SARA
The Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy
Date | Name | Other Observers | Instrument | Hours Observed | Hours Lost | Reason | Observing Program |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
05/16/2022 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid. No problems. |
05/15/2022 | Nayra Rodriguez Eugenio | Irene Puerto | Andor CCD | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | Crater timings during lunar eclipse |
05/14/2022 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid. No problems. |
05/12/2022 | Ross Silver | Dieter, Yong | CCD | 10 | 1 | Clouds | Observing photometric redshift of blazars |
05/07/2022 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Clouds --never opened |
05/06/2022 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | CCD | null | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of interacting eclipsing binaries, ASASSN-V J113943.95-611732.1 and GSC 5149.2845. |
05/04/2022 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 10.5 | 0.5 | Software/Control PC Issues | There seems to be a light on in the dome. I do not know where to switch it off.
The image -D-drive on the camera PC is full. I did not receive a warning it just wrote empty files to disk. They of course displayed normally in DS9 and it took me a while to notice the problem. I was able to clear some old files from a colleague. |
05/03/2022 | Watanabe | N.Rimbert | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Blazars |
05/02/2022 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 9.5 | 0 | Software/Control PC Issues | AGN, SN, nebulae. Guider corrections were not being received by telescope control (numbers appear on CCD computer but all zeros on telescope computer). Focus 126300, guider focus 9000. |
04/26/2022 | Stephen Levine | N/A | Andor Camera | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | Outer solar system astrometry. |
04/27/2022 | Stephen Levine | N/A | Andor camera | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | Outer solar system astrometry. |
04/25/2022 | Stephen Levine | N/A | Andor Camera | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | Outer solar system astrometry. |
04/22/2022 | Todd Hillwig | None | Andor CCD | 10 | 0 | Other | A lot of E-W telescope motion/drifting throughout the night. Also one case of large N-S oscillations for about 20 minutes at Azimuth 77 degrees and Altitude 48 degrees. Also, the guider was not sending corrections to the telescope. |
04/17/2022 | Ted von Hippel | Alondra Valentin-Torres, Ryan Bowen | imaging | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | student projects |
04/21/2022 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | CT griz | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson University blazar study.
The night went pretty smoothly, no issue to report |
04/13/2022 | Todd Hillwig | None. | Andor CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Student Projects for the first half of the night, PN central star observations the second half. |
04/10/2022 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 11 | Equipment Failure | Asteroid. When I first logged on, the CCD camera would not respond to commands-- actually, it would appear that it was working, but not actually take any images. After four restarts of the CCD computer it begin operating correctly. I restarted the telescope computer along-side the CCD computer and when it came back up, many of the control windows were blank. Several restarts later, the controls were all back and everything except one thing appeared to function-- that one thing was the telescope pointing. The telescope would accept commands to slew to a particular area, but would not actually slew to the new location-- it stayed where it was, with "slewing" never disappearing from the control window. The hand paddle would not move the telescope either. Several more restarts had no effect so I closed up. |
04/08/2022 | Van Hamme | Samec | CCD | 11 | 1 | Equipment Failure | Drive problems on first start up. ACE rapidly fixed them. 625 observations on 2 interacting binaries. Beautiful night. No airmass issues. |
04/08/2022 | Van Hamme | Samec | CCD | 12 | null | Equipment Failure | Drive problems fixed rapidly by ACE. All went well afterwards, some 634 observations of 2 interacting binaries. No airmass problems. |
04/07/2022 | Ken Rumstay | None | CCD | 5 | 2 | Connection Issues | Was observing from home; my Internet connection failed just before sunset at CTIO. Relocated to the university and resumed observing.
All worked fine until about 12:30 am EDT. While slewing to a target the N and W limits turned red, even though the telescope was east of the meridian. I was able to close the mirror covers and the dome, but could not budge the telescope. Restarting ACE and the telescope computer did not help.
I've informed Peter Mack and Brian Blondell of the problem. |
04/05/2022 | Judi Provencal | DAS | Andor | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Observed multiple open clusters and nebulae for DAS members. |
04/04/2022 | Todd Hillwig | None. | Andor CCD | 0 | 10 | Software/Control PC Issues | Camera computer non-responsive. Difficulty contacting telops. They should be on it today. |
04/03/2022 | Stephen Gillam | Leila Alamos, Lilyanne Pepe | Andor Camera | 0 | 10 | Equipment Failure | ROAp stars.
The camera computer remained incommunicado. So, we finished up at 8:30 pm. |
04/02/2022 | Stephen Gillam | Leila Alamos, Kiara Richardson | Andor Camera | 2 | 8 | Software/Control PC Issues | ROAp stars.
