top of page
Date | Name | Affiliation | Other Observers | Instrument | Hrs Observed | Hrs Lost | Reason | Observing Program |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
07/15/2026 | 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. |
07/13/2026 | Xianming Han | Butler University | Betuel Paz | ccd | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binaries |
07/12/2026 | 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 |
07/08/2026 | 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. |
07/11/2026 | 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. |
07/09/2026 | 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. | |
07/07/2026 | 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. |
07/06/2026 | 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. |
07/05/2026 | Aarran Shaw | Butler U | None | Andor | 7 | 0 | Equipment Failure | CV candidate observing program. Best focus at 100800 and guider at -70 (although couldn't get guider to actually guide). Had a loss of tracking for my first source at HA 02:25, but ACE cabinet reset fixed it and I moved on to second source. |
07/03/2026 | Yong Sheng | Clemson University | Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD griz | 8 | 0 | Software/Control PC Issues | Clemson blazar study. The dome was closed and parked at 235 degrees at the end of the night. The dome power was switched off and the dome light was switched on.
After clicking the dome close button, the dome begins closing normally. However, before it finishes closing, it switches back to opening mode, so the dome never fully closes. I resolved the issue by performing a full restart of the telescope system. |
07/03/2026 | Todd Vaccaro | Ball State University | n/a | Andor | 7.5 | .5 | Equipment Failure | EB and novae BVR photometry. Early in the eve when I went to jog the position an arc min or two the tele stopped tracking and it required a full restart. Later, when the dome reached 0 AZ it stopped tracking and I had to unlink dome, park dome, and relink dome to get it to track again. Then at hour angle 3 the tele tracking stopped as it has typically done. Another target I tracked to about 3 HA and decided to stop for the night before it required another full system restart again. I made sure to shut the dome shutter off once things indicated they were closed. |
07/02/2026 | Tom Rutherford | ETSU | None | CCD | 0 | 8 | Wind | Wind kept pushing the closing limits so I never did open. |
bottom of page
