MDM Trouble Report for 2010 May 4

Telescope: 2.4m
Observer(s): Thorstensen and Spellmire (Dartmouth)
Instrument: Modspec + echelle

Problem(s) Encountered:

Many problems.  

1) Before sunset found we could not communicate with the CCD. 
Hit reset button and cycled power on control electronics power
supply many times; symptom was that the df command came back with 
-3, could not read format back from camera.  The sync command, 
however, executed without a problem.  Called Bob and he was on 
his way up when the problem was cleared.  The command that SEEMED
to do the trick was  diag ii  in ccdcom, which resets the S16D 
parallel interface card.  It could have just been coincidence that
this was the last thing I tried before it worked.  Managed to get
hold of Bob while he was still in Tucson, so he didn't have to
come all the way up.

2) While doing the ut init during the restart, I found the 
CCD temp at -70 or so -- even though I'd filled the dewar about
an hour before.  CCD temp gradually stabilized at -100 during
the night.  This was consistent with a bad fill at the end of 
last night, but that's nearly impossible with a downward-looking
dewar.  Jason noticed that the AM fill had taken a while, and I 
noticed that the evening fill also seemed to last longer than 
normal.  It would be good to check the ccd temp from time to
time during the day in case the hold time has gone bad.  But it
held all night ... 

3) About an hour before morning, the dome encoder failed
completely. The dome error was 2 degees, so the dome kept 
walking 2 degees at a time 'til it was off target .  Dome
azimuth on TCS display remained frozen, and  Dome encoder not
responding  and  moving with autodome off  messages apperared.
It was consistent with the encoder actually failing.  Kept 
observing by moving the dome manually. Earlier in the night
the dome went ito a fugue state (rotating without end) - cured
by disabling the yellow button and moving manually.  That
problem reset itself after a while, but the  econder  problem 
remains.

4) During an integration the Windows Vista computer running the
Andor camera decided it really, really need a software upgrade,
so it went ahead and did it and rebooted.  We couldn't guide
at all for four minutes and lost most of a spectroscopic
integration.  

5) On a better note, the mirror AC system worked fine.

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Submitted on 2010 May 5 [6:05:50]