SARA 

Martha A. Leake

Valdosta State University

none

Andor CCD

4

5

Equipment Failure

Fault in tracking. Lost tracking at HA = 2h ("Unable to complete slew due to equipment error"), after a short (1 hour) observation following a restart from clouds (closed 1 hour for that). Tracking not reestablished. Tried the short and full restart instructions, but did not achieve full restoration of the Telescope computer. The Camera computer is not as neat as it was, but seems to be complete. The Telescope computer is missing ACE. Although some clearing, forecasts of high winds (gale strength) and morning drizzle were cause to stop. Did not get to try a restart. Did close the mirror covers and Dome after tracking lost. Have not stowed the telescope at -20 degrees declination. Is dome azimuth at acceptable position? Managed to send data back home. Attempted asteroid photometry this evening..

Matt Wood

A&M Commerce

None

CCD

11

1

Software/Control PC Issues

TIme series photometry of cataclysmic variables. Beautiful night, and aurora visible in GTC all sky camers. Problems: Tracking stops at hour angle +2:50 or so. It would be good to get this fixed ASAP if it is an easy fix. Camera computer did a windows update which cost about 1/2 hour of observing time by the time I caught it.

Matt Wood

A&M Commerce

None

CCD

11

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Telescope stops tracking at HA~2:50. I had to do the restart process to regain control to move telescope to the East. It would be good to be able to observe out to HA~4 or 5 if it's an easy fix.

Michael Fauerbach

FGCU

NA

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Mainly photometry of TRojan asteroid 617 Patroclus. Stay safe everybody!!

Todd Vaccaro

Ball State University

N/A

Andor CCD

5

6

Equipment Failure

EB with an eclipse interrupted for failed tracking second half of night when HA 2+, Peter was on and noticed it and tried trouble shooting and resetting things, but it would continue to fail in the west. Moved to object in east and a focus routine failed and then the filter wheel stuck, which took several full resets before I could get the tele ACE back up and then I had the last couple hours of the night. Lost first 3 or 4 hours to clouds.

Divyeshwari Vansadia

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Salman Abarghouei

Andor Camera

0

8

Equipment Failure

We started out without issue, the telescope pointing seems to be stuck and cannot be slewed by sending to a new position, sending to zenith, or offsetting. We have tried both the quick restart and the more involved restart and there is no change in telescope position. The Telescope Position window shows RA=16:38:44.3, Dec=+25:54:52.1, HA=+4:06:40, altitude=36 Oddly, at one point, after sending a zenith slew command in the Slew Telescope Window, which in turn claimed the telescope was slewing, the Telescope position window indicating that HA was increasing, and doing so at 1sec per sec. Generally, however, after sending a slew command the Slew Telescope window immediately gives an error message. In addition to that, we noted that the mirror cover started closing or opening without us giving any command to do so.

William Keel

University of Alabama

2 cats

Andor CCD

10

1

Equipment Failure

AGN ionized clouds. Focus 99750, guider focus 60. 4 tracking shutdowns, all near 2.5 hours west (wiped out >1 hour of exposures). At start, DS9 display was off; restarted connector client, reenabled SAOimage display for Andor, and restarting SAOimage got it back. Note Peter's note on desktop to stow dome at PA 235 degrees.

Kurtis Williams

TAMUC

none

Andor

1

10

Wind

Time series photometry. No problems opening, taking flats, and setting up on target. Focus for guide camera was +60. After 1 hour the wind rose above limits, as did particulates. Wind stayed high for hours until not enough time was left in the night for my needed time series length.

Todd Vaccaro

Ball State University

n/a

Andor

10

1

Equipment Failure

T CrB monitor, ASASSN-24fw ,and EB. ACE full resets a couple times to start the night b/c dome didn't seem to be moving nor would tele even Z park. Missed getting twilight flats early. Tele refused to move from first target in west after short while and more resets to get it to east where I sat most the night fine till it was +3:15 HA but only 1.4 airmass and it kept losing tracking by going idle (several more resets then gave up), moved east to sit last hour or so with no problems there. Texted Peter as the note on tele pc said if issues, but they bounced back to me as undelivered.

Kaylee Grace

University of Delaware/MCAO

Easton Honaker, Zach Savery

Andor CCD

8

1.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Good news - we got the mirror cover to closed status instead of being stuck on closing. Bad news - towards the end of the night we had a lot of issues with the "Unable to complete slew due to an equipment error" error. We had to restart ACE once about halfway through the night which was fine, but in the last hour and a half or so we had to restart ACE due to the same error five more times, each time getting fewer exposures between getting the error again. Had to restart one last time just to be able to slew the telescope to park. Not sure if we did something or if JKT was just upset tonight.

Tom Rutherford

ETSU

Nne

Andor CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Exoplanet, M31. Everything worked fine except that the response to mouse clicks was very sluggish (by many seconds) for the entire night on both the telescope and the CCD computers. All controls worked, it was just "laggy." The mirror cover also seems to hang on "closing" and never changes to "closed."

Xianming Han

Butler Univ

none

ccd

0

10

Equipment Failure

none