Around midnight, the camera stopped working. We restarted the ACE node service seven times. The camera remained inoperable. Then, the TCS reported that the encoder had failed. We completed the procedure to reset the DIO96 board (Shutting down the Tele. computer and power-cycling the tele computer and ACE control cabinet.) The camera was still not connecting. We then tried to power cycle the camera and the camera computer. using the APC switch rack. The camera computer did not come up again. We were unable to connect to it. |
03/25/2022 | Xianming Han | none | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary |
03/31/2022 | Priya Gokuldass | Kamp | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Be stars, Multiplicity survey and TESS follow-up. We had no problem during the hours of observation. |
03/25/2022 | Walter Van Hamme | sAMEC | ccd | 0 | 10 | Connection Issues | Inability to connect since Win10 computers cannot connect to CTIO through VPN at present. We gave time tonight to another observer. |
03/24/2022 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Merging galaxies. Focus 128300, guider focus 9000. Found telescope in afternoon at west limit 4h49W -15, Backed out with soft paddle. Also indicator said lower dome shutter was open. |
03/22/2022 | Keefe Kamp | Gokuldass, Fowler, Murphy, Magalon | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Be star observations. The only problem to report was it seemed the RA lock took a while to lock when parking the telescope at the end of the night. |
03/22/2022 | Nayra Rodríguez | none | ARC CCD | 3 | 0 | No problems to report | Student research project on NEO follow-up, 2nd half night (started at 7:00 UT) |
03/16/2022 | James Webb | Observational astronomy class | CCD | 3 | 6 | Clouds | Class project. Took VRI images of the Tarantula nebula for color combining. |
03/15/2022 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid. No problems. |
03/14/2022 | Stephen Levine | None | Andor Camera | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Outer solar system small body occultation. |
03/08/2022 | Todd Hillwig | None. | Andor CCD | 4 | 0 | No problems to report | The night's observers had to call off at the last minute. Used the second half of the night while also observing at SARA-KP. |
03/07/2022 | Todd Hillwig | None. | Andor CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | PN central stars. Some occasional pointing issues. As is typical, when this happens the telescope sets about 10 arcmin too far north. |
03/08/2022 | Ted von Hippel | none | unused | 0 | 0 | Other | Student observer became sick. I offered to give away SARA-CT night only a few hours before it started (unfortunately) and there were no takers. |
03/06/2022 | Ross Silver | Dieter, Yong | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Photometric redshift of blazars. |
03/05/2022 | Ted von Hippel | Alondra Valentin-Torres | imaging | 2 | 2 | Equipment Failure | Camera was inoperable and rebooting it didn't help. I put out a request for help to SARA-Tech and heard back from Kurtis Williams (thanks!) with a suggestion to reboot the computers. Either he or an anonymous elf logged in and fixed the camera problem (though not by rebooting the computers), though I don't know what the solution was. |
03/04/2022 | Zorayda Martinez | Kurtis Williams | Andor | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | White dwarf photometry, focus: 129999 |
03/03/2022 | Kurtis Williams | none | Andor | 9 | 0.5 | Other | White dwarf time series photometry. T=15C, focus=129500 at start of night with sudden change of -1500 in late morning. Seeing was mediocre at start of night (2" across mountain) but improved to 1" after local midnight. Used guider, with generally very good results. Target was at Dec=-10; at HA=-1:30 the telescope moved south by about 1 arcmin over 5 minutes - this motion was too fast for the guider to compensate, and the ACE RA/Dec readout did not register any change in position. At RA=+2h, the reverse happened - telescope moved north by about 1' over 5 minutes without the positional readout changing - lost about 15 minutes each time futzing about, resetting guiding, etc. |
02/28/2022 | Robert Berrington | none | Arc | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | short period variable stars. |
02/27/2022 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | no problems to report |
02/26/2022 | Núria Torres-Albà | Yong Sheng, Scott Joffre | SARA CT | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson University observations of high-z blazars |
02/25/2022 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Galaxies in H-alpha, merging systems. Focus 127200, guide focus 8500. |
02/24/2022 | Priya Gokul dass | Fowler, Malign | CCD | 8.5 | 3 | No problems to report | TESS Follow Up of High Proper Motion Stars. I filter had weird brightness to it (like clouds but the sky was clear). |
02/21/2022 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 8.7 | 0 | No problems to report | Galaxies in H-alpha, merging galaxies, 30 Dor. Focus 127500, guider focus 8500. At dec +10, had recurrence of problem where telescope bobs N-S faster than guider could keep up. Shortly afterward, far to SE, focus shifted within a couple of minutes by 1500 units. |
02/15/2022 | Ted von Hippel | none | imaging | 0 | 0 | No problems to report | Tried to give away this half night but there were no takers. |
02/14/2022 | Kurtis Williams | none | Andor | 4.5 | 1 | Other | Time series photometry. Seeing was poor, 3+ arcsec despite clear skies, low wind, and good seeing reported from summit. Lost about 1 hour fiddling with focus and filters trying to see if the seeing was instrumental (it wasn't). Gave up as midnight CDT approached and I decided sleep would be more useful than the data I was collecting. |
02/13/2022 | Ross Silver | Dieter Hartmann | CCD | 8 | 0.5 | Equipment Failure | Photometric redshift of blazars.
