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SARA
The Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy
Date | Name | Other Observers | Instrument | Hours Observed | Hours Lost | Reason | Observing Program |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
05/18/2025 | Zach Savery | Millie Dill, Kaylee Grace | CCD | 0 | 13 | Clouds | Was cloudy all night, also had a decent chance of rain |
05/16/2025 | Ava Webber | Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD | 7 | 4 | Software/Control PC Issues | The camera did not connect to the telescope as it should have when exposures were initiated. Peter helped fix the problem, and then I was able to observe the rest of the night. |
05/18/2025 | Tali Natan | None | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Trying to get photometry on B star; unable to observe due to dense cloud cover |
05/17/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Cloudy-- never opened. |
05/14/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Clouds-- never opened. |
05/13/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Clouds-- never opened. |
05/12/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 6 | 4 | Clouds | Exoplanet. No issues, but clouds came in just after midnight. Pointing still very good. |
05/10/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanets. An excellent night. Target was almost dead center so the pointing issue seems to have been resolved. |
05/03/2025 | Billy Quarles | None | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | TESS EBs, clear skies, good night |
05/02/2025 | Todd Hillwig | None | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Pointing was good. Some high thin clouds, but all else went well. |
05/01/2025 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid photometry. Time on camera computer within 1sec of actual time. Pointing was good. |
04/28/2025 | Todd Hillwig | None | CCD | 8 | 0 | Other | Telescope pointed about 12 arcminutes East of target. Computer time was correct (to within a second or so, as far as I could tell), so not sure what the cause was. |
04/27/2025 | Robert Berrington | 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). |
04/26/2025 | Martha A. Leake | 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 |
04/25/2025 | Mariel Lares Martiz | 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. |
04/22/2025 | Ken Watanabe | Jacob Kinney, Max Smuda | Andor | 4 | 0 | No problems to report | AGN target 3C 279. No issues. Dome closed and parked at requested position |
04/21/2025 | Kurtis Williams | 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. |
04/20/2025 | Matt Wood | 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). |
04/19/2025 | Matt Wood | NA | CCD | 10 | 2 | Clouds | Time series of CVs. Thanks to Todd for recovery after I had ACE freeze from errant keyboard stroke. |
04/18/2025 | William Keel | 1 cat | Andor CCD #2 | 6 | 5 | Clouds | AGN hosts. Focus 128100. Most targets found after offset +750", -30" from telescope pionting. |
04/17/2025 | Henry C Sanders | 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. |
04/16/2025 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD griz | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson blazar study. The night went well. |
04/14/2025 | Ava Webber | 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 |
04/10/2025 | JamesASC | 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. |
04/09/2025 | Tom Rutherford | 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. |
04/07/2025 | Yong Sheng | 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. |
04/06/2025 | Tom Rutherford | 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. |
04/04/2025 | Billy Quarles | None | Andor | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Observed TESS EBs, clear skies, excellent night. |
04/03/2025 | Ken Rumstay | None | CCD camera | 10.5 | 0 | No problems to report | AGN variability. No problems, save for telescope consistently slewing to a point about ten arcminutes west of target. An excellent night, with sub-arcsecind seeing. |
03/30/2025 | AST 200L | N/A | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Tracker was slightly off. |
03/29/2025 | Kaylee Grace | Tali Natan, Easton Honaker, Zach Savery | CCD | 12 | 0 | Software/Control PC Issues | Imaged a bunch of Messier Objects as part of our Messier Marathon! The sequencer wasn't saving images when we first attempted to use it, but closing and reopening the window seemed to fix it. The biggest issue was that our slewing seemed to always be off by about 2 arcminutes in right ascension, meaning that many of our objects were out of frame when we were supposedly at them. There was also a moment when auto done stopped working, after turning it off and back on all was well again. |
03/28/2025 | William Keel | 1 cat | Andor CCD #2 | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | AGN-ionized clouds. Most targets needed offsets 600" W to center. Focus 128400. |
03/26/2025 | Ken Watanabe | Max Smuda, Jacob Kinney | CT | 1 | 10 | Other | Managed to take bias/ darks and opened dome fine with tracking. When taking images, it looks like the mirror cover hadn't opened even though it said it had. Closed mirror cover and dome, set to park. |
03/26/2025 | Emily Cunningham | NA | - | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | - |
