SARA 

Robert Berrington

Ball State University

none

Andor

10

0

Equipment Failure

Everything worked correctly except that the pointing of the telescope was consistently off by 950 seconds. To place the object in the center of the field required an offset applied of 950 seconds. This offset meant that the object was not within the camera field of view when the telescope was pointed to the object. The telescope control computer's clack was checked to see if it was off, but it was found to ahead of the time servers by approximately 5 seconds (4.7 seconds).

Martha A. Leake

Valdosta State University

none

Andor

12

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Software limit to western sky reached by previous observer. I was able to combine tips from Tom R. and Todd H. and the manual to use the softpad to back out of the HA = 05 22 55.2 position, using the finer motions, watching the horizon map in the manual, and reaching a point (at Dec of -32 degrees) that the program allowed me to go to Zenith Park and proceed with observing. Took darks and biases, morning flats, images, and started transfer of data. Next biggest issue was pointing; it seemed like I was off an entire frame. Bill's suggestion considered. No asteroid photometry this night, but did get some observations to complement classes. Weather excellent. Reached sub arc second FWHM twice. Needed to finish up by 7:15 am, and did, although report filed at 1 pm. All disconnected at present. Zenith pa

Mariel Lares Martiz

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

none

0.6

9

0

Software/Control PC Issues

When attempting to park the telescope at zenith to take twilight flats, the system displayed a "Reached software W limit" error. This prevented the telescope from moving further or completing the park to the zenith position. Additionally, it did not allow me to move the telescope manually or park it at coordinates (00:00:00, +15:00:00) or stow it. The issue could not be resolved during the session.

Ken Watanabe

FGCU

Jacob Kinney, Max Smuda

Andor

4

0

No problems to report

AGN target 3C 279. No issues. Dome closed and parked at requested position

Kurtis Williams

ETAMU

none

Andor

12

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

white dwarf time series. Weather was good. Only technical problem was needing to abort a series due to accidentally setting the binning to 1x2. The standard recovery didn't work, so had to try the auxiliary instructions. That worked but was slow due to lag. Accidentally closed ACE while shutting down for the night. Clocks were exact on Camera computer and 1.0 s fast on telescope computer. Pointing off by 9 arcmin west. Lots of lag on camera computer.

Matt Wood

ETAMU

NA

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

CV Time Series. Bill's offset (RA,DEC) = (+750,30) still good. SARACAM/SARATEL clocks were wrong by +00:01:31 and -00:00:11 respectively. Synced TEL and eventually got CAM set correctly manually. Peter will look at this later today (via Discord communication).

Matt Wood

ETAMU

NA

CCD

10

2

Clouds

Time series of CVs. Thanks to Todd for recovery after I had ACE freeze from errant keyboard stroke.

William Keel

Univ of Alabama

1 cat

Andor CCD #2

6

5

Clouds

AGN hosts. Focus 128100. Most targets found after offset +750", -30" from telescope pionting.

Henry C Sanders

ERAU

N/A

ARC Camera

6

0

No problems to report

ERAU, observing to get data for EP425 Observational Astronomy class, observed four T Tauri Stars for project, no issues encountered at all, and no suggestions to be made.

Yong Sheng

Clemson University

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

11

0

No problems to report

Clemson blazar study. The night went well.

Ava Webber

Clemson University

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

10

0

Software/Control PC Issues

When the Bessel R filter is in wheel 1, the camera stays idle and doesn’t expose when it’s switching from wheel 2 to wheel 1

JamesASC

Agnes Scott College

Kayla, Lucia, Lia, Faith

ARC Camera

5

0

Clouds

RA offset, and cloudy, but we were able to make it work and get some good data.

Tom Rutherford

ETSU

None

CCD

5

0

No problems to report

No issues except that the scope is mispointing. The target is just out of the field of view (by a little over half a field) to the east so scope is pointing too far west by 7-8 arc minutes. Checked the system clock and it seems to be behind by about 1 minute, 20 seconds so perhaps it is a time issue and not a pointing issue.

Yong Sheng

Clemson University

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

10

1

Connection Issues

During start of the night, the remote connection experienced persistent connectivity issues. The Radmin suffered frequent disconnections, accompanied by significant latency. I couldn't take any flats due to this connection issue.

Tom Rutherford

ETSU

None

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

When I first logged in, the telescope was at the western pointing limit, as if the previous observer had not parked it before closing up. Telescope returned to zenith without issue. No problems the rest of the night. Exoplanets were the target for the night.