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SARA
The Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy
Date | Name | Other Observers | Instrument | Hours Observed | Hours Lost | Reason | Observing Program |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
08/17/2023 | William Keel | 1 cat | Andor CCD #2 | 0 | 10 | Connection Issues | Still disconnected due to cybersecurity response |
08/12/2023 | Scott Joffre | Dieter Hartmann, Yong Sheng | CCD | 0 | 10 | Other | Still cannot connect to VPN due to security concerns |
08/11/2023 | F Zhu | K awilliams | Andor | 0 | 13 | Connection Issues | |
08/09/2023 | Fangyi Zhu | K Williams | Andor | 0 | 13 | Connection Issues | |
08/08/2023 | Stephen Gillam | Kaelyn Weddle & Jessica Nicholson | Andor Camera | 0 | 12 | Connection Issues | Micro variables. CTIO connection is severed due to cyber intrusion. |
08/06/2023 | Todd Hillwig | None | Andor CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | Clouds |
08/07/2023 | Scott Joffre | Dieter Hartmann, Yong Sheng | CCD | 0 | 10 | Connection Issues | Still cannot connect due to the internet shutdown in response to the recent cyber attacks. |
08/05/2023 | Isaiah Cox | Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD | 0 | 11 | Connection Issues | No connection |
07/25/2023 | S Zari | S Johns, L Dietrich | Andor | 3 | 1 | Clouds | Asteroid observing. |
07/22/2023 | Lena Dietrich | S Johns | Andor | 0 | 3 | Clouds | White Dwarf Photometry |
07/21/2023 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 2.5 | 8 | Clouds | asteroid photometry, not a clear night, not sure if any of the data will be useful |
07/20/2023 | Ken Rumstay | None | CCD camera | 0 | 10 | Clouds | Hoped to observe active galaxies. Did not open dome, due to cloudy skies. The clouds are predicted to continue through tomorrow night. |
07/19/2023 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Clouds, never opened |
07/15/2023 | Tomomi Otani | Julia Clark | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Hot subdwarf photometry time series.
It was a great night. |
07/14/2023 | Tomomi Otani | Julia Clark | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Hot subdwarf photometry time series.
It was a good night. |
07/12/2023 | Martha Leake | none | Arc CCD | 0 | 12 | Snow | Humidity at or near 100% most of night. At 6:33 snow (1-2 inches) on the ground. Wind recorded at SOAR 40+ m/s. Sky clearing at 5:30 am to present (6:34). Did not open, but took biases and darks earlier. Camera connections good. Will not open this morning (July 12). Date recording on this form is not correct. This observation run began July 11; a second report filed on July 12 at 6:38 am. Weather should be better later today. |
07/11/2023 | Martha Leake | none | ARC CCD | 0 | 12 | Clouds | Clouds, rain, snow, fog at least until 12 midnight, then projected high humidity and clouds until 3-4 am; possible clearing forecast between 6-8. If snow, then dripping domes likely. Will file amendment in 4-5 hours. Intended to observe asteroids for light curve determination. |
07/10/2023 | Judi Provencal | none | CCD | 0 | 0 | Clouds | CCD imaging |
07/09/2023 | Terry Oswalt | Steve Gillam, Eden Kope, Ahnika Gee, Ryan Reynolds, Melinda Walls, Luca Guida, Krys Confeiteiro | Andor Camera | 11 | null | Clouds | Gyrochronology. It was very cloudy the entire time. We still observed though - this was mostly a training exercise for the students. |
07/07/2023 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann, Kourse Imam, Antonio Circiello | Andor CCD griz | 12 | 2.5 | Equipment Failure | The focus was good but went bad during the night. I am not sure if it's a gradually continuous change in the focus or it's a sudden change, causing many scientific images to be useless. This has happened multiple times to me. |
