SARA 

Kaylee Grace

UD/MCAO

n/a

CCD

0

10

Humidity

Windy, rainy, telescope in the clouds. Did not open for obvious reasons.

Kurtis Williams

ETAMU

none

Andor

0

11

Equipment Failure

Did not observe due to shutter failure (now fixed; this report is late).

Michael Fauerbach

FGCU

NA

CCD

11

0

No problems to report

asteroid photometry, quiet night without any issues

Todd Vaccaro

Ball State University

n/a

Andor

10.5

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Binary stars and nova monitor in M31, which failed since when we started the evening there it was near HA 3:30 (but only an air mass of about 1.5) and tracking stopped; pc required full restart to go on with other targets. When I was ending the night and moving the telescope to the stow position the dome stopped following and I unlinked it and parked it, shut down the power to the shutter after watching it close, but the mirror cover continued to say Opening and flashing the icon, so I don't know if it actually closed or not.

Todd Vaccaro

Ball State University

n/a

Andor

11

.5

Equipment Failure

Binary stars program. Tele lost tracking at an hour angle of 3:30; couldn't restart node service as it hung in closing state, which required the tele pc to be rebooted, but then all seemed fine. Also, after observing had started I noticed that the opening mirror covers window was stuck on "opening" and the icon was pulsing, but Peter said it must be open if I saw stars, so he would check next day; however, the reboot of the pc removed that issue. I had to do morning flats and I never could Z park the telescope without vignetting, so the dome wasn't moving to the right spot even though the telescope said it was, so I took flats at the tele stow position. I saw the dome close and turned off the power to the dome shutters.

William Keel

University of Alabama

None

Andor CCD

0.5

10

Software/Control PC Issues

Thought I'd try some long narrowband exposures preceded by very short ones, to sort of circumvent the shutter problem. Restarted ACE cabinet, dome control. Was able to check bias level through crossed filters, focus, and verify pointing, but even after those restarts plus software restarts, I couldn't establish control of the guider QSI camera - it hangs during readout. That felt like one too many things to work around, so I closed back up.

Ken Rumstay

VSU (Emeritus)

None

CCD camera

0

10

Equipment Failure

Unable to observe due to camera shutter failure.

Martha A. Leake

Valdosta State University

none

CCD

0

9

Equipment Failure

Note Peter's message that the Dome is Closed until about Feb. 23-24. Windy at ROM today (wind warning on weather sites), thought some of the ORM telescopes are open. Did not open.

Kurtis Williams

ETAMU

none

Andor

0

11

Equipment Failure

Observatory closed due to shutter failure.

Ken Watanabe

Florida Gulf Coast University

Jonathan Zielinski

CCD

0

8

Equipment Failure

Could not observe due to filter wheel not working. Kept buffering. Dome closed and home. mirror covers closed.

Todd Vaccaro

Ball State University

Robert Berrington

Andor

0

11

Equipment Failure

We were initially trying to get some images for color astrophotography for our astro club this afternoon, but we were not able to connect to the mountain, even the weather web pages were down; about an hour after sunset we connected but it was too dark to get flats. After setting things up we noticed streaks on the bias frames that after experimentation showed that there are bright stars in light frames that leave a residual trails, but no residual stars, so we mentioned on Discord, posted a few examples and shut things down. We verified closing of the dome via the inside dome cam and then turned the shutter power off. Apparently this has been a problem for a few days that went unnoticed since it was not noted in Discord; it was noted last Fri in a nightly log that I was unaware I had access to. So, it seems that the CCD has a serious charge transfer issue. Most of the night was meant for sitting on a field of stars to monitor several EB's that I need for research projects.

Tom Rutherford

ETSU

None

Andor CCD

3

0

No problems to report

Young Stellar Objects. No problems (haven't looked at the data yet though). Closed up, turned off power to the dome.