MDM Trouble Report for 2013 Mar 03

Telescope: 2.4m
Observer(s): John Thorstensen (Dartmouth)
Instrument: modspec + templeton

Problem(s) Encountered:
Two issues:

1) At startup, xmis2 steadfastly refused to move the guide probe,
though it didn't print an error.  I didn't troubleshoot this 
carefully because I needed to get going, but I cleared the issued
by cycling the power on the MIS control box, and re-starting 
xmis2.  I don't know which one did the trick, but it was fine 
after that.

2) I sat on a single target for 3+ hours tonight, and the RA 
readout drifted upward by something like 30 seconds.  This is
indeed way beyond the size of pointing-model corrections. There
is unquestionably something wrong with the RA positional readout 
(I've learned not to say  with the RA encoder  because it 
is not necessarily the encoder that's giving the trouble).

Because of (2), observers should be advised to reset RA and 
dec encoders frequently, especially before a move, so as 
to have the freshest RA possible.  Note coordinates appear to 
be read from the display field in xmis2.

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Submitted on 2013 Mar 4 [6:51:29]