03/22/2025 | Henry C Sanders | N/A | FLI | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | ERAU EP 425 Class, for observation project. My project is on observing T Tauri Stars. I observed CE Antliae, TW Hydrae, T Chamaeleontis and CT Chamaeleontis. I used the g filter, i filter, and Ha 6563 filter. I encountered a problem with the filter wheel but I resolved it by using the "INIT wheel" buttons and returning the wheels to their home positions with an extra step in my sequence. Other than that, conditions were good and I got some good images. |
03/20/2025 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | Andor griz | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson blazar study. |
03/14/2025 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | Andor CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of Southern Contact Systems.ASASSN-V J084417.51-181959.7, ASASSN-V J134702.89-572523.8. |
03/13/2025 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | Andor Camera | 12 | 2 | Other | Observations of contact binaries. Needed MAXIM DL but could not locate it. |
03/12/2025 | Tom Rutherford | Henson | CCD | 6 | 0.5 | No problems to report | Variable star, exoplanet. No problems other than the scope was mis-pointing by quite a bit. G. Henson got that taken care of and everything seems to be working well. |
03/08/2025 | Martha A. Leake | Marissa Norlund | Andor CCD | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | Student training; observed clusters and nebulae, then continued with southern objects for class. All worked well, thanks to Ken's hints, Marissa's skill, good weather, and a lack of glitches. Transferring files now and will close VPN after that. Renamed the Tarantula Nebula. |
03/04/2025 | Billy Quarles | None | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Observed TESS EB, clear skies, excellent night. |
03/01/2025 | Mariel Lares Martiz | none | FLI imager in the 0.6m | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | I shared the night with Dr. Otani. I started at 10pm eastern time. The observation session was conducted successfully without any incidents. Data collection proceeded as planned. |
03/02/2025 | Ken Rumstay | None | CCD camera | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | AGN variability program. Had to cycle power to the camera computer before starting. The telescope tracking was very good, but pointing was poor. The telescope consistently slews to a point west (by as much as 10') and north of target. A good night; one arcsecond seeing. |
03/01/2025 | Tomomi Otani | Keefe Kamp, Priyadashini Gokul-Dass | CCD | 3 | 1.5 | Equipment Failure | This is the report for the first half of the night (until midnight).
Public outreach.
The pointing was off (~about min in RA); however, the offset value was different depending on the sky. And we had trouble pointing to the object.
|
02/28/2025 | James | AST 200 Lab | ARC Camera | 4 | 0 | Connection Issues | Observing AST 200L |
02/23/2025 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | ANDOR Camera | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of interacting Binaries, ASASS084417, ASASS1347. |
02/22/2025 | Walter van Hamme | Samec | ANDOR | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of interacting Binaries, ASASS084417, ASASS1347. |
02/26/2025 | Kaylee Grace | Millie Dill, Zach Savery | CCD | 9 | 0 | Software/Control PC Issues | When we initially logged on, the Camera Computer wasn't responding. After a restart through the ACE Switch Rack, it was working fine, no further issues with that. The telescope was not tracking very well, it was moving slightly south in Dec over the course of the night, but not so fast that we couldn't correct for it. We imaged a helium atmosphere white dwarf. |
02/25/2025 | William Keel | 2 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Camera PC was unreachable in afternoon - rebooted and restarted software. Late in night, telescope tracking started to wander, very slowly writing in cursive on the sky. For last 3 targets (2hr E - 2hr W, dec -26 to -37) no more than half of 5-minute exposures were untrailed. Got "FAULTY ABSOLUTE DEC ENCODER" message when parking telescope at +30. |
02/20/2025 | Aaran Shaw | N/A | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Perfect conditions, observed a radio-selected X-ray binary candidate all night |
02/21/2025 | James | AST200L Students | ARC Camera | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | AST200L Class Observing |
02/17/2025 | Berrington | none | arc | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Short-Period Variable stars. Other than the guide camera not working, it was a good, clear and productive night. |
02/18/2025 | Kaylee Grace | Zach Savery, Millie Dill | CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Observed a pulsating star. Telescope computer was a bit laggy, but no large issues. Clear night! |
02/14/2025 | James | Roper, Sandrini | ARC Camera | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | All was fine |
02/10/2025 | Kaylee Grace | Zach Savery | CCD | 0 | 10 | Other | Unfortunately our target object is just too close to the almost full moon. Every now and then we could get one or two good images, but between the moon and this one bank of clouds overhead, we called it. Beautiful night on the webcams! Not so much through the CCD. |
02/06/2025 | Kurtis Williams | Emily Cunningham | Andor | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Time series photometry of white dwarfs. Excellent night, no problems. |
