SARA 

Priya Gokuldass

None

CCD

2

3

Clouds

ULGRB host galaxies observation. Was cloudy at the beginning.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

8

Clouds

Clouds all night

Martha A. Leake

Tools class of 10 for 2 h, then none

Arc Camera

6

3

Connection Issues

Asteroid photometry after class. Unable to access the camera computer. Help from Todd, Ken and Yong Sheng (and Bill). Todd power cycled the camera computer and it responded to radmin. I activated connector client and the telescope PC was able to send images to the camera PC. No problems after that. Thank you to all.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Merging galaxies, LMC H II regions. Focus 128500, guider focus 8900. Reset guider parameters.

Scott Joffre

Hartmann

CCD

4

null

Software/Control PC Issues

Had tracking/slewing issues - after 1-2 300s observations. Would slew away and slew back, correcting for only a short time. May also have had some focus issues in conjunction, became difficult to correct for both.

Ken Rumstay

Apollo the cat

Andor camera

9

0

No problems to report

AGN observations. Telescope tracking very good. Telescope tends to point north of target by varying amounts (depending on declination) after slewing.

jim webb

none

ccd

4

0

No problems to report

Blazars monitoring, Stars of Star Trek, tarantula nebula

Isaiah Cox

Yong Sheng, Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Clemson blazar study

Priya Gokuldass

None

CCD

8.3

0

No problems to report

ultra long GRB host galaxy observation.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

8

0

No problems to report

Clemson blazar study.

Priya Gokuldass

None

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

ultra long GRB host galaxy observation. Had initial connection issues for few minutes.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD #2

7

2

Equipment Failure

LMC str-forming regions. Focus 127000, guide focus 8900. Drive shut down once near 0H -70. Had several connection interruptions (possibly local), decided to shut down after recovering from one 30m before twilight for safety.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD #2

8

0

No problems to report

Calm midsummer night. Merging galaxies outside Legacy Survey coverage. Focus 127600, guider focus 9330. One incidence of guider running away to SW, near 3h30 E -26. Internal stray light still present. CCD computer still accessible only via RAdmin, so using Mac I had to connect to telescope computer with VNC and the use RAdmin from there.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor griz

9

0

No problems to report

Clemson blazar study

Isaiah Cox

Yong Sheng, Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Blazars

Van Hamme

Samec

CCD

10

1

Equipment Failure

Observations of Eclipsing Interactive Binaries. WISE042533.6., TYC6462 195 1.

Van Hamme

Samec

CCD

11

0

No problems to report

Observations of Eclipsing Interactive Binaries. WISE042533.6., TYC6462 195 1.

Martha Leake

none

New Intel NUCExposure start failed

0

7

Equipment Failure

Asteroid light curve. New equipment just installed and I was unable to have a complete readout and reset without the message "Exposure start failed." Next exposure prevented, countdown of remaining seconds not running. Closing and Opening the Operating menu id not solve the problem. Also, was unable to save images and unclear about latest image storage drive (D, Z, or "image storage (\\ISP address)). No files showed up, binning uncertain. Cause could lie in guider menu or connection of other CCD on menu. Seemed that de-interlace choice changed. Peter left message for help to which I replied. Closed down, never opened.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Standard Stars, Exoplanet

Laina Tallman Bogusta

N/A

N/A

11

0

No problems to report

Super clear night. Got some solid data. Everything was working properly although when I tried to about an exposure, the telescope computer seemed to freeze? I was done anyways so I logged out and logged back into the system and closed everything up. Great night.

Jacob R. Romeo

Dr. Stephen Gillan

ANDOR

9

0

No problems to report

Observations went smooth for the imaging of star HD45698 (a field roAp), I hit abort on accident in the beginning so had to cycle everything, besides that nothing to complain about! Got 1300 exposures, 20 seconds each, at a median of 1.2 Mil counts for Intensity and 20k for Source. No cloud coverage with an average humidity of 40% and 1 mph winds! Beautiful night.

Scott Joffre

Yong Sheng, D. Hartmann

CT

9.5

0.5

Equipment Failure

Clemson University Blazar observation program Issue with auto-tracking failing to be calibrated correctly after a few runs. Seems to correct if point away to a different location and then point back.

Ken Rumstay

Apollo the cat

Andor CCD

9.5

0

No problems to report

AGN observations. As noted previously, the telescope points 1-2 arcminutes north of target after slewing.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

10

Other

Unable to observe due to inflexible class and laboratory duties; night put up on sara-tech at the last minute and there were no takers.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

10

Other

Forgot about the night despite having this on my calendar.. I'm embarrassed. Sorry.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD #2

7.5

0

No problems to report

Artemis, Didymos, SMC, search for NEA Scout. Focus 128500. Guider didn't have enough authority in some parts of sky.