Telescope stopped tracking for a little bit. Was able to reset and get it working again after losing about 30 minutes of observing time. |
02/12/2022 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | got night from Jim Webb, no problems to report |
02/10/2022 | Todd Hillwig | None | Andor CCD | 5 | 0 | Other | Taught an evening lab, so lost the first half of the night. The guider stopped working properly about an hour in. The guide star was in the middle of the field, but showed very large x and y corrections, so would wander to the edge of the guide box and bounce around there. Not sure what was wrong. I didn't hit Calibrate, but that seems like it may be the most likely cause. |
02/05/2022 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | only minor issue was the second filter wheel seemed to not move to the expected position twice -looked like fingers getting into the images. Hit the Init Filter Wheel button, seemed to fix the issue |
02/07/2022 | Ted von Hippel | Alondra Valentin-Torres | imaging | 3.5 | 0 | No problems to report | SMC observations for student project. |
02/06/2022 | Keefe Kamp | Gokuldass,Fowler, VanPutten | CCD | 10.5 | 0 | No problems to report | TESS Follow Up of High Proper Motion Stars. No problems to report. NOTE: Report by me with date 07 Feb has incorrect date should be for 08 Jan |
01/08/2022 | Keefe Kamp | None | CCD | 0 | 0 | No problems to report | Due to a mistake in scheduling, we missed the night no observing occurred. |
02/04/2022 | Martha Leake | none | Andor | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroids. Remembered to check Autosave. Good night. Adjusted to objects slightly below and right of center. Seeing good but best focus produced stars 2.5 arcsec or larger. |
02/02/2022 | Todd Hillwig | None | Andor CCD | 9 | 0 | Other | There was a jump in best focus values during the night. I could not tell if the best focus actually changed significantly in a short time (unlikely since the temperature changed slowly and steadily), if the focus encoder value changed, or some other issue. |
02/01/2022 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 6.5 | 2 | Clouds | asteroids |
01/31/2022 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 7.5 | 1 | Clouds | Galaxy mergers, 30 Dor. Tape installed by TELOPS did NOT eliminate stray-light problem. Focus 129400, guider focus 10500. Seeing improved dramatically during the night. Iimage quality (and shape) at best focus varied noticeably with position. |
01/27/2022 | Ken Rumstay | None | CCD camera | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | AGN monitoring program. The telescope slews to points slightly north (by varying amounts) of target. |
01/24/2022 | Ross Silver | Dieter Hartmann | CCD | 4 | 4 | Equipment Failure | Photometric redshift of blazars.
The telescope stopped tracking objects and would not move to the input coordinates. It moved to some unrecognizable field. After restarting the system, these issues were still present. |
01/21/2022 | Stephen Gillam | Alondra Valentin-Torres (ERAU) | Andor camera | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | ROAp stars. |
01/21/2022 | Ted von Hippel | Alondra Valentin-Torres | imaging | 2 | 0 | No problems to report | Training for student. Used two hours, then passed telescope to Steve Gillam (ERAU) for his work. |
01/17/2022 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | JWST light curve (it's a technosignature). Focus 128500, guider focus 8400. |
01/15/2022 | James Webb | none | CCD | 0 | 10 | Connection Issues | I couldn't go in to observe and my laptop at home doesn't have VNC on it. I tried to give it away, but no takers.
|
01/16/2022 | Todd Hillwig | None. | Andor CCD | 7 | 1.5 | Humidity | PN central star monitoring. Humidity rose at end of night and had to close for the last hour and a half. |
01/10/2022 | Alex McDaniel | Dieter | Andor CCD | 5 | 4 | Clouds | Clemson blazer redshift study. Had some clouds for about half the night after midnight, otherwise ok. |
01/04/2022 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | CT griz | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson blazer redshift study.