06/26/2023 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 3 | 7 | Clouds | Exoplanet. Clouds rolled in around midnight-- tried to out wait them, but eventually gave up and closed up. |
06/23/2023 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 8 | 3 | Clouds | asteroid photometry
clouds and very poor seeing at the beginning of the night. |
06/22/2023 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | clouds never opened |
06/20/2023 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD griz | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Closed the telescope due to the clouds to avoid possible rains. |
06/21/2023 | Fangyi Zhu | None | CTIO | 9.5 | 4.5 | Clouds | White Dwarf photometry |
06/19/2023 | Tomomi Otani | Julia Clark | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Variable sdbs |
06/17/2023 | Shayaan Zari | Lena Dietrich, S Johns, Dr Kurtis WIlliams | Andor | 10.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid photometry. |
06/16/2023 | S Johns | Lena Dietrich, Dr Kurtis Williams | Andor | 10.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Observing program was asteroid photometry |
06/14/2023 | Xianming Han | Spencer Decker | CCD | 8 | 1 | Clouds | eclipsing binary |
06/13/2023 | Xianming Han | Spencer Decker | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary |
06/12/2023 | Xianming Han | Spencer Decker | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binaries |
06/10/2023 | Martha Leake | none | Andor CCD | 9 | 2 | Clouds | No problems but clouds near 3 am; I closed and finished up, but other scopes are still in use, observing through partly cloudy skies and moonlight. All equipment worked well. Time now 4:20 am. |
06/08/2023 | William Keel | 2 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | AGN hosts, H II regions. Focus 128000. Once while tweaking focus, a message box popped up about initializing a controller (I didn't get its number, but the spectrograph was not selected before or after). Clicking on that, the auxiliary instruments, focus, and observations panels were whited out for a few minutes, then the drive and auto dome had turned off .Tracking does get more irregular in both axes west of about 1h45m west. A few exposures looked as if they had crosstalk during readout only for part of the chip roughly y<750. |
06/05/2023 | Berrington | none | arc | 10 | 0 | Connection Issues | Telescope control computer was unresponsive upon first connection. Todd was able to revive the computer, but it prevented getting evening flats. Fortunately i was able to get morning flats instead. |
06/03/2023 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | Exoplanet. |
05/31/2023 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | Andor griz | 1 | 10 | Equipment Failure | The tracking issue showed up again. It went bad without any indication. The images taken are just all useless for analysis. |
05/29/2023 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hatrmann | Andor CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson blazar study |
05/30/2023 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 3 | 9 | Clouds | Exoplanet. When I logged in to the telescope, it was far over in the west at the pointing limit and would not move away from that. Eventually that was taken care of and I could use it but cirrus and bright moon made observations difficult so I closed up around midnight. |
05/28/2023 | Fangyi Zhu | None | CTIO | 0 | 15 | Clouds | Clouds, ACE software Reached W. software limit |
05/27/2023 | Fangyi Zhu | None | CTIO | 15 | 0 | No problems to report | Time series for white dwarfs. |
05/24/2023 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | asteroid photometry |
05/22/2023 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | clouds never opened |
05/23/2023 | Scott Joffre | Dieter Hartmann | CCD | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | Was very smooth.