Martha A. Leake

none

ARC

null

0

No problems to report

Asteroid photometry for light curves. Weather was great.

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

8.5

0

No problems to report

Galaxies. Focus 127500, guide focus 1000.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Exoplanet

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor griz

6

4

Clouds

There were a lot of clouds for the first half of the night. I also noticed that there was an out-of-focus problem.

Tomomi Otani

None

CCD

7

1

Clouds

Photometry time series. Everything was working well.

VanHamme

Samec

photometer

10

0

No problems to report

Observations of interacting binaries. Wise042533.0 Samec

Tomomi Otani

Erin Abraham, Adrian Moraga

CCD

5

0

No problems to report

Public Outreach. Great night with no problem.

William Keel

Class

Andor CCD #2

9

0

No problems to report

Class demo, galaxies. Focus 126600, guide focus 1000. Guiding had apparent hysteresis (did not keep up with drifts), or gave sawtooth pattern in RA, in some parts of the sky.

William Keel

AY20 class

Andor CCD #2

8

0

No problems to report

Class demo, star clusters, galaxies, nebulae. Focus 125700 (changed around the sky), guider focus +1000.

Matt Wood

NA

CCD

0

12

Software/Control PC Issues

Connection Client not working on SARA CAM. Without this, time of exposure start is not written to FITS header, so I can't use the data for time series. I will email sara-tech to see if anybody needs imaging data and doesn't care about time precision.

Matt Wood

None

CCD

0

12

Software/Control PC Issues

Time series photometry of intermediate polars. First time on CTIO in a long time. Got things going with a little help from Brian and Kurtis and Todd. DS9 was not displaying images, but I managed. At about 06:00 UT I realized that the exposure start time was not being written to FITS headers, so data are basically useless. The Connector Client is not working on Camera computer. It will not start - crashes every time. I restarted the computer and that did not help. I did a reboot from the PDU, and that did not help. Tried again, and now I can't even get SARACAM back in VNC. So I'm shutting down for the night. It was a beautiful night with reported sub-arcsecond seeing. It would be helpful to have instructions on how to get things going again on the desktop or website. Nowhere could I find the instructions for how to restart everything from scratch. Such a document would be useful to have on the desktop. Why is "other observers" a required field of this form? (yes, I'm grumpy).

Kyle Pellegrin

N/A

CCD

3.5

0

No problems to report

Good conditions at the observatory.

Lilyanne Pepe, Jacob Romeo

Stephen Gillam

ARK

0

3.5

Connection Issues

Camera GUI would not connect, tried restarting NODE service multiple times , restarted both computers, recycled ARK camera power and camera computer and eventually lost VPN connection to the camera computer in the process. roAp research

Martha Leake

none

Andor

10.5

0

No problems to report

Great weather and conditions; all equipment worked. Pointing a bit north of center as Ken noted.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

9

0

No problems to report

asteroid photometry

Lilyanne Pepe, Divyeshwari Vansadia

Steve Gillam

ARC Camera

8.5

0

No problems to report

The telescope computer was a little slow starting up, but after the first 30 minutes, there were no issues. Weather was fantastic and collected lots of data! roAp research team

Gary Henson

none

Andor CCD

6.5

0

No problems to report

Asteroid light curve, no problems all systems working fine.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

6

0

No problems to report

Exoplanet.

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

8.5

1.5

No problems to report

photometric monitoring of WD binaries. Bright moon, thin clouds and poor seeing early on. Took the night from someone else (thanks Ted) late in the day and had a few already scheduled things that kept me from using a few hours of the night.

Priya Gokuldass

None

CCD

2

3

Connection Issues

Ultra long GRB host galaxy observation. The air mass was high during the initial hours of observation and high level clouds. The connection to the computers got disconnected for few minutes while observing.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD #2

7

0

No problems to report

Galaxies, Didymos dust trails. Focus 126300. At one point telescope control system crashed but left a frozen window, confusing me mightily until I sent CTL-ALT-DEL from VNC and made everything refresh. At one point near 4h W -77, guider could not keep up with NS daifts (or didn't have the control authority against backlash to do so?)

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

11

0

No problems to report

Blazar study at Clemson University

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

3

7

Clouds

Photometric monitoring of hot WDs. Clouds most of the night.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

6

3

Clouds

cery cloudy at beginning of the night, but it cleared up late

Ken Rumstay

Apollo the cat

CCD camera

10

0

No problems to report

AGN monitoring program Telescope points north of target after slewing, by as much as three arcminutes (amount varies with hour angle).

