SARA-RM Report Archive

Date	Name	Affiliation	Other Observers	Instrument	Hrs Observed	Hrs Lost	Reason	Observing Program
01/09/2023	William Keel	University of Alabama	2 cats	Andor CCD	12	0	No problems to report	Galaxies in narrowband ([O III] before moonrise, H-alpha after). Focus 96327, guider focus -100. Reset dome azimuth once. Had to enable SAOimage display for QSI CD to focus guider and couldn't figure out how to turn that off (since new interface does not have radio buttons for Connector Client perspective options), so each new image while guiding vanished after 5 second. (No luck getting response to email queries on this during the night).
01/07/2023	Gary Henson	ETSU	Rutherford	Andor CCD	8	0	No problems to report	Nova Monitoring in M31, Exoplanet Search in NGC1245
01/06/2023	Gary Henson	ETSU	Rutherford	Andor CCD	8	0	No problems to report	Nova monitoring in M31, Exoplanet Search in NGC 1245
01/05/2023	Tom Rutherford	ETSU	None	CCD	8	0.5	Equipment Failure	Dome failed to track on two occasions-- resetting it seemed to fix it each time. M31, NGC 1245.
01/04/2023	Tom Rutherford	ETSU	None	CCD	8	0	No problems to report	M 31, NGC 1245.
01/02/2023	William Keel	University of Alabama	2 cats	Andor CCD	0	13	Humidity	If it wasn't the humidity (which is always was), it was the clouds, or the rain, or even the particulate levels.
12/27/2022	William Keel	University of Alabama	2 cats	Andor CCD	0	12	Clouds	Partly cloudy in afternoon. During the night, clouds, humidity, wind, and dust level passed conspired at least two at a time.
12/24/2022	Dr. Todd Vaccaro	Ball State University	None	Andor CCD	10	1	Software/Control PC Issues	Eclipsing binaries. Had some tracking issues early on with a target at Az 229 and Alt 76 (deg) off and on; then an hour or so in the dome indicated vignetting, which got worse as the dome had stopped; resetting the dome Az fixed it. I noticed that the Tele PC time is set for UT+1 (Casablanca) while the CCD PC is on UT and time stamping headers. I was only able to control the camera from the CCD side. The focusing routine worked well. The tele was parked at the Z position when I started.
12/21/2022	Tom Rutherford	ETSU	None	CCD	8	0	No problems to report	M31. Standard stars.
12/20/2022	Gary Henson	ETSU	Rutherford	Andor CCD	7.5	0	No problems to report	H-alpha monitoring of M31 and Variable Search in Open Cluster NGC1245 One instance of dome azimuth motion failure during slew but Azimuth power recycle restored control for rest of the night.
12/14/2022	Ken Rumstay	VSU (Emeritus)	None	Andor CCD camera	3	9	Equipment Failure	I observed for about three hours without problem. I then had to briefly leave to attend to some family business, so stowed the telescope and closed the dome. When I returned and tried to open the dome, the shutter would only open about 15-20% of the way. It looks as though something might be obstructing the shutters, though I don’t see anything obvious in the dome camera image. Right now the telescope is safely stowed with the dome closed. The wind speed is currently averaging 30-35 km/hr, with gusts up to 50 km/hr.
12/13/2022	Kurtis A. Williams	TAMU-C	none	Andor	6	6	Humidity	White dwarf time series photometry. Humidity was borderline until about 1am and then spiked well over the limit, so I closed. Seeing was lousy but good enough. Could not run autoguider - QSI camera hung on readout and would only reset with Client Connector restart.