The night went well, no problem to report. |
01/03/2022 | William Keel | 2 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Merging galaxies, Comet Leonard, 30 Dor, JWST. Focus 127200, gudie focus 0. After working fine for the last couple of weeks, solar-syste rates acted almost random near 0h, dec=0. Some exposures were at sidereal rates, others wandered in both coordinates. Focus changed a lot at end night; in some parts of the sky best images were still elongated E-W. |
12/29/2021 | Van Hamme, Walter | Samec | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of GSC 7093 0006 and 75170134. |
12/30/2021 | Van Hamme, Walter | Samec | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of GSC 7093 0006 and 75170134. |
12/28/2021 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Merging galaxies, 30 Dor, JWST, comet Leonard. The mirror acts a bit pinched - for the last couple of nights, when in sharpest focus, images are elongated E-W. Focus 127800, guide focus 0. |
12/27/2021 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Merging galaxies, 30 Dor, JWST |
12/26/2021 | William Keel | 1 cat | Andor CCD #2 | 0 | 8 | Clouds | Cloudy |
12/25/2021 | William Keel | 2 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 3 | 0 | No problems to report | Following JWST outbound. |
12/23/2021 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | CT-griz | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | The night went smoothly, weather is good and no issue happens. |
12/22/2021 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 4 | 0 | No problems to report | Standard stars. |
12/20/2021 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet. |
11/28/2021 | Van Hamme | Samec | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Observing and analysis of Light Curves of GSC75170234. |
12/14/2021 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet. |
12/11/2021 | Ross Silver | Scott, Dieter | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Photometric redshift of blazars. |
12/10/2021 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | 30 Dor, merging galaxies. Focus 127000, guide focus 0. Seeing very poor at start of night, and focus shifted a lot later on. |
12/03/2021 | Nuria Torres-Albà | Scott, Dieter | SARA CT | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson University observations of high-z blazars
No problems to report |
12/02/2021 | William Keel | AY203 coass | Andor CCD #2 | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Galaxies and H II regions. Focus 127200, guider focus 0. |
11/29/2021 | Tom Rutherford | Gary Henson | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid light curve. |
11/27/2021 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet transit. |
11/26/2021 | Todd Hillwig | None. | Andor CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | PN central star monitoring. |
11/23/2021 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Standard Stars. |
11/20/2021 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet. No issues. |
11/22/2021 | Priya Gokuldass | Kamp | ccd | 2 | 8 | Clouds | TESS follow up observations. No new issues to report. |
11/21/2021 | Paulina Karczmarek | None | Andor CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Observing program: absolute photometry in Sloan bands for local comparison stars of bright variables (Cepheids, RR Lyrae). |
11/18/2021 | Ross Silver | Dieter, Yong, Isaiah | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Obtaining photometric redshift of blazars. |
11/15/2021 | Paulina Karczmarek | None | Andor CCD | 8 | 0 | Equipment Failure | Observing program: absolute photometry in Sloan bands for local comparison stars of bright variables (Cepheids, RR Lyrae). Dropout shutter would not open entirely and indicated "opening" all the time. I don't know if this is a software problem or actual problem with the shutter engine. |
11/17/2021 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 7 | 0.5 | Software/Control PC Issues | Asteroid Photometry. Lower shutter gave no indication that it was open so I kept it closed (which meant that I could not reach one of my low targets). Could not access the telescope computer when I first logged in, but cycling the APC power rack brought it back up. All worked fine after that. |
11/16/2021 | Albert, Icarus | none | n/a | 0 | 6 | Connection Issues | Could not connect to telescope camera |
10/30/2021 | Albert, Icarus | Emmett Dalton | Bessel IRVB filters | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | data collection |
11/13/2021 | Gillam | Lilyanne Pepe, Aakash Thiyagarajan | Andor Camera | 11 | 0 | Equipment Failure | telescope control system indicated the dropout door hadn't opened all the way. We operated with that door closed.
rOAp stars |
11/12/2021 | Keefe Kamp | Van Putten, Corcoan | CCD | 7 | 1 | Equipment Failure | Dec and RA limits triggered at login (Cardinal directions displayed in limit boxes). Had to have Peter fix it. Dropout would not detect open however would be open. Note on notepad discusses how to open. Other than that no other problem occurred. TESS Follow up observations done. |
11/11/2021 | Emmett Dalton | CCD | 1 | 4 | Equipment Failure | Dropout shutter still not opening but was able to take a few images up high above it. | |
11/09/2021 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | CT griz | 9 | 0 | Equipment Failure | There is a problem with the limit switch on the dropout. Brian said that he will send someone to check it out. |
11/02/2021 | Tomomi Otani | Johnathan Hodge | Andor CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Hot Subdwarf photometry observation for time series.
Everything was working well tonight.
|
11/01/2021 | William Keel | 2 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 3 | 5 | Clouds | NGC 1531, dodging clouds. Focus 128300, guider focus 8400. Very poor seeing early in night. |
10/31/2021 | Tomomi Otani | none | Andor CCD | 7 | 0 | Clouds | Hot subdwarf photometry time series. When I slew the telescope, the RA did not move. If I click the "slew" button again, it started moving with no problem. |
10/30/2021 | Tomomi Otani | Johnathan Hodge | Andor CCD | 8 | 2 | Equipment Failure | When we logged into the telescope control screen at the beginning of the night, we saw DEC limit (we saw all "N", "S", "W", "E") and could not slew the telescope. We also could not slew telescope using the pad. However, the airmass was 1.4.