02/03/2025 | Ava Webber | Dieter Hartmann | Andor griz | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson Blazar Study |
02/01/2025 | Tomomi Otani | Erin Abraham, Keefe Kamp | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | |
01/31/2025 | Hubbard James | AST-200L class | arc camera | 5 | 0 | Software/Control PC Issues | guiding appeared to be off. |
01/30/2025 | Aarran Shaw | N/A | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Observing a bright radio-selected XRB candidate |
01/29/2025 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 8 | 0 | Other | Upon connecting to the telescope control computer, I immediately noticed that it must have been that the prior observer forgot to park the telescope. I found the telescope over at ~+6 hrs stopped at the west limit. I promptly backed off using the ACEpad and immediately moved to zenith. While this did not cause any time loss, It was clear that the prior observer did not finalize the night correctly. |
01/27/2025 | Antonio | Dieter | CT | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Observed 4FGL J0303, 4FGL J0533, SDS J122101 and monitored the variability of 4FGL J0719 |
01/26/2025 | Kaylee Grace | Zach Savery | CCD | 9.5 | 0 | Software/Control PC Issues | The telescope computer is running pretty laggy. No crashes or anything, just took quite a bit to respond to clicks. It was a beautiful night! Observing a WD, and saw the comet in the webcams thanks to Bill! |
01/25/2025 | Kurtis Williams | Olive (feline) | Andor | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Night from VSU; excellent weather, subarcsec seeing(!) if Maxim FWHM is correct. Time series photometry in Luminance 5 filter. Time.is suggests computer clock is off by 4.4 sec. Lots of lag all night. |
01/22/2025 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | ANDOR Camera | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of interesting contact systems, BC Eri, ASASSN1347-57, |
01/21/2025 | Walter VanHamme | Samec | ANDOR camera | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of interesting contact systems, BC Eri, ASASSN1347-57, |
01/20/2025 | Robert Berrington | nonw | arc | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | no problems. |
01/19/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | Mp problems. Exoplanet. |
01/18/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet. No problems! |
01/10/2025 | Kaylee Grace | Millie Dill, Zach Savery | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Observed a pulsating white dwarf. Beautiful weather, no problems to report. |
01/09/2025 | Kaylee Grace | Millie Dill, Zach Savery | CCD | 9 | 0 | Software/Control PC Issues | Telescope computer appeared to have turned off/was unresponsive between closing last night and attempting to connect today. A restart from the switch rack fixed it, and we had no more issues. Observed a pulsating white dwarf. |
01/08/2025 | Kaylee Grace | Millie Dill, Zach Savery | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Our object rose early in the night so we stopped observations ~90 minutes earlier than we probably could have gone. All was well! No problems to report. |
01/05/2025 | Ava Webber | Dieter Hartmann | Andor griz | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson Blazar study |
01/05/2025 | Ava Webber | Dieter Hartmann | Andor griz | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson Blazer study |
12/29/2024 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 7 | 0 | Equipment Failure | Guide camera appears to be producing images, but the light from the telescope is not making it to the camera. I do not know if this is known, but at time of twilight flats, I took a guide camera image and minimal light was making it to the camera even just prior to sunset. |
12/09/2024 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | Andor Camera | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Observing and analyzing interesting contact binaries. |
12/21/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanets. No problems. |
12/22/2024 | Garima Rajguru | Dieter Hartmann | ANDOR CCD griz | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson Blazar Study |
12/20/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanets. No problems. |
12/19/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet. No problems. |
12/17/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 8 | Connection Issues | Could not connect to the CCD computer-- tried several times. Tried resetting the outlets, through the observatory computer, as well but that did not help. |
12/10/2024 | Ava Webber | Dieter Hartmann | Andor griz | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson Blazar study |
12/08/2024 | Tomomi Otani | None | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | subdwarf B photometry time series |
12/08/2024 | Tomomi Otani | None | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | sdB photometry time series. |
12/05/2024 | William Keel | Sam Grunblatt, AY203, 1 cat | Andor CCD #2 | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Class project, AGN hosts. Focus 127700. Telescope positions pretty far off; typical offsets to target (-920", -150") |
12/04/2024 | William Keel | San Grunblatt, AY203 students, 2 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Class project data, AGN hosts. Focus 126700. Pointing pretty far off - typical offsets needed to center target after slew were (-800", -250"). |