It would be nice if the pointing could be a little more accurate. |
05/22/2023 | William C. Keel | no time for cats | Andor CCCD #2 | 0 | 12 | Clouds | Did not open. |
05/21/2023 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | clouds, never opened |
05/18/2023 | Fangyi ZHu | None | CTIO | 15 | 0 | No problems to report | White Dwarf time series photometry |
05/17/2023 | Tomomi Otani | Julia Clark | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | subdwarf B photometry time series |
05/15/2023 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | asteroid photometry |
05/17/2023 | Tomomi Otani | Julia Clark | CCD | 5.5 | 2.5 | Clouds | subdwarf B photometry time series. |
05/14/2023 | Ken Rumstay | None | Andor CCD camera | 4.5 | 6 | Clouds | AGN variability observations. Tried observing between clouds; I obtained Bessell BVRI images for four galaxies, but I'm not sure they'll be usable for photometry. I finally gave up at around 06:30 UT as clouds increased. No technical problems were encountered. The telescope tends to point north of target after slewing, by as much as three arcminutes. |
05/13/2023 | Michael Fauerbach | na | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid photometry |
05/10/2023 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet. Thin cirrus clouds the entire night. |
05/06/2023 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 6 | 2 | Clouds | Exoplanet. Clouds for about the first two hours, then cleared for the rest of the night. |
05/05/2023 | Gary Henson | none | Spectrograph | 6 | 3 | Clouds | Spectra of Massive Stars - Some clouds and Bright Moon issues - Potential Major issue with FLI camera, ADU level abnormally low. |
05/04/2023 | Stephen D. Gillam | None | Andor CCD | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | Micro-variables |
05/03/2023 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Observation of interacting binaries. UNSW 447, short period Algol. |
05/02/2023 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Observation of interacting binaries. UNSW 447, short period algol. |
04/27/2023 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of short period Algol, UNSW 447. |
04/26/2023 | Walter Van Hamme | samec | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of eclipsing binary, UNSW 447. |
04/25/2023 | Stephen D. Gillam | None | Andor CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Micro-variables |
04/24/2023 | Stephen D. Gillam | Jacob Romeo | Andor CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Micro-variables |
04/23/2023 | Stephen D. Gillam | Rhiannan Hicks | Andor CCD | 9 | 0 | Humidity | Micro-variables. |
04/22/2023 | Kurtis Williams | none | Andor | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | |
04/17/2023 | Xianming Han | none | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary |
04/16/2023 | Xianming Han | none | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary |
04/21/2023 | William C. Keel | Rainwater Observatory visitors | Andor CCD #2 | 3 | 0 | No problems to report | Outreach imaging. Focus 127800. |
04/20/2023 | Amy Lovell | AST200L students | CCD | 0 | 8 | Clouds | last lab for student projects - too cloudy to observe |
04/20/2023 | Kurtis Wiliams | Fangyi Zhu | Andor | 7.5 | 0 | No problems to report | White dwarf time series photometry; night 2 of training for Zhu. Excellent weather. Autoguider still nonfunctional (known problem). ACE telescope control app was showing incorrect civil time (what it claimed was EST was really EDT+1), but computers had correct chilean time, FITS headers are correct and pointing was correct. |
04/15/2023 | Xianming Han | none | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary
|
04/11/2023 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 9.5 | 3 | Clouds | Also used spectrograph (H-alpha sure is bright in Eta Carinae!). Focus 128000 (Andor CD), 129500 (spectrograph). Could not connect to QSI guide camera. Had to restart Connector Client once during night, and cycle spectrograph power on APC #2 at start of night. Guiding on light around spectrograph fiber with ZWO camera works well. Gotcha: MaximDL camera selection may spontaneously switch 1/2 when going between guiding and regular imaging. Stray light in Andor images may be gone now. |
04/10/2023 | Isaiah Cox | Yong Sheng, Dieter Hartmann | CCD | 7 | 2 | Equipment Failure | Blazars. Problem with autoguider. Used 80s exposures. |
04/06/2023 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann, Antonio Circiello, Kouser Imam | Andor CCD griz | 2 | 9 | Equipment Failure | There is something wrong with guiding. Contacted the SARA tech but it can't be fixed |
04/08/2023 | Priya Gokuldass | None | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | ulGRB host galaxy observations |
04/07/2023 | Gary Henson | none | Spectrograph | 9.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Spectroscopy of Massive (WR) stars |
03/29/2023 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | no problems, good night |
04/05/2023 | Berrington | none | arc | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | short period variable stars, no issues with the telescope. |
