MDM Trouble Report for 2018 Jun 01 Telescope: 2.4m Observer(s): Clarkson, Blevins, Vowell (University of Michigan-Dearborn) Instrument: Andor Problem(s) Encountered: We encountered three problems early in the night beginning Friday June 1st 2018, using the Andor camera as our science detector on the 2.4m. The problems, and the procedures we used to correct them (all from Eric G) are given below. 1. MIS failure when switching filters. 2. TCS GUI loses control of telescope, telescope still tracks 3. Very bad tracking with the autoguider (RMS 25,8 in X,Y) We think problem 2 occurs when slewing to a target with the HA tracking rate set to zero. Procedures used to correct the problems are given below. 1. MIS failure when switching filters ===================================== On attempting to switch filters, the destination filter icon changed to red and a message to the effect that the MIS filter wheel had failed and the filter wheel should be checked and restarted. We tried to use the MIS GUI to reset the filter wheel. No luck. The following procedure from Eric G. fixed the problem. 1.1. In the MIS GUI: First move the guide probe back to (0,0). Do this by entering 0 next to the x position and hitting Enter. The probe should move. Do the same for the probe y position. 1.2. Now shut down the MIS GUI. 2.4m Setup --> Quit 1.3. Now go to the MIS control box in the computer room. (The MIS controller box is the silver box about 4 feet from the ground in the middle rack facing the window). Flip the switch on the MIS Controller box to OFF. 1.4. Count to ten. 1.5. Flip the MIS control box switch to ON. 1.6. On the mdm24m workstation 1: Applications --> Telescope Control --> xmis2 1.7. There should be a big red Initialize button. Click it once and wait about ten seconds. 1.8. Try advancing the filter. All should be well. 2. TCS GUI loses control of telescope, telescope still tracks ============================================================= TCS GUI Telescope Position readout shows the telescope tracking (HA increasing, RA constant), even after switching Tracking Rate for HA to 0. Flipping the Track switch in the computer room to Down had no effect. Other symptom: TCS does not accept new coordinates from JSkyCalc24m. (We think this condition is triggered when a slew is commanded to a new target while the HA track rate is set to zero. We accidentally reproduced the condition this way during morning twilight.) This differs from the scenario in Restarting the TCS (p7 of the DFM 2.4m Telescope Control Quicklist document) in that we cannot stop the telescope tracking. However, that recommended procedure does seem to work in this case too. Here is the procedure we used from Eric G, which worked for us. This is similar to steps 1-7 on the TCS software restart procedure mentioned above, with the addition of the Track switch in the control room. 2.1. Write down the dome Azimuth. 2.2. On the control room rack, set the Track switch to Down. 2.3. Quit the TCS GUI: File -> Exit 2.4. Double click the yellow TCS icon to restart the software 2.5. Telescope --> Initialization --> Other Positions. Enter the dome azimuth from step 2.1 above, click Apply. (At this stage the Other Positions window contains a warning to make sure the dome is switched off: that can be checked by going to Telescope --> Misc --> Switches; the dome should already be set to OFF . We don't think this refers to any of the TCS switches in the control room.) 2.6. Telescope --> Misc --> Switches. Switch the dome ON and make the dome target Telescope. Hit Apply. 2.7. Flip the Track switch in the computer room to up. 2.8. Check that the HA is not changing (since the HA rate should still be zero). 2.9. Telescope --> Rates --> Track Rates. Set Sidereal Rate, hit Apply. By this point the telescope should be tracking again. 3. Bad tracking (rms ~25 in X (!!), ~8 in Y). ============================================= Appears to affect X much more strongly than Y, but tracking in both coordinates was bad. Intermittent chiming from or behind the TCS computer in the control room, science images visibly drifting on a timescale of a few minutes. The Camera Control window in MaximDL intermittently displayed the error message Failure to activate guide relay (not in time with the chimes), at random intervals roughly every few seconds on average. We tried the following procedure from Eric G, which worked for us: 3.1. Stop tracking. 3.2. In MaximDL, Camera Control --> Guide tab. 3.3. Click the Settings button in the middle to open the Guider Settings window. 3.4. Guider Settings --> Settings tab. 3.5. In the Autoguider Output box (middle-right), next to the COM Port click the Setup button. 3.6. This displays info about the guider scope. DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING. Just click OK. 3.7. Click OK to close the Guider Settings window. 3.8. Now start tracking again: Do the Guide --> Expose to check guider coords, and then start tracking. The guiding should now be substantially better (we saw RMS ~1.2, 1.0 in both coords). (It sounds like the act of viewing the guide telescope information in step 3.6 triggers some sort of communication with the control box that fixes the guide relay problem.) ------------------------------ Submitted on 2018 Jun 2 [5:37:10]