11/30/2024 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | CCD griz | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson University blazar study |
11/28/2024 | Kaylee Grace | Millie Dill, Zach Savery | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Observed WD 0420-478. No problems to report! Was a clear night with no connection issues. |
11/27/2024 | Millie D. | Kaylee G. and Zachary S. | Andor CCD | 10 | 0 | Connection Issues | Observing white dwarf W 0420-478. Issues: telescope computer kept disconnecting and then would freeze. Ra and Dec were only visible, hit esc and it went away. However, it would still freeze so it would take a while for it to go to original format. |
11/28/2024 | Millie D. | Kaylee G., Zachary S. | Andor CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Observing white dwarf WD 0420-478 |
11/22/2024 | William Keel | 2 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | AGN hosts, H II regions. Focus 127700. |
11/21/2024 | William Keel | Dean Townsley, AY203 class | Andor CCD #2 | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Class projects. Focus 127200. There are still low-airmass regions of the sky where 5-minute exposures trail in changing directions. |
11/20/2024 | William Keel | Sam Grunblatt, AY203 class | Andor CCD #2 | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Class objects, AGN hosts. Focus 128500. |
11/19/2024 | Isaiah Cox | Dieter Hartmann | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson blazars |
11/02/2024 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartamann | Andor CCD griz | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson blazar study |
11/16/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 6 | 1 | Connection Issues | Exoplanet. Had trouble connecting to the camera computer at first-- G. Henson was able to get that sorted out and all worked well from then on out. |
11/13/2024 | William Keel | Sam Grunblatt, AY203 class | Andor CCD #2 | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Class project images - planets, stars, nebulae, clusters, galaxies. Focus 128500. Tracking accuracy varies wildly around the sky - longest exposures with round images range from 2-10 minutes depending on location. |
11/09/2024 | Martha A. Leake | none | Andor CCD | 9.5 | 0 | No problems to report | I didn't have any takers for Nov. 8, so I used it for imaging galaxies, nearby stars, hoping to use those in class.. Weather great. Typical offset to south and west. |
11/08/2024 | Berrington | none | arc | 7.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Telescope functioned properly except for one issue that did not stop observations. That is the connection issue with the guider. |
11/06/2024 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | ARC Camera | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of WW Phe Light curve. |
11/05/2024 | Antonio Circiello | Dieter Hartmann | SARA CT | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | observed the following sources: 220100-300000, RBS 0097, 4FGL J0250.3-2422, BZQ J0324-2918, 4FGL J0501.0-2423. |
11/01/2024 | Kurtis Williams | none | Andor | 0 | 11 | Other | Observer was traveling to ETSU and forgot to put the night up for general use. |
10/28/2024 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | ANDOR Camera | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of WW Phe. |
10/27/2024 | Walter VanHamme | SWamec | ANDOR Camers | 9 | null | No problems to report | Light curve Observations of WW Phe. |
10/26/2024 | Martha A. Leake | none | Andor | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid light curve and southern objects. Wonderful night. Noted objects 4-5 arcminutes south of center of frame. |
10/25/2024 | Catalina Ávalos-Vega | - | CCD | 7 | null | No problems to report | Transit observed from 04:00 to 09:00 UT. Focus: 129551, and exposure time of 180s. No problems to report. |
10/18/2024 | Stephen Gillam | Jadia Ewing | Nador | 7 | 0 | Other | Pointing was off about 8 arcminutes in the west direction |
10/18/2024 | Stephen Gillam | Jadia Ewing | Nador | 7 | 0 | Other | Pointing was off about 8 arcminutes in the west direction |
10/16/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet. No problems at all-- everything worked well. |
10/14/2024 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 8 | 1 | Clouds | focus on Trojan asteroid 317. Full Moon and clouds were not ideal and clouds got thick for a while in the middle of the night. Camera computer is 17seconds fast and I was unable to correct this. Pointing was off in both RA and DEC -object outside the FOV of telescope. |
10/15/2024 | William Keel | Sam Grunblatt, Astro 203 class | Andor CD #2 | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Class targets and operations demo. Focus 128100. Typical offset to center target after telescope slew was (-740",-300"). Pleased to find that HA limit for LMC is greater than 6 hours. |
10/13/2024 | Stephen Gillam | None | CCD Camera | 0 | 9 | Clouds | Microvariables. |
10/10/2024 | Catalina Ávalos-Vega | - | CCD | 2 | 8 | Humidity | The cloud level decreased during the night, however the humidity remained high during the night, reaching 80% > humidity. On the other hand, the temperature with the dew point had a difference of less than 5 units during the night.
