MDM Trouble Report for 2010 Nov 2

Telescope: 2.4m
Observer(s): Joe Antognini, Catherine Grier (OSU)
Instrument: OSMOS

Problem(s) Encountered:
When we began the night, the guider was far out of focus.  We tried using the
electronic paddle in the control room and it helped to a point, but once we
reached its limit, the guide stars appeared as substantial donuts.  We called
Bob about this and he told us to manually move the guide camera into focus by
pushing the cylinder under the square patch of silver tape.  We did this and
eventually got the guider into focus.

After about an hour, however, the guider fell back out of focus and we had to
repeat the procedure.  After that, any large movements of the telescope or
guider would result in the guider falling far out of focus.  Eventually, the
cylinder under the silver tape seemed to become looser because it wouldn't hold
its position if the telescope was pointed too close to the zenith (perhaps
within 20 degrees or so).  Anytime ,we tried to push the cylinder into focus, it
would drop back down again.  We tried using the second piece of silver tape to
secure the cylinder's position, but it was difficult to set the coarse focus
with the cylinder so loose, and the tape would hold for at most three
observations anyway.

As a result, we couldn't get the telescope to track properly, and the high winds
tended blow the telescope off of its pointing, giving us star trails.

At the end of the night, the dome did not home to the correct position and had
to be positioned manually.


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Submitted on 2010 Nov 3 [8:17:46]