04/03/2023 | GARY HENSON | none | Spectrograph | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Spectroscopy of Massive (WR) Stars, Some cirrus clouds limiting Flux, but took time to tweak Guider settings and now dialed in! |
04/02/2023 | Gary Henson | none | Spectrograph | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Massive Star, WR star spectroscopy, Did have issue of autoguider oscillation, might be cycling too fast with too short of exposure. |
04/02/2023 | Berrington | none | arc | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | no problems. |
03/30/2023 | Amy Lovell | AST200L students | CCD | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | student projects for intermediate lab |
03/28/2023 | Gary Henson | none | Spectrograph | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Spectroscopy of Massive Stars (WR Stars). All worked fine, did have a few connection dropouts to the Spectrograph computer, but Maxim stayed running until logged back in so no disruptions. |
03/28/2023 | Tomomi Otani | Julia Clark, Lindsay Spence | CCD | 9 | 1 | Connection Issues | Hot subdwarf stars photometry time series. We could not use the telescope during the first hour because of losing connections. After we build the connection back, we did a little experiment and found out that if more than two devices connect to the telescope, the telescope operating PC does not work. |
03/22/2023 | Kurtis Williams | none | Andor | 10.5 | 0 | No problems to report | White dwarf time series photometry. Clear night; seeing 1.8" once telescope thermalized. Ambient T=14 C, focus 129000. No issues at all; tracking with guider camera excellent. |
03/18/2023 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | As reported before the Dec pointing is off, object still in frame, but not centered. |
03/17/2023 | Martha Leake | none | Andor | 10.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Productive night for asteroid photometry (two asteroids and other objects), thanks to Ken! Object requested appears south (by 3') of center. All else worked well. My mouse caught an edge which degraded the image I saw (not the original). Date above should be March 17, 2023. |
03/12/2023 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 8 | 0 | Connection Issues | Guide camera continues to not function correctly preventing proper guiding of the telescope. |
03/11/2023 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 8 | 0 | Connection Issues | Guide camera no is not even taking pictures for the guide camera to start. So guiding is not possible. |
03/07/2023 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 8.5 | 0 | Connection Issues | Problem with guide camera persists. Taking an image with the guide camera shows an error. When the guide routine is started the error appears when started, but corrections are not recognized by the telescope. |
03/06/2023 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 8 | 0 | Connection Issues | When attempting to start an exposure of the guide camera, it throws an error. An image is taken, but when the guide routine is started, the corrections are not received/recognized by the telescope. |
03/08/2023 | Tom Rutherford | Gary Henson | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet. |
03/10/2023 | Scott Joffre | Dieter Hartmann, Yong Sheng | CCD | 12 | 0.5 | No problems to report | All went well |
03/03/2023 | Yong Sheng | Antonio Circiello, Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD griz | 9 | 1 | Clouds | The start of the night was quiet cloudy. But luckily it turned very clear soon. |
02/28/2023 | Priya Gokuldass | None | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Ultra long GRB host galaxies observation |
02/27/2023 | Priya Gokuldass | None | CCD | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | Ultra long GRB host galaxies observation. |
02/21/2023 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 0 | 10 | Clouds | cloudy, did not open. |
02/20/2023 | Xianming Han | Kaylee Tenbarg | CCD | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary |
02/19/2023 | Xianming Han | Josh Wanninger | CCD | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary |
02/16/2023 | James Webb | Observational Astrophysics class | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Class observing Tarantula Nebula
Blazar variability: OJ 287, 0420-01
|
02/18/2023 | Xianming Han | Eric Reed | CCD | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary |
02/02/2023 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | Camera | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations and Modeling of interacting Binaries. |
01/28/2023 | Walter Van Hamme | Samec | Camera | 10 | 1 | Connection Issues | Observation and Analysis of Eclipsing Binaries. |
02/14/2023 | Van Hamme | Samec | Camers | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Observing and modeling interacting bi9naries. |
02/11/2023 | Martha Leake | Jordan Hewins | Andor | 9.25 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid light curve and several other objects (galaxies, clusters, planetary nebulae). Great night. |
02/06/2023 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid. Cloudy at first but soon cleared. |