Therefore, only calibration images were taken. |
10/08/2024 | Billy Quarles | Matt Wood | CCD | 0 | 12 | Humidity | Closed due to humidity; increasing cloud cover for next 12 hours |
10/06/2024 | Catalina | - | CCD | null | null | Clouds | No observation due to the dense clouds in the sky. |
10/02/2024 | William Keel | 4 cats | Andor CD #2 | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | AGN hosts, nebulae. Focus 126800. Only issue was that tracking became very poor near 3 hours east, -10 degrees. |
10/02/2024 | Catalina Ávalos-Vega | - | CCD | 6 | 1 | No problems to report | Observation started at 22:30 UT and ended at 7:30 UT. During the night transit of TOI-4282 was observed with filter i' (00:57-05:41 UT) and focus 127201. Good weather conditions. |
09/30/2024 | Easton Honaker | Kaylee Grace, Zach Savery, Millie Dill | Andor | 0 | 10 | Clouds | Did not observe due to cloud coverage.
Tried offloading older data following instructions from Discord. Could not because no internet on any computers. Radmin file transfer requires a windows computer but CTIO VPN is nearly impossible to install on windows. VNC file transfer requires a paid subscription. |
09/29/2024 | Stephen Gillam | Samuel Quinutolo, Jadia Ewing, TJ Matney | ARC Camera | 9 | 0 | Other | ROAp stars. At around 11:40 pm, we found the dome azimuth was very different to the telescope azimuth. i.e. Done: 317 deg vs. tele: 61 deg. Our images were not occluded or vignetted so we surmised that the dome encoder was reading incorrectly. An hour later the azimuths agreed again within a few degrees. |
09/25/2024 | Catalina Ávalos-Vega | - | CCD | 7 | 2 | No problems to report | The photometric quality of the night improved during the night. Transit of TOI-181 observed using SDSS i' filter.
Good weather conditions. The camera PC is still not connected to the Internet. |
09/21/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 8 | Clouds | Clouds-- never opened. |
09/14/2024 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 10 | 0 | Connection Issues | Telescope and new Cisco AnyConnect VPN connection worked as expected for most of the night. At the beginning, before flat time the VPN connection was very unstable and quit several times. But once flats started the connection did not disconnect. I will note that it appears that the Dropbox connection does not appear to work under the new VPN connection. Therefore, must be downloaded via the Radmin file transfer protocol, and is considerably slower than transfer via Dropbox method |
09/13/2024 | Martha A. Leake | none | Andor CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid rotation rate and objects in southern sky. Some pointing issues, to south and west, but easy to work around. Weather good. Took flats in morning. |
09/09/2024 | Aarran Shaw | None | ARC Camera | 2.5 | 7 | Clouds | Gave it a good old college try but the clouds were too thick and variable. Showed no sign of getting better in the forecast. Gave up 2220 EDT |
09/07/2024 | Kurtis Williams | none | Andor | 0 | 10 | Clouds | |
09/07/2024 | Catalina Ávalos-Vega | - | CCD | null | null | Clouds | High clouds, the observation could not be carried out. |
09/01/2024 | William Keel | DragonCon Live Astronomy | Andor CCD #2 | 3 | 0 | No problems to report | Outreach objects. Focus 127200. Still no joy connecting to, for example, Dropbox to retrieve data. |
08/31/2024 | William Keel | DragonCon Space Track | Andor CCD #2 | 4 | 0 | No problems to report | Outreach - galaxies, nebulae, JWST. Focus126200. |
08/30/2024 | William Keel | DragonCon Space Track | Andor CCD #2 | 3 | 0 | No problems to report | Outreach - galaxies, nebulae. Focus 124800. |
08/29/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 3 | 7 | Clouds | Clouds came in after about three hours so closed up. Exoplanet. |
08/27/2024 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 2 | 9 | Clouds | Asteroid photometry.