James Webb

none

CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

Blazar Microvariability and star of Star Trek Informed telescope was down , but later on after too late it became available. Could not at that time log in to use it. Should be good now.

Steve Gillam

Lilyanna Pepe, Jacob Romeo, Laina Talman-Bogusta

Andor Camera

0

7

Equipment Failure

rOAp stars. At the beggining of the night, I could not connect to Telescope computer. I power-cycled it. And it is now working and I can access the TCS. I cannot connect to the Andor camera. I to connect to the guider camera. This failed. I then tried stopping and starting the camera ACE node service. Didn’t fix the connection to the camera. I then tried closing and reselecting the main camera service. The ACE connector client failed. This likely indicates that it cannot connect to the camera. This probably requires a restart of the camera and a full ACE services restart. The failed guide cam together with this failure suggests something systemic is wrong. I power-cycled the camera. This did not restore the connection to the ACE connector client. I then tried to power-cycle the camera computer because the broken ACE connector client remained that way, even after stopping and starting the ACE node service. It appears that the camera computer would not reboot completely as I cannot connect to it.

Priya Gokuldass

None

CCD

0

5

Equipment Failure

Telescope (camera) is not operational at the moment.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

11

Equipment Failure

CCD still kaputt

Priya Gokuldass

None

CCD

0

5

Equipment Failure

Telescope (camera) is not operational at the moment.

Ross Silver

Dieter Hartmann

CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

Telescope is not operational at the moment.

James Webb

Jonathon Barata

CCD

0

8

Connection Issues

Stars f Star Trek, blazar microvariability My home computer with VPM wouldn't connect, it is old and fickle. Couldn't log in. I wasn't sure of the other problems at CTIO were fixed anyway.

Martha Leake

none

Andor

0

11

Equipment Failure

No camera at present. From Todd on Friday "Fault in camera connection at SARA-CT, ...part being shipped...estimated several days to a week" (paraphrased). No observing tonight. (Weather was also turning cloudy later.)

Ross Silver

Dieter Hartmann

CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

I could not observe due to issues with the telescope.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

0

12

Equipment Failure

The Andor camera and the QSI camera are not working

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

8

Equipment Failure

M31. CCD would not download images so restarted everything-- telescope limit warnings began flashing when everything came back up, even though no commands had been sent to the telescope.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

7

0

Other

Autofocuser would not operate correctly-- everything else worked well.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

5

Equipment Failure

Camera would not download images. Cloudy all night so it ended up not being a a usable night anyway.

Alex

Dieter

CCD

0

10

Humidity

Clemson Blazar Photo-z measurement program. High humidity and clouds so did not observe

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD #2

11.5

0

No problems to report

Transient night - a quilt of asteroids, a comet, supernovae, planets, and the odd filler galaxy. CCD computer sometimes had such poor connection that VNC went down to "low" screen quality, although Dropbox uploads from it stayed very fast. Focus 125000, guider focus 0. Guiding in some parts of the sky acted as if it had little control authority.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

10

1

Clouds

High Cirrus and rather poor seeing, but no technical problems to report. Asteroid photometry

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

8

3

Clouds

intermittent clouds, not sure how good data will be. Else no problems to report

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

14

Snow

Observatory closed due to snowstorm and subsequent power failure

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

14

Snow

Observatory closed due to snowstorm and subsequent power failure

Priya Gokuldass

None

CCD

0

5

Snow

Didn't observe due to the snow storm on Friday night and power failure.

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD

0

10

Snow

Unable to observe as a result of Friday's snowstorm.

William Keel

public event

Andor CCD #2

4

0

No problems to report

Public program: NGC 3132, JWST, Focus 12580.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

CT griz

1

11

Humidity

Program: Clemson University blazar study Problems: the humidity > 80%. Can't observe at all. But I took bias and darks since they can be done with dome closed

Kent Montgomery

Mamosa Mohoto

CCD

0

8

Clouds

Asteroid Photometry

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD #2

5

7

Clouds

Galaxies, comet. Increasing cirrus wiped out later part of the night. Focus 126700. Connection was slow, but Dropbox uploads from the CCD computer were extraordinarily slow (especially when trying to do multiple files - makes me wonder about a browser version issue). I could usually only get a single file at a time uploaded without a timeout.

Robert Berrington

none

arc

12

0

No problems to report

Short period variable stars.

Núria Torres-Albà

Dieter Hartmann

SARA CT

11

0

No problems to report

Clemson University high-z blazar observations. No problems to report.

