CCDS Acq. Camera Saturation/Brightness

Monday, May 6, 2013 1:19 PM

Problem(s) Encountered:

The CCDS Acquisition Camera yielded some confusing images: close to zenith, the images were dark as one would expect.  When we pointed at what we thought were our science targets, the images were lighter than we expected as if there were some interfering light, but we couldn''t find any source of light in the dome.


Solutions:

While verifying the pointing, a bright star was found and placed on the slit.  The star looked good in the acq. cam. for CCDS.  When the telescope was moved to a galaxy, the image looked "bright" again.  Reducing the exposure from 30 seconds to 15 seems to have improved this.  Also, it is likely that the cooling was powered off during at least some acquisitions last night.