MDM Trouble Report for 2013 Jul 11

Telescope: 1.3m
Observer(s): Sarah Schmidt (Ohio State University)
Instrument: Nellie (imaging)

Problem(s) Encountered:
There were a multitude of problems, the first two being the 
most serious. 

1. Issue with Nellie:
There is a problem with the instrument - not sure exactly 
where. The images I take all have a dark circle with several 
donuts inside. The pattern stays (but changes a bit) in 
different filters. This is similar to an issue I had in 
February, I think it was condensation somewhere? I think I 
learned a procedure to clear it (something about blowing 
compressed air into the instrument) but I don't remember it 
well enough to try. 

Example images (in /data/mdmarc2/direct/schmidt/):
July12.0037.fit (I band)
July12.0038.fit (R band)
July12.0039.fit (V band)

Time lost is logged at half an hour, but since I switched to a 
lower priority program, it could in practice be more. 

2. TCS  refraction altitude too low  
This error first appeared when I was at my target (only 
observed one target) and was using Jskycalc to center up guide 
stars. The time was UT7:24. I pressed  send coordinates to 
telescope  when I didn't mean to (and then said  yes, I'm 
sure ). The telescope did not slew, and instead started to 
produce that error message. I didn't know what the error meant, 
and I could still offset, so I didn't worry about it.

When I tried to close the telescope, it wouldn't slew to the 
zenith. I could offset, but the offsets would not change the 
TCS coordinates. Since the weather has been iffy, I closed the 
mirror covers, the dark slide, and the dome before trying to 
zenith the scope. I also tried restarting TCS, which didn't 
seem to help. I ended up using offsets, a bubble level, and the 
encoders to bring the telescope to zenith, but sending a zero 
command to TCS only produced the error message again. 

Since I restarted TCS and I wasn't sure if it preserved the 
error message, I saved a file  errorlog  with the TCS log 
before I restarted the software to the desktop. It would have 
been useful (maybe) if I knew what the error message meant! I 
hope I didn't break anything. No time lost - my zenithing time 
was already gone to clouds. 

3. mirror covers:
At UT 6:48, I was slewing using the command: 
point ra=18:54:45.97 dec=+84:29:47.0 equinox=2000
as far as I can tell the slew executed correctly, but then I 
got a  mirror neither open nor closed  message. I hit refresh 
and the error message persisted. I then closed and opened the 
mirror, and things went back to normal. Estimate ~5 minutes 
lost. 

4. IRAF
The imexam package stopped working. I tired restarting IRAF, 
but it didn't start working again. No error messages were 
produced. Maybe there was some simple fix, but I just started 
checking images on my laptop instead. 



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Submitted on 2013 Jul 12 [2:40:32]
NOTE: This trouble report replaces the previous report for 2013 Jul 11