Cloudy early one then there was a 2-3h gap in the clouds before it got cloudy again. |
08/26/2024 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid phptpmetry
Camear PC is ~47 seconds fast. |
08/26/2024 | Catalina Ávalos-Vega | - | CCD | 7 | 1 | No problems to report | Transit of exoplanets. Clouds present in the observation. Telescope closed due to increasing clouds at 07:00 (UT). |
08/20/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 7 | 3 | Clouds | Exoplanet. Clouds for the first few hours, but clear afterwards. |
08/18/2024 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | null | 10 | Clouds | clouds, did not open. |
08/16/2024 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | Andor griz | 0 | 10 | Clouds | Many clouds all night, I can't observe at all. |
08/15/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | Cloudy all night-- never opened. |
08/12/2024 | Catalina Ávalos-Vega | - | CCD | 12 | null | Software/Control PC Issues | Observation night: [22:02 - 10:00 UT]. Objects observed: Satellites trails, NGC 5236 and TOI-307 transit.
The ACE interface clock is advanced by about 2 seconds. This had an impact on the predictions of satellite positions at night.
On the other hand, the camera computer still does not have Internet access. |
08/07/2024 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | asteroid photometry. As was mentioned before the lack of internet connectivity on the Camera computer is an issue -cannot check pointing accuracy). Time on the camera computer is off, too. I did not find a way to reset it to the actual time. This is a huge problem when sharing data with other observers or comparing data collected over several nigths. |
08/09/2024 | Catalina Ávalos-Vega | - | - | 12 | 30 | Software/Control PC Issues | The observation started at 22:00 UT and ended at 10:30 UT. Throughout the night, I had a small problem with the ACE software, at the moment of stopping the acquisition of images the program did not let me take more exposures for about 30 min. Another problem encountered was that the camera PC did not have internet access, this is a problem at the moment of saving the data.
During the night, the weather conditions were favorable, no clouds and low humidity (19-25%). |
08/05/2024 | William Keel | 1 cat | Andor CCD #2 | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Galaxies. Focus 125000. Guider camera still unreachable. No joy in connecting to Dropbox (or anything else) even with incognito window form Chrome or Edge.. Leaving data for retrieval someday. Took two tries closing dome for lower dropout shutter to register as closed. |
08/04/2024 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | ccd | 0 | 11 | Clouds | clouds, never opened |
08/03/2024 | Martha A. Leake | none | ARC camera | 0 | 10.5 | Clouds | Asteroid observations. Able to connect and collect several biases, but never opened. Latest weather report (YR) had no clearing ahead. So, I am filing this at midnight. I was able to transfer my bias data. |
07/30/2024 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | clouds, never opened |
08/01/2024 | Steve Gillam | None | Andor camera | 0 | 11 | Connection Issues | This report supplements my report of last night. There is no internet connection on the SARA-CT camera computer. The computer is connected to SARA_DOME_2.4G network which does not have internet access. Please connect it to a network that does have internet access. I tried to connect to the SARA_DOME_5G network but I do not have the security key. |
08/01/2024 | Stephen Gillam | Jadia Ewing and Samuel Quintonolo | Andor Camera | 2 | 9 | Clouds | Micro variables. Unable to download data. Could not connect to the internet to send files from local Dropbox. |
07/28/2024 | Tomomi Otani | N/A | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Photometry time series. All were good. |
07/26/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 8 | Connection Issues | Unable connect -- no problems with the VPN, but the telescope and CCD computers failed to connect. Made numerous attempts throughout the night. |
07/25/2024 | Keefe Kamp | NA | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Nothing to Report. Normal Night observing fields around Be stars |
07/23/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet. No issues-- everything worked well (once I got a connection issue figured out-- faulty setting on my computer.) |
07/20/2024 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 3.5 | 6.5 | Equipment Failure | Short period variable stars. Noticed a darkening on the CCDimage. I will post an example of an image on the Discord server, but I tried homing the dome, as well as initializing the filter wheel to see if that would fix the problem. It did not. |