Peter helped me to fixed it. Peter said that it happened due to Loose wire on the telescope, or faulty tilt sensor, or something like that. |
10/29/2021 | Paulina Karczmarek | None | Andor CCD | 7 | 1 | Clouds | Thin clouds for majority of the night, so backup targets observed. Thick clouds in the last 2h of the night hindered observations of even backup targets. |
10/27/2021 | Tomomi Otani | Johnathan Hodge | Andor CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Hot subdwarf photometry observation. No problems to report. |
10/26/2021 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 8 | 1 | Software/Control PC Issues | Standard stars, variable star. No issues other than one I caused by closing the wrong window-- a full restart fixed it. |
10/24/2021 | XIANMING HAN | none | CCD | 7.5 | 0 | Other | eclipsing binary.
The telescope was parked beyond the west limit from previous day, and I could not move it back. Peter from ACE helped moving the telescope back to operation range. The CCD camera was also way out of focus such that no stars were visible initially and got me confused for awhile, but I was able to realize the problem and fixed the focus. |
10/26/2021 | Tomomi Otani | None | Andor CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Hot Subdwarf photometry time series. No problem to report. Focus 129000 (no filter). CCD temperature: -55 C |
10/23/2021 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 6 | 2 | Software/Control PC Issues | Exoplanet. Image downloads were VERY slow (several minutes for each bias frame). Rebooted the CCD computer and it worked after that. The CCD sequence control on the telescope computer failed to work so rebooted the telescope computer as well-- took several tries to get it back up and running. |
10/22/2021 | Todd Hillwig | None | Andor CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Testing new Andor CCD. PN central stars. |
10/21/2021 | Keefe Kamp | Gokuldass, Norton | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | TESS Follow-up Observations. Was able to connect this time with Ubuntu. No new problems to report |
10/20/2021 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet Transit, variable star |
10/19/2021 | Keefe Kamp | Gokuldass, Norton | CCD | 9 | 1 | Software/Control PC Issues | TESS follow-up observations. Could not connect to VPN from Ubuntu but from Mac worked. Ace froze when abort was pressed. Simple closing and reopening ACE fixed it. Weird banding artifact present in observations strongest in B caused low SNR. |
10/18/2021 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | No problems-- all went well. |
10/16/2021 | Gergely Hajdu | Paulina Karczmarek | Andor camera | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Observing program: absolute photometry in Sloan bands for local comparison stars of bright variables (Cepheids, RR Lyrae).
Problems: sometimes offsets as large as RA -60, DEC -150 were necessary to move the fields to the desired position. |
10/16/2021 | Keefe Kamp | Gokuldass | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | TESS Follow up Observations of B stars and High Proper motion stars |
10/14/2021 | William Keel | AY203 class, 2 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Class nebulae, cool galaxies. Seeing very good 2nd half of night. Focus 126300 (1000 higher for [O III\ 5007 filter). Guider focus 9900. Telescope did bob N-S around declinations -10 to -20. |
10/13/2021 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 8 | 2 | Clouds | Clouds started rolling in towards moring. |
10/12/2021 | William Keel | 2 cats, Astro 203 lab class | New Andor CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Class demo nebulae, galaxies in BVR and H-alpha. Focus 125700, 5007 filter focus 1000 smaller. Guide focus 8400. Stray light is still there, with guider in extreme positions as well as center. Some targets took two presses of the GO button to complete a slew. |
10/09/2021 | Carlos Zuluaga | S. Levine | Andor Camera | 3 | 0 | No problems to report | Outer Solar System astrometry. |
10/10/2021 | Ted von Hippel | Giovanni Bacon, Jack Wood | imaging | 4 | 0 | No problems to report | Student observing for a class. They needed only the first 1/2 of the night and when I put out a call for users for the 2nd 1/2 of the night (admittedly with very little notice), there were no takers. |
10/08/2021 | Martha Leake | Logan Spooner | ARC camera | 10.25 | 0 | Other | Student projects, asteroid lightcurves and studies in parallax. Weather generally good. Images occasionally oscillated up and down close to transit. Confused by start time. Some oscillation of tracking errors during multiple exposures. |
10/07/2021 | Ken Rumstay | None | CCD camera | 1 | 9 | Humidity | AGN monitoring program.
Everything worked fine for about an hour, long enough to get bias, flat, and dark images. When slewing to my first target, the telescope stopped, and the TOS indicated that it had reached the S and W limits. It was actually pointed northeast of the zenith.
Peter was able to get the telescope moving again, but by then clouds had rolled in and the humidity climbed to over 80%. I gave up after midnight EDT.
Previous observers reported similar limit issues in August. Observers should note that the problem may recur. |
10/05/2021 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid phptometry |
10/04/2021 | Ken Watanabe | Nicolas RImbert | CCD | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | Stars tend to have triangle shape. Blazars. |
10/02/2021 | Stephen Levine | C. Zuluaga, A. Bosh | Andor Camera | 4 | 0 | No problems to report | Outer solar system astrometry.
No issues.