Kent Montgomery

Mamosa Mohoto

CCD

7

1

Equipment Failure

For the second night in a row the declination limit came on at the beginning of the night so the telescope would not slew in declination. The problem was resolved by a text to Todd and someone from ACE logging in to override it. This needs to be fixed whether mechanical or software related because I expect it will continue to happen every night.

Kent Montgomery

Mamosa Mohoto

CCD

7.5

1.5

Software/Control PC Issues

At the beginning of the night the telescope wouldn't slew in declination. The north limit had been triggered even though the telescope was at a declination of -3 degrees. After a call to Todd, Brian got on and overrode the limit switch so we could observe the rest of the night. Thanks to both of them.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

11

Clouds

clouds, never opened

Martha Leake

none

Andor

6

6

Clouds

Asteroids and galaxy. Connection problem with SARA telescope solved by Todd (thank you). Completed biases and darks while waiting for cirrostratus clouds and began at 11 pm. Filter menu is touchy, but I believe it is correct. Moving to stow position was slow at the lock stage. Vicuna forecast "soggier" than conditions at CTIO.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

11

Clouds

clouds, never opened

Alex

Dieter

Andor CCD

0

11

Humidity

Clemson Blazar Photo-z measurement program. Bad weather. Humidity, clouds, and snow throughout the night

Robert Berrington

none

arc

2

10

Clouds

Short Period variable star program. Lost several hours due to clouds.

Robert Berrington

none

arc

0

12

Clouds

Short period variable stars. Lost evening due to high clouds.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

3

7

Clouds

Asteroids.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Asteroid, Novae

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

1

10

Clouds

Asteroid. No mechanical issues, but clouds the whole night so no data.

Xianming Han

Josh Wanninger

CCD

9

2.5

Clouds

eclipsing binary

Xianming Han

Josh Wanninger

CCD

11

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binary

Xianming Han

Josh Wanninger

CCD

11

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binary

Xianming Han

Josh Wanninger

CCD

10

0.5

Equipment Failure

telescope could not slew properly. ACE helped found a temporary fix.

Stephen Levine

N/A

Andor Camera

0

10

Equipment Failure

Outer Solar System astrometry program. Telescope locked a Dec limit on first slew. I thought it was reasonably above the nominal pointing limits, but apparently not. I would have expected a possible E limit, if anything. Once the Dec limit was set, it would not unset. The telescope was mobile in E/W, but no N/S motion. Dec is at about -00:12. If you bring up the hand paddle and try a manual move, the direction of the button push changes the Dec limit to that direction (ie, push S button, the read back registers Dec Limit S). Closed up.

Otani

Julia Clark, Adrian Moraga

Andor CCD

6

4

Software/Control PC Issues

Student observation. Photometry time series. The telescope control panel showed the DEC reached both the N and S limit and stopped slewing. The touch panel did not work. We rebooted the ACE and rebooted the telescope PC. When I had the similar issue before, I was suggested to move the telescope to -4h and -89 degrees, then move it over to +4 and -75 degrees. We tried that too but nothing worked, so we ended the observation.

Otani

Adrian Moraga, Julia Clark

CCD

9

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Hot subdwarf photometry time series. CCD camera disconnected once. The regular procedure fixed the issue.

Yong Sheng

Scott Joffre, Dieter Hartmann

CT griz

1

9

Clouds

Too cloudy. Only took bias and darks.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Noticed that I forgot to send a report for this night, sorry

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

11

Clouds

clouds, never opened

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

10

0

No problems to report

PN central stars

Xianming Han

Josh Wanninger

CCD

9

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binary

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD camera

11

0

No problems to report

AGN photometry. Increasing clouds towards dawn.

James Webb

none

CCD

0

10

Other

Observing Star Trek stars in southern hemisphere and blazar microvariability. Computer with VPN wouldn't boot so I couldn't log onto the telescope. Put the night up for grabs but don't think anyone took it.

Gary Henson

Rutherford

Andor CCD

7.5

0

No problems to report

Asteroid Light Curve At end of run, with telescope at ~35 deg altitude to NW, oscillation in Dec tracking occurred. Turned tracking off/back on and was stable after that until target down to ~30 deg in altitude.

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD camera

1

10

Clouds

Complete cloud cover at start of night. Observed MCG 06-30-15 during a partial opening*, then closed dome when clouds rolled in again. *I'm n ot confident the images are usable.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Asteroid.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Asteroid. No problems.

Nayra Rodriguez Eugenio

Irene Puerto

Andor CCD

5

0

No problems to report

Crater timings during lunar eclipse

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Asteroid. No problems.