07/21/2024 | Keefe Kamp | Caballero | CCD | 7 | 0 | Connection Issues | Observing Fields around Be stars went well. Could not connect to SOAR site conditions until the morning. |
07/18/2024 | Patrick Stanley | Tali Natan, Easton Honaker, Kaylee Grace, Olivia Grace | Andor Camera | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Photometry of lam pav |
07/17/2024 | Patrick Stanley | Tali Natan, Kaylee Grace, Easton Honaker | Camera | 8 | 3 | Clouds | Photometry of lam Pav |
07/16/2024 | Xianming Han | none | ccd | 10.5 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary |
07/15/2024 | Xianming Han | none | ccd | 5.5 | 4.5 | Clouds | eclipsing binary |
07/14/2024 | Xianming Han | none | ccd | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary |
07/13/2024 | Xianming Han | none | ccd | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary |
07/12/2024 | Xianming Han | none | ccd | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary |
07/06/2024 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 0 | 12 | Connection Issues | local -on my side- connection issues |
07/06/2024 | Catalina Ávalos-Vega | Penélope Longa-Peña | - | 7 | 1 | Connection Issues | The observation started around 21:00 (UT). At the beginning of the observation a problem was encountered with the telescope computer connection, in this case the vnc connection took a long time to connect to the computer. To solve this problem the telescope computer was rebooted. This solved this problem for most of the night.
The calibration images were obtained during 10-11 (UT). The shots were taken from the g and u filters of the SDSS. During the night, some standard stars were observed to know the response, limits and characteristics of the telescope. The target for the night was TOI-181, which experienced a transit starting at 03:51 (UT) and ending at 09:22 (UT). The star was visible starting at 3 am (UT), field identification took 20 minutes.
Telescope pointing was correct by a few arc minutes of the target star. Imaging of the target was started from 7:00 (UT), but there were a couple of connection errors during this process so imaging was resumed regularly from 7:31 (UT).
The transit was observed using the defocusing technique, which consists of defocusing the telescope to improve the reading noise of the measurements. For this purpose, the focus was changed from 127000 to 120502 defocused. Windowing was also performed to optimize the CCD readout time, with Left=0; Bottom=0; Right=1400; Top=2048. The end of the measurements occurred at 09:45 (UT).
Additional calibration images were obtained from up to 7:30 a.m. (Chilean time).
The telescope closed at 7:25 am (Chilean time).
The nighttime characteristics were:
Night temperature: -2.8 to 2.8 °C.
Humidity: 45-50%.
Wind speed: 1 mph during most of the night.
Cloudiness: ranged from 40-66%.
Summary of errors:
- The calibration image type does not appear in the name preview, but the name is correctly saved in the directory afterwards.
- Time was off by a few minutes from local time.
- Constant vcn connection failures on the Telescope computer.
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07/03/2024 | Patrick Stanley | Kaylee Grace, Easton Honaker, Tali Natan | CT telescope | 3 | 7 | Clouds | Photometry of lam pav |
07/02/2024 | Patrick Stanley | Kaylee Grace, Tali Natan, Easton Honaker, Millie Dill | CT-telescope | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Photometry of lam Pav |
07/01/2024 | Patrick Stanley | Kaylee Grace, Tali Natan, Easton Honaker | CT Telescope | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Photometry of lam Pav |
06/24/2024 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | Andor griz | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson blazar study. |
06/30/2024 | Ken Rumstay | Npne | CCD camera | 10 | 1.5 | Other | I closed the dome for about 1.5 hours while a thunderstorm passed through Valdosta. I feared losing power.
The telescope tracked very well, but consistently points north and west of target after slewing.
As noted by previous observer, I could not link to NOIRLab weather sites from the Observatory computer. I could from my local computer. |
06/27/2024 | Kurtis Williams | none | Andor | 0 | 12 | Connection Issues | Internet to the mountain seems to be down - I can connect to the VPN, but none of the vnc connections are working, and mountain webcams and environmental information is not loading. The weather looks to be bad anyway. |
06/21/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Cloudy all night-- did not open. |
06/18/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Exoplanet-- cloudy though so no observations made. |
06/17/2024 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | Andor griz | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson blazar study.
