SARA 

Tom Rutherford

ETSU

None

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

No problems, although I could not get the autoguider to respond. Also, at some point during the night, the mirror cover started flashing "opening" even though it showed "open" earlier. Variable star, M31.

Ken Rumstay

VSU (Emeritus)

None

Andor CCD camera

8

1

Software/Control PC Issues

AGN variability program. Performed a full reset at start of night, and again a couple hours later when telescope stopped tracking. No other issues.

Todd Vaccaro

Ball State University

n/a

Andor

7

1

Equipment Failure

Nova and EB. Twice the dome failed to track, once (again like earlier in the month) near AZ 0, like it had trouble going from E to W across due N, but then again later with different target in SW but only after I noticed that the dome was showing as AJAR! and then it started vignetting and upon trying to unlink/link dome and slew to target (with no real tele motion needed, though it worked earlier) it failed; I tried to home the dome and ACE crashed, so I did a full reset like before and closed up early. There was also a Warwick telescope that appeared to have its lights on with an open dome for most of the night. The night seemed to have a haze but humidity was always low and clouds were at lower altitudes. The tele mirror cover and dome appeared to close in ACE, though it was too dark to verify dome closure. I tried to manually move the dome to the N so that I could see it closed in one of the web cams, but it wouldn't move. I noticed that doing a full reset also powered back on the dome Az, which explains the failure to manually move dome, so I turned them both off and then was able to move the dome, but couldn't see an updated web cam image to verify dome closed.

Billy Quarles

ETAMU

Caysen Mayo

CCD

5

0

Software/Control PC Issues

Observed asteroid, no issues with data collection. At one point in the night, I was not able to close the dome (telescope software would just minimize instead of closing the dome when icon was clicked) so I had to restart. Once I did a full restart, I was able to close dome & mirrors.

William Keel

University of Alabama

4 cats

Andor CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Excellent night on AGN-ionized clouds. Telescope coordinates showed -- at connection; cycled power on ACE cabinet and camera/mirror support outlets (which seems to have fixed guider connection). Guider x-stage is working again. Found night light on when focusing on standard stars at beginning of night. Focus 100656; guider focus 0. Used guider with 1x1 binning out of caution since it has had issues recently.

Xianming Han

Butler University

Betuel Paz

ccd

8.5

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binaries

Xianming Han

Butler University

Betuel Paz

ccd

4

4

Software/Control PC Issues

could not slew the telescope. Rebooted ACE cabinet afterwards to fix the problem

Ava Webber

Clemson University

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

7

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Clemson blazar study. The dome tracking malfunctioned early in the night and we had to restart the control PC. There was also an issue with the mirror opening after this, where the mirror open control panel was stuck saying "mirror cover opening." The PC had to be restarted again.

Steve Gillam

ERAU Retired

Martina Dequer and Desiree Robinson

Andor Camera

7

0

Equipment Failure

ROAp stars in Open Clusters. Twice the telescope pointing jumped unbidden by about 1 arc. minute in declination. The telescope stooped tracking at HA~1.5 hrs with no error reported. Slewing to the target again got the tracking going.

Tom Rutherford

ETSU

Asher Suter

CCD

8

No problems to report

Exoplanet, M31, M57, M27, a couple NGC targets. No problems, although when I first logged on, the mirror cover was hung on “opening.’ A recycle of everything cleared it and all worked OK after that. Closed everything up, cut power to the shutter, and parked the dome at 235.

Billy Quarles

ETAMU

Caysen Mayo

CCD

4.5

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Asteroid, had to fully restart twice. The first time was because the filter wheel wouldn't select the correct filter. Then during last the 30 minutes of observation, tracking was lost and and the telescope refused to park with the error, "Unable to complete slow due to an equipment error". After the second reboot, dome was closed and parked at 235 degrees.

Kurtis Williams

ETAMU

Raven Powers

Andor

5.5

1.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Observing rotating white dwarf. ACE crashed after a couple hours so I went through restarting procedure and was able to begin observing again. Then tracking failed and telescope would not slew. Closed everything and rebooted again and got everything working properly but it was close to sunrise at this point so that ended the night.