SARA-RM Report Archive

Date	Name	Affiliation	Other Observers	Instrument	Hrs Observed	Hrs Lost	Reason	Observing Program
09/18/2023	Erin Abraham	ERAU	Priya Gokul Dass	CCD	2	8	Software/Control PC Issues	Issue with dome tracking - getting error "Slew could not be completed due to telescope limits". We did a full reset several times but it would not fix. Eclipsing binary observation
09/15/2023	Robert Berrington	Ball State University	A486/586 Observing class	arc	0.5	7.5	Humidity	initial setup was troubled by a dome light left on from prior user. Not long after opening the humidity went above 80% and did not drop for the rest of the evening.
09/12/2023	Kurtis Williams	TAMUC	none	Andor	2	9	Humidity	White dwarf time series photometry. Humidity kept spiking; after hitting closure for the third time gave up for night.
09/09/2023	Matt Wood	Texas A&M University-Commerce	NA	CCD	10	1	Other	Time series of cataclysmic variables. 30s exposures. Dome was OPEN when I first connected! Dome stuck a couple times during normal tracking. Did the power cycle thing and it eventually worked. My final object of the night is +51 dec. I usually follow to airmas 2.0 for time series, but the system hit a soft limit before this, and I was not able to back the telescope out, so ACE will need to take care of that before the next observer.
09/08/2023	Isaiah Cox	Clemson University	Yong Sheng, Kouser Imam, Dieter Hartmann	CCD	6	1	Software/Control PC Issues	Had some trouble with dome tracking. Did the azimuth recycle but connecter client would crash whenever I tried to send the dome home. A quick restart fixed this. Tried azimuth recycle and home again and everything worked after that.
09/05/2023	Scott Joffre	Clemson University	Yong Sheng, Antonio, Dieter Hartmann	CCD	4	1.5	Software/Control PC Issues	{{filter}} command when saving file names with the Andor camera kept giving "unknown filter". Additionally, the headers for the fits files gave RA, DEC, and filter as "unknown" Had a glitch where clicking the home button would shut down the entire program. An entire restart fixed this. Additionally, some of the observations appeared as if we were just looking at a bias. We diagnosed this as not having calibrated the dome by having it go home first.
09/03/2023	William C Keel	University of Alabama	DragonCon Love Astronomy	Andor CCD	5	0	No problems to report	Outreach. Focus 98370. Guider still not moving telescope and showing x,y offsets of order 10^(-306).
09/02/2023	William C Keel	University of Alabama	DragonCon Space Track	Andor CCD	4	2	Clouds	Outreach events. Guider was weird - showed x,y offsets of order 10^-305 and was not obviously moving the telescope. Focus 99656, guider focus 40.
08/27/2023	Tom Rutherford	ETSU	None	CCD	6	0	No problems to report	Exoplanet, M31. All went well.
08/26/2023	Tom Rutherford	ETSU	None	CCD	8	0	No problems to report	Exoplanet, M31. No issues.
08/25/2023	Stephen Gillam	Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University	Kaelyn Weddle, Avery Reynolds, Jessica Nicholson	Andor Camera	8	8	Humidity	Microvariables ACE node service failed around 11:30 PM local time, we followed the full procedure to fix it and it is now working.
08/21/2023	William Keel	University of Alabama	2 cats	Andor CCD	9	1	Other	AGN emission clouds. Telescope jumped by 30" near end of one 60m exposure (about 4h W +40), too fast for guider to follow. Focus 10900, guider focus +40.