02/05/2023 | Priya Gokuldass | None | CCD | 2 | 3 | Clouds | ULGRB host galaxies observation. Was cloudy at the beginning. |
02/04/2023 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 8 | Clouds | Clouds all night |
01/26/2023 | 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. |
01/25/2023 | 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. |
01/24/2023 | 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. |
01/21/2023 | 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. |
01/20/2023 | jim webb | none | ccd | 4 | 0 | No problems to report | Blazars monitoring, Stars of Star Trek, tarantula nebula |
01/17/2023 | Isaiah Cox | Yong Sheng, Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson blazar study |
01/14/2023 | Priya Gokuldass | None | CCD | 8.3 | 0 | No problems to report | ultra long GRB host galaxy observation. |
01/13/2023 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD griz | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson blazar study. |
01/12/2023 | Priya Gokuldass | None | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | ultra long GRB host galaxy observation. Had initial connection issues for few minutes. |
01/04/2023 | 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. |
12/29/2022 | 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. |
12/27/2022 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | Andor griz | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson blazar study |
12/24/2022 | Isaiah Cox | Yong Sheng, Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Blazars |
12/13/2022 | Van Hamme | Samec | CCD | 10 | 1 | Equipment Failure | Observations of Eclipsing Interactive Binaries. WISE042533.6., TYC6462 195 1. |
12/13/2022 | Van Hamme | Samec | CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of Eclipsing Interactive Binaries. WISE042533.6., TYC6462 195 1. |
12/17/2022 | 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. |
12/14/2022 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | Standard Stars, Exoplanet |
12/03/2022 | 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. |
12/04/2022 | 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. |
12/02/2022 | 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. |
12/01/2022 | 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. |
11/30/2022 | 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. |
11/29/2022 | Kurtis Williams | none | Andor | 0 | 10 | Other | Forgot about the night despite having this on my calendar.. I'm embarrassed. Sorry. |
11/28/2022 | 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. |
11/27/2022 | Martha A. Leake | none | ARC | null | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid photometry for light curves. Weather was great. |
11/17/2022 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Galaxies. Focus 127500, guide focus 1000. |
11/14/2022 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet |
11/13/2022 | 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. |
11/09/2022 | Tomomi Otani | None | CCD | 7 | 1 | Clouds | Photometry time series. Everything was working well. |
11/01/2022 | VanHamme | Samec | photometer | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Observations of interacting binaries. Wise042533.0
Samec |
10/28/2022 | Tomomi Otani | Erin Abraham, Adrian Moraga | CCD | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | Public Outreach. Great night with no problem. |
10/27/2022 | 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. |
10/25/2022 | 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. |
10/22/2022 | 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. |
10/21/2022 | 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). |
10/20/2022 | Kyle Pellegrin | N/A | CCD | 3.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Good conditions at the observatory. |
10/19/2022 | 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 |
10/14/2022 | 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. |
10/13/2022 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | asteroid photometry
|
10/13/2022 | 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 |
10/10/2022 | Gary Henson | none | Andor CCD | 6.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid light curve, no problems all systems working fine. |
10/08/2022 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet. |
10/03/2022 | 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. |
10/02/2022 | 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. |
09/29/2022 | 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?) |
09/28/2022 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD griz | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Blazar study at Clemson University |
09/27/2022 | Todd Hillwig | None | Andor CCD | 3 | 7 | Clouds | Photometric monitoring of hot WDs. Clouds most of the night. |
09/24/2022 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 6 | 3 | Clouds | cery cloudy at beginning of the night, but it cleared up late |
09/21/2022 | 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). |
09/19/2022 | 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. |
09/14/2022 | 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.