The Andor camera worked well. |
10/01/2021 | XIANMING HAN | Sera Shaughnessy | CCD | 7 | 3 | Equipment Failure | eclipsing binary and asteroid
Camera computer was not reachable initially. ACE (and possibly others) helped recover the computer. |
09/05/2021 | XIANMING HAN | none | CCD | 4 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary, sharing the night |
09/04/2021 | XIANMING HAN | none | CCD | 4.5 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary, sharing the night |
09/01/2021 | XIANMING HAN | none | CCD | 5 | 5 | Clouds | eclipsing binary |
09/29/2021 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | 24" scope, CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Observations and analysis of eclipsing binaries. |
09/28/2021 | Walter Van Hamme | samec | 24", CCD | 10 | 0 | Clouds | Light curve observations and analysis of GSC75170134. I complete curve single coverage. |
09/27/2021 | Todd Hillwig | None | Andor CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | PN central stars. |
09/26/2021 | Keefe Kamp | Gokuldass | CCD | 6 | 4 | Software/Control PC Issues | B star observations with CCD. Data stopped being saved properly because the disk became full. |
09/25/2021 | Paulina Karczmarek | none | Andor CCD | 10 | 0.5 | Software/Control PC Issues | "Classical Cepheids in the SDSS photometric system". The directory with data is virtually full, and that means that new exposures are not being saved, instead a 1KB file is created with no content. Deletion of a directory with our previously collected data solved the problem for now. |
09/22/2021 | Judi Provencal | none | Andor | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | Imaging for observational astronomy class |
09/21/2021 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid. No issues at all. |
07/20/2021 | Paulina Karczmarek | Gergely Hajdu | Andor CCD | 10 | 0 | Clouds | "Classical Cepheids in the SDSS photometric system", thin clouds the whole night. |
08/25/2021 | Paulina Karczmarek | none | Andor CCD | 10.5 | 0 | No problems to report | "Classical Cepheids in the SDSS photometric system" |
09/17/2021 | Paulina Karczmarek | none | Andor CCD | 5.5 | 4.5 | Clouds | "Classical Cepheids in the SDSS photometric system", clouds starting the middle of the night prevented further observations. |
09/14/2021 | Todd Hillwig | None | Andor CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | PN central stars |
09/13/2021 | Todd Hillwig | None | Andor CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | central stars of planetary nebulae. |
09/12/2021 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 10.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid photometry. Some thin clouds, else no issues. |
09/11/2021 | Martha Leake | Logan Spooner and Cera Purdy | ARC camera | 1 | 8 | Humidity | Asteroid photometry and other objects for Freshman Research Experience. Never opened. Clouds and high humidity issues early on; humidity predicted to persist until morning twilight. CTIO weather page and Clear Outside data mostly agreed: fog, possible snow and frost, humidity over 75% to 90%. Took just biases and darks. |
09/10/2021 | C. Zuluaga | S. Levine | Andor Camera | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Outer solar system astrometry. |
09/02/2021 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 8.5 | 2 | Equipment Failure | Asteroid photometry. The night was clear and the telescope was working great for most of the time. Howver, there were a few of my targets were the telescope would not track. Switched tracking off and on helped a bit for one frame, and then it would streak again. All targets were well above 40 degrees elevation. Moved to a different target and all worked perfectly again. |
08/30/2021 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Galaxies. Telescope oscillated rapidly N-S when north of zenith, even in 1-second exposures. Following an object for long times improved but did not eliminate this. Focus 126800, guider focus 500. |
08/29/2021 | Saida Caballero | Kamp, Malagon | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | B star monitoring |
08/28/2021 | Tanner Norton | Caballero, Van Putten, Gokuldass, Malagon | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Be Binary Survey |
08/27/2021 | Todd Hillwig | None | Andor CCD | 5 | 5 | Clouds | PN central stars. Thin clouds throughout the first half of the night, leading to overcast halfway through. |
08/20/2021 | Núria Torres-Albà | Dieter | SARA CT | 10.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson University Observations of blazars.
No problems to report. |
08/19/2021 | Robert Berrington | none | ARC Camera | 0 | 10 | Clouds | short period variable stars |
08/18/2021 | XIANMING HAN | none | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | none |
08/17/2021 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | griz | 7.5 | 2.5 | Software/Control PC Issues | The telescope was stuck at the RA and Dec limits |
08/15/2021 | XIANMING HAN | none | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | The telescope was stuck at the east limit in addition to clouds. Emailed ACE to report this problem. |
08/11/2021 | XIANMING HAN | none | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binaries, jupiter |
08/10/2021 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid photometry |
08/10/2021 | Steve Gillam | Kiara Richardson & Chloe Nelson | Andor CCD | 13 | 0 | No problems to report | ROAp stars. |
08/08/2021 | Stephen Gillam | None | Andor CCD | 3 | 7 | Humidity | Clouds, humidity, and low temperatures forced closedown.
