MDM Trouble Report for 2014 Apr 23

Telescope: 1.3m
Observer(s): Denney/King (OSU/UQ)
Instrument: CCDS

Problem(s) Encountered:
CCDS was just put on at the very end of the day, thanks to the
wonderful day staff and Mario Mateo (we weren't even supposed to
have tonight, but UM finished with the 1.3m early, and we were 
here, well, kind of - we started the first half of the night at the Bok
and admittedly selfishly looking through the 2.4m eye piece - but
really, can you blame us? ;-)

When we started working with CCDS around midnight, we were able
to get initial setup calibrations taken just fine, though we 
decided to defer dome flats until morning to get on the sky sooner.

When we went to point at a bright star to check pointing, however, it wasn't there.
I initially figured pointing problems, surely, so we went back to zenith
but it did that perfectly, we didn't even have to reset our 
position because the tip/tilt sensors were good.  Then we 
went back to our bright star and it still wasn't there.  

I did the usual stuff - checked the weather, make sure the 
telescope was pointing out of the dome opening, made sure 
mirror covers and MIS hatch were open,  verified  the finder
was out (i.e., checked the gui... pshaw, surely those quotes 
aren't foreshadowing...).  I then thought maybe the guide
probe was the problem and I moved it to the center, but I still
couldn't see any stars out the guider CCD, so I restored it to
the origin preset.  Then I tried going to a couple other fields, thinking it
was a freak occurrence (you never know, stars disappear from
existence all the time).  Next I verified there weren't strangely 
any filters that somehow got put in place.  

Then I was shining a flash light on
the mirror and even turned on the dome lights to verify that
light was definitely not getting to the detector.  At this 
point, I even started reading the 1.3m manual (gasp!) and 
looked for clues there with the MIS schematic and 
system check out, thinking that just had to be it.  I even 
wondered if maybe the MIS hatch could have gotten stuck, even
though flipping it back and forth still made that wonderful
microphone thwap sound.  Finally, I had coffee and sat in the 
recliner brooding - I mean thinking.

That's when I came back out here and tried moving the finder
out  again  (even though it said it was out) and moving the 
guider preset to the origin  again  (even though it said it
was there already).  That did the trick.  I'm guessing it was
the finder rather than the guider because we had the problem
before I started messing with the guide probe position. 

Yeah, I know, I wasn't at the top of my game, but hey, some
times it happens even to the best of us MDM club members.  
No worries, I've still got love for you, 1.3m (at least 
tonight I didn't have to revel in your  quirkiness  by halting 
any electric currents or using duct tape).  I <3 you 1.3m.

Oh yeah, and Michael, I'll be using Excel from now on, and you
copy my logs to Google Drive if you want.  It kept deleting parts
of my log all night log.  Most times, my sleep deprivation
convinced me I had accidentally done it because it was just like
one line at a time, so I figured I just accidentally highlighted
it and hit a key or something and it over wrote.  But no, when
I was completely done with the thing, I went back to check one
thing and the whole bottom half plus my detailed weather report
and other notes were just gone!!!  You'll have to wait for
tomorrow for me to fill that in....

Ok, I clearly need sleep now.


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Submitted on 2014 Apr 24 [6:26:45]