We then quit 
the Hiltner TCS control program, and restarted.  This appeared 
to solve the problem (in the sense that the dome azimuth changed
and the dome appeared to move sensibly).  However, when
we then tried to move to new object, the dome started
spinning continously.  We then shut down the TCS computer.  Upon
restart, the problem again appeared to be solved, but as
before once we moved to a new object, the dome started 
behaving strangely (in this case, starting, stopping, starting,
stopping, continuously).  At this point, we were out of ideas,
so we decided to just observe and move the dome manually.




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Submitted on 2010 Mar 21 [6:09:32]