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08/04/2021 | Stephen Levine | C. Zuluaga, A.Bosh | Andor Camera | 4 | 0 | No problems to report | Preparatory observations for occultation tomorrow. |
08/03/2021 | Ken Rumstay | Max tha cat | CCD camera | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Observed active galaxies. The telescope systematically pointed about three to four arcminutes north of target. About 30-60 minutes east of the meridian (depending upon the declination) the telescope appeared to oscillate in declination, resulting in images severely elongated in the north-south direction. The connection to the CTIO computers was terminated on three occasions during the night as noted by earlier observers), but reconnecting posed no problem. |
08/01/2021 | Martha Leake | none | Andor | 12 | 0.5 | Connection Issues | Asteroid photometry. Some connection issues getting started; used the full reconnection routine (and ace-gui message appeared). Don't forget Autosave. Can't see sky at CTIO because they are possibly disconnected? Two slews needed another "Go" or time to finish. One radmin drop of Sara Telescope. Last observations at altitude 53 to east resulted in trails first tilted right then left, then straighter (N was down, EW horizontal) Pointing good. Maxim timed out and was not used. Seeing about 1"and weather great. |
07/30/2021 | Keefe Kamp | 1 Chinchilla | CCD | 11 | 0 | Connection Issues | Be star observations. Had a problem where VPN kicked me out and wouldn't let me back on. A restart of my machine fixed that. Camera computer also alerted that C: Drive was low on memory. |
07/29/2021 | Alex McDaniel | Dieter | Andor CCD | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | Blazar Photo z measurements. No issues tonight |
07/27/2021 | Alex McDaniel | Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | Blazar Photo z measurements. No issues tonight |
07/18/2021 | Van Hamme | Samec | 24" | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of interacting binaries, V2716 Oph and GSC 7517 0234. Continued Observations. A few clouds at the start only. |
07/17/2021 | Van Hamme | Samec | 24" | null | null | No problems to report | Observations of interacting binaries, V2716 Oph and GSC 7517 0234.
Began Observations. |
07/16/2021 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Telescope computer was unresponsive a couple of times -looked like a lost connection. Only the telescope computer had these issues. Blanco and SOAR webcams stopped updating images around 11:30pm local time. |
07/14/2021 | Harum Ahmed | Kent Montgomery | Andor | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid Photometry
Ended observation due to reaching 30 degrees altitude.
Weather: Clear skies. |
07/13/2021 | Harum Ahmed | Kent Montgomery | Andor | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid Photometry
Weather: Clear skies. |
07/05/2021 | James Webb | None | CCD | 0 | 10 | Connection Issues | My internet flaked out early and never had a chance to observe.
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07/12/2021 | Harum Ahmed | Kent Montgomery | Andor | 9 | 0 | Other | Asteroid Photometry
Problems: The telescope moved North for 3 min at Alt. of 32 degrees, H.A. was -4:46:41 and Azimuth was 126. Had streaks in the image.
Weather: Clear skies. |
07/11/2021 | Harum Ahmed | Kent Montgomery | Andor | 7 | 1 | Other | Asteroid Photometry
Problems: Closed observation due to reaching the limit of 30 degrees altitude.
Weather: Clear with thin clouds. |
07/10/2021 | Stephen Gillam | None | Andor camera | 9 | 1 | Other | rOap stars.
Stormy weather in Daytona Fl. caused internet outage which prevented connection to SARA-CT at the start of the night. |
07/07/2021 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Dead quasar survey, H II regions. Focus 128200 start, 126700 end, guider focus 0. Some equatorial targets took multiple slew commands to get to the right place. |
07/04/2021 | XIANMING HAN | none | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | binaries, Jupiter satellites |
07/06/2021 | Ross Silver | Dieter, Yong | CCD | 0 | 10 | Equipment Failure | Photometric redshift of blazars.
The DEC tracking would not work. We reset the whole system and the tracking but could not get it to work. |
07/03/2021 | Mabel Clausen | Kurtis Williams | Andor | 0 | 9 | Clouds | Thick clouds at the start of the night unlikely to clear.
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07/02/2021 | Mabel Clausen | Harum Ahmed | Andor | 5 | 4 | Clouds | White Dwarf Time Series Photometry
Problem: Telescope moved South for Image 98.
For more details see last nights report was the same.
Weather: Thickening clouds had to close early
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07/01/2021 | Mabel Clausen | Harum Ahmed & Kurtis Williams | Andor | 9 | 0.5 | Equipment Failure | White Dwarf Time Series Photometry
Problem: Near start of night and at end of target run telescope moved north/south over several exposures
HA: -2:51, Az: 84, ALT: 50 Telescope moved south 87 arc sec over 9 min
HA: +3:39, Az: 269, ALT: 39 Telescope moved north 79 arc sec over 15 min
We were not using auto guider
Telescope pointing was steady otherwise
Note: ACE disabled telescope limits: at their request we kept telescope at altitude greater than 30 degrees all night
Weather: High thin Cirrus all night
Seen: 2-3 arc sec
Focus: 12770 |
06/29/2021 | Gergely Hajdu | Paulina Karczmarek | Andor camera | 10 | 2 | Equipment Failure | Observing program: backup program (griz time series of V445 Oph and V Ind), due to thin clouds making the original program unfeasible (absolute photometry of Cepheid comparison stars in the Sloan bands).