The night was good, no issues. |
06/16/2024 | Xianming Han | none | CCD | 9 | 1 | Connection Issues | It appears the CCD computer turned itself off at some point in the last few days. |
06/15/2024 | Xianming Han | none | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | never opened |
06/14/2024 | Xianming Han | none | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | none |
06/13/2024 | Xianming Han | none | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | clouds and possibly rain |
06/12/2024 | Xianming | none | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | clouds |
06/11/2024 | Xianming Han | none | CCD | 3 | 7 | Clouds | eclipsing binaries |
06/08/2024 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | Andor griz | 2 | 10 | Humidity | The humidity was good for the first 2 hours. Later, it went up >80% and I have to close the telescope. |
06/04/2024 | Kurtis Williams | none | Andor | 0 | 12 | Clouds | Thick clouds are present and predicted to be around all night. |
06/04/2024 | Tomomi Otani | N/A | CCD | 0 | 8 | Clouds | It was cloudy whole night. |
06/02/2024 | Tomomi Otani | N/A | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | subdwarf B star time series |
05/31/2024 | Martha Leake | none | Andor CCD | 13 | 0 | Connection Issues | See earlier report. On returning today, the file in question had been "flagged" and noted. I was able to disconnect and exit. The Sara Observatory page did work earlier with various weather information. I accessed some of that info through through another computer. As the night progressed, more of that SARA information ceased to be connected, for unknown reason. Thank you for any help today. It was a pleasure to have a mostly positive observing run at CTIO. |
05/31/2024 | Martha A. Leake | none | Andor CCD | 13 | 0 | Connection Issues | Asteroid photometry plus globular clusters and Baade's window. Some clouds. Major pointing issue; given the object's coordinates, you must move westward and southward nearly a half field to find or see the object you expected. No access problems, however, in the file transfer, the program is stuck on one file that isn't transferring. It would be OK to cancel that one file, and use the others. How does this affect the next viewer? I will return later today to check on any progress. |
05/28/2024 | Easton Honaker | Kaylee Grace, Tali Natan | CCD | 14 | 0 | No problems to report | No issues. Observed CoRoT-3b transit |
05/24/2024 | Saida Caballero | Keefe Kamp | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | N/A |
05/25/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Variable stars. A few passing clouds just after dark but they didn't interfere. |
05/21/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | Clouds-- never opened. |
05/20/2024 | Isaiah Cox | Dieter Hartmann | CCD | 0 | 12 | Clouds | Cloudy. |
05/17/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | Variable stars. |
05/15/2024 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | CCD | 9 | 3 | Clouds | Observations of Close Binaries. ASASSN-V J134702.89-572523.8. Observing tonight also. |
05/14/2024 | Kaylee Grace | Millie Dill, Easton Honaker | CCD | 0 | 12 | Clouds | Too cloudy to open :( |
05/12/2024 | James Webb | none | CCD | 0 | 0 | Other | Couldn't use it so gave it to colleague Not sure if they observed or not. |
05/12/2024 | Van Hamme | samec | ccd | 1 | 9 | Clouds | observations of near to over contact binaries |
05/07/2024 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD | 0 | 12 | Clouds | Scattered clouds dropped onto the mountaintop in late afternoon and hung around. |
05/04/2024 | Rutherford | None | CCD | 1 | 9 | Clouds | Clouds moved in after about an hour and stayed the rest of the night. |
05/03/2024 | Rutherford | None | CCD | 3 | 0 | No problems to report | Variable stars. |
04/30/2024 | Kaylee Grace | Millie Dill, Tali Natan, Easton Honaker | Andor CCD | 0 | 12 | Clouds | too cloudy to open |
04/29/2024 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 0 | 10 | Clouds | cloudy, did not open. |
04/24/2024 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 0 | 10 | Clouds | cloudy did not open. |
04/27/2024 | Martha A. Leake | none | Andor CCD | 0 | 9 | Connection Issues | Unable to connect to telescope (just camera and observatory). High clouds predicted (but looks better in latest picture). If other SARA observers can use it, please file a report for your session. |
04/23/2024 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet, variable stars |
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