MDM Trouble Report for 2013 Jun 09

Telescope: 1.3m
Observer(s): John Thorstensen (Dartmouth)
Instrument: Andor

Problem(s) Encountered:
Hill has been getting flakier and flakier for days, and tonight 
it became unusable.  It was down this afternoon, so I 
power-cycled it and it came back up I think the second time; 
observations went fine for about an hour before the telescope
stopped tracking and the TCS gui complained about the server
being down.  Over the course of the next couple hours I 
cycled the power on Hill maybe 5 times, and it never came 
back up.

On the console, Hill gets through the hardware startup OK, then 
puts up the Fedora flash screen, takes it down, and says it's
booting the kernel. Then the screen goes blank and the power
light starts flashing, presumably indicating no signal.  

With no server, there's no way to control the telescope.  I 
left it where it was -- with the dark hatch and mirror covers
open -- closed the dome, and tripped the e-stop button.  It's a
rare thing at MDM, but I lost nearly a whole night to an
equipment failure.

A minor note - while closing in the dark I noticed that the 
LED lights on the USB hub are bright enough to cast shadows. 

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Submitted on 2013 Jun 9 [23:58:11]