There were technical problems on two occasions, first when observing V445 Oph around azimuth ~ 0, the camera FoV would
produce very strange vertical (DEC direction) PSFs while exposing. Sometimes the length of these reached over 300 pixels! This lasted for about an hour, ending around UT03.
Secondly, while observing V Ind, around UT06:50 the telescope got completely stuck. I couldn't move it with giving it movement orders, offsets, or the paddle. The only thing I could do is to close the mirror cover and the dome, to leave the telescope in a safe state.
As this happened near the end of the night, we didn't lose too much time, but I couldn't attempt doing sky flats. |
06/27/2021 | Stephen Gillam | None | Andor Camera | 13 | 0 | No problems to report | R0Ap stars. |
06/21/2021 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | no issues, other than the Full Moon |
06/22/2021 | Gary Henson | Rutherford | Andor CCD | 7 | 2.5 | Clouds | Asteroid 18488 Light Curve
Dec Oscillation at around -1 HA while tracking object. Problem appeared as reported by other observers, went to Zenith park and then back on target with no further occurrences. Band of cirrus clouds after midnight. Seeing and tracking with autoguider excellent most of night. |
06/18/2021 | Tomomi Otani | Andy Baran | Andor CCD | 12 | 0.3 | Software/Control PC Issues | Photometry time series of a hot subdwarf star. Thank you very much, Brian, for adding the decimal points to the observation time of the image header. Everything was good but the telescope started moving to the DEC direction at the Hour Angle ~ +3 hours. This was the same issue that we experienced the last night, so it may repeat again in future. |
06/17/2021 | Otani | Andy Baran | Andor CCD | 12 | 0.5 | Software/Control PC Issues | Photometry time series to check pulsations. The telescope suddenly started moving to the DEC direction (the target's y position moved 2 pixels/image). So I moved the telescope to the zenith and moved it back to the target, then the issue was solved. The camera connection suddenly disappeared while taking images, so I used the regular procedure to reconnect the camera. The header's observation time did not have decimal digit (so we could not obtain less than 1 second accuracy). |
06/17/2021 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 9 | 3 | Clouds | Clouds off and on throughout the night. Heavy cloud cover in the morning. |
06/15/2021 | Kurtis Williams | Mabel Clausen & Harum Ahmed (REU students) | N/A | 0 | 12 | Clouds | A text note was open on the desktop saying that due to testing the telescope limits had been disabled and the telescope should not be used. Was that a one-day affair, or is this ongoing for multiple nights? If the latter, perhaps a note should go out to sara-tech...
(This didn't affect us since clouds were thick and the weather forecast poor) |
06/13/2021 | Stephen Levine | C. Zuluaga, A. Bosh | Andor Camera | 1 | 9 | Equipment Failure | Outer solar system astrometry and Pluto occultation.
When trying to pre-set to the night's occultation field, which was going to be very low and rising, the telescope became stuck in the limits and would not back out. No motions responded from the hand paddle. In the end, we closed things up as it was. |
06/12/2021 | Yong Sheng | None | CT griz | 13 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson Blazar study. |
06/10/2021 | Ken Rumstay | None | CCD camera | 12.5 | 0 | No problems to report | AGN monitoring program. An excellent night, with a dark sky and sub-arcsecond seeing. |
06/09/2021 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD | 7.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Nebulae, galaxies behind dust. Focus=126500, guider focus 9000. |
06/07/2021 | Stephen Levine | C. Zuluaga, A. Bosh | Andor Camera | 2 | 0 | No problems to report | Outer solar system astrometry. |
06/06/2021 | Steve Gillam | None | Andor Camera | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | ROAp stars |
06/01/2021 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 7 | 4 | Equipment Failure | As mantioned in my email to sara-tech, the whole telescope computerACE crashed after a CCD abort. After recovering, the Default DEC Encoder fault kept flashing. Tried to reboot computer etc but nothing got rid of it. I was able to park, close the covers and close the dome shutters -at least it said it did. I have not seen this error before, and I was not able to recover from it. |
05/21/2021 | XIANMING HAN | none | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binaries |
05/20/2021 | XIANMING HAN | none | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | none |
05/19/2021 | XIANMING HAN | none | CCD | 0.25 | 10 | Clouds | eclipsing binary |
05/31/2021 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | Landolt Fields. Open Clusters. No problems at all. |