Ross Silver

Dieter, Yong

CCD

10

1

Clouds

Observing photometric redshift of blazars

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

11

Clouds

Clouds --never opened

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.

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.

Watanabe

N.Rimbert

CCD

6

0

No problems to report

Blazars

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.

Stephen Levine

N/A

Andor Camera

5

0

No problems to report

Outer solar system astrometry.

Stephen Levine

N/A

Andor camera

5

0

No problems to report

Outer solar system astrometry.

Stephen Levine

N/A

Andor Camera

5

0

No problems to report

Outer solar system astrometry.

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.

Ted von Hippel

Alondra Valentin-Torres, Ryan Bowen

imaging

8

0

No problems to report

student projects

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Judi Provencal

DAS

Andor

6

0

No problems to report

Observed multiple open clusters and nebulae for DAS members.

Todd Hillwig

None.

Andor CCD

0

10

Software/Control PC Issues

Camera computer non-responsive. Difficulty contacting telops. They should be on it today.

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.

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.

Xianming Han

none

CCD

9

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binary

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

James Webb

Observational astronomy class

CCD

3

6

Clouds

Class project. Took VRI images of the Tarantula nebula for color combining.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

6

0

No problems to report

Asteroid. No problems.

Stephen Levine

None

Andor Camera

9

0

No problems to report

Outer solar system small body occultation.

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.

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.

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.

Ross Silver

Dieter, Yong

CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Photometric redshift of blazars.

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.

Zorayda Martinez

Kurtis Williams

Andor

7

0

No problems to report

White dwarf photometry, focus: 129999

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.

Robert Berrington

none

Arc

11

0

No problems to report

short period variable stars.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

9

0

No problems to report

no problems to report

Núria Torres-Albà

Yong Sheng, Scott Joffre

SARA CT

8

0

No problems to report

Clemson University observations of high-z blazars

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD #2

10

0

No problems to report

Galaxies in H-alpha, merging systems. Focus 127200, guide focus 8500.

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).

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.

Ted von Hippel

none

imaging

0

0

No problems to report

Tried to give away this half night but there were no takers.

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.

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.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

got night from Jim Webb, no problems to report

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.

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

Ted von Hippel

Alondra Valentin-Torres

imaging

3.5

0

No problems to report

SMC observations for student project.

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

Keefe Kamp

None

CCD

0

0

No problems to report

Due to a mistake in scheduling, we missed the night no observing occurred.

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.

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.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

6.5

2

Clouds

asteroids

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.

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.

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.

Stephen Gillam

Alondra Valentin-Torres (ERAU)

Andor camera

11

0

No problems to report

ROAp stars.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Alex McDaniel

Dieter

Andor CCD

5

4

Clouds

Clemson blazer redshift study. Had some clouds for about half the night after midnight, otherwise ok.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

CT griz

9

0

No problems to report

Clemson blazer redshift study. The night went well, no problem to report.

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.

Van Hamme, Walter

Samec

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Observations of GSC 7093 0006 and 75170134.

Van Hamme, Walter

Samec

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Observations of GSC 7093 0006 and 75170134.

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.

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD #2

8

0

No problems to report

Merging galaxies, 30 Dor, JWST

William Keel

1 cat

Andor CCD #2

0

8

Clouds

Cloudy

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD #2

3

0

No problems to report

Following JWST outbound.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

CT-griz

9

0

No problems to report

The night went smoothly, weather is good and no issue happens.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

4

0

No problems to report

Standard stars.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Exoplanet.

Van Hamme

Samec

CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Observing and analysis of Light Curves of GSC75170234.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Exoplanet.

Ross Silver

Scott, Dieter

CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Photometric redshift of blazars.

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.

Nuria Torres-Albà

Scott, Dieter

SARA CT

7

0

No problems to report

Clemson University observations of high-z blazars No problems to report

William Keel

AY203 coass

Andor CCD #2

8

0

No problems to report

Galaxies and H II regions. Focus 127200, guider focus 0.

Tom Rutherford

Gary Henson

CCD

6

0

No problems to report

Asteroid light curve.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Exoplanet transit.

Todd Hillwig

None.

Andor CCD

8

0

No problems to report

PN central star monitoring.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

6

0

No problems to report

Standard Stars.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Exoplanet. No issues.

Priya Gokuldass

Kamp

ccd

2

8

Clouds

TESS follow up observations. No new issues to report.

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).

Ross Silver

Dieter, Yong, Isaiah

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Obtaining photometric redshift of blazars.

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.

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.