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09/02/2022 | Priya Gokuldass | None | CCD | 0 | 5 | Equipment Failure | Telescope (camera) is not operational at the moment. |
09/01/2022 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 0 | 11 | Equipment Failure | CCD still kaputt |
08/31/2022 | Priya Gokuldass | None | CCD | 0 | 5 | Equipment Failure | Telescope (camera) is not operational at the moment. |
08/29/2022 | Ross Silver | Dieter Hartmann | CCD | 0 | 10 | Equipment Failure | Telescope is not operational at the moment. |
08/26/2022 | 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. |
08/20/2022 | 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.) |
08/16/2022 | Ross Silver | Dieter Hartmann | CCD | 0 | 10 | Equipment Failure | I could not observe due to issues with the telescope. |
08/17/2022 | Yong Sheng | Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD griz | 0 | 12 | Equipment Failure | The Andor camera and the QSI camera are not working |
08/15/2022 | 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. |
08/11/2022 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 7 | 0 | Other | Autofocuser would not operate correctly-- everything else worked well. |
08/11/2022 | 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. |
08/06/2022 | Alex | Dieter | CCD | 0 | 10 | Humidity | Clemson Blazar Photo-z measurement program.
High humidity and clouds so did not observe
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08/03/2022 | 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. |
08/01/2022 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 10 | 1 | Clouds | High Cirrus and rather poor seeing, but no technical problems to report.
Asteroid photometry |
07/26/2022 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 8 | 3 | Clouds | intermittent clouds, not sure how good data will be. Else no problems to report |
07/25/2022 | Kurtis Williams | none | Andor | 0 | 14 | Snow | Observatory closed due to snowstorm and subsequent power failure |
07/24/2022 | Kurtis Williams | none | Andor | 0 | 14 | Snow | Observatory closed due to snowstorm and subsequent power failure |
07/19/2022 | Priya Gokuldass | None | CCD | 0 | 5 | Snow | Didn't observe due to the snow storm on Friday night and power failure. |
07/18/2022 | Ken Rumstay | None | CCD | 0 | 10 | Snow | Unable to observe as a result of Friday's snowstorm. |
07/12/2022 | William Keel | public event | Andor CCD #2 | 4 | 0 | No problems to report | Public program: NGC 3132, JWST, Focus 12580. |
07/09/2022 | 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 |
07/07/2022 | Kent Montgomery | Mamosa Mohoto | CCD | 0 | 8 | Clouds | Asteroid Photometry |
07/05/2022 | 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. |
07/03/2022 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | Short period variable stars. |
06/29/2022 | Núria Torres-Albà | Dieter Hartmann | SARA CT | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson University high-z blazar observations.
No problems to report. |
06/29/2022 | 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. |
06/28/2022 | 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. |
06/26/2022 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | clouds, never opened |
06/25/2022 | 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. |
06/23/2022 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | clouds, never opened |
06/21/2022 | Alex | Dieter | Andor CCD | 0 | 11 | Humidity | Clemson Blazar Photo-z measurement program. Bad weather. Humidity, clouds, and snow throughout the night |
06/20/2022 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 2 | 10 | Clouds | Short Period variable star program. Lost several hours due to clouds. |
06/19/2022 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 0 | 12 | Clouds | Short period variable stars. Lost evening due to high clouds. |
06/17/2022 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 3 | 7 | Clouds | Asteroids. |
06/15/2022 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 7 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid, Novae |
06/13/2022 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 1 | 10 | Clouds | Asteroid. No mechanical issues, but clouds the whole night so no data. |
06/12/2022 | Xianming Han | Josh Wanninger | CCD | 9 | 2.5 | Clouds | eclipsing binary |
06/11/2022 | Xianming Han | Josh Wanninger | CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary |
06/10/2022 | Xianming Han | Josh Wanninger | CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | eclipsing binary |
06/09/2022 | Xianming Han | Josh Wanninger | CCD | 10 | 0.5 | Equipment Failure | telescope could not slew properly. ACE helped found a temporary fix. |
06/09/2022 | 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.
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06/07/2022 | 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. |
06/06/2022 | 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. |
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