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Date | Name | Other Observers | Instrument | Hours Observed | Hours Lost | Reason | Observing Program |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
08/14/2025 | Isaiah Cox | Dieter Hartmann | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson blazars. |
08/13/2025 | Gary Henson | Rutherford | Andor CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Mainly training for Chilean observer, some Cirrus bands so a poor photometric night. |
08/11/2025 | William Keel | 2 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 3.5 | 0 | No problems to report | Observer training. Focus 127800. |
08/09/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Cloudy all night-- never opened. |
08/08/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 8 | Connection Issues | Unable to connect to CCD computer (made several attempts) -- not an issue with the VPN since I had no problem connecting to the telescope computer. |
08/01/2025 | William Keel | Sam Grunblatt | Andor CCD #2 | 0 | 11 | Snow | Webcam at dusk looked as if the whole mountaintop had fallen into diffuse colors. |
07/31/2025 | Van Hamme | Samec | ANDOR Camera | 0 | 10 | Clouds | Observations of near contact binaries. |
07/30/2025 | Walter Van Hamme | Samecv | ANDOR Cam | 0 | 10 | Clouds | Observations of Close Eclipsing Binaries. |
07/29/2025 | Billy Quarles | ETAMU REU | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | Cloudy all day, forecast to persist through the night with >90% coverage. Did not open. |
07/29/2025 | Billy Quarles | Jacqueline Venuto | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | I was observing the exoplanet/Hot Jupiter HATS-12. Used a focus of 126502 for the entire duration. |
07/27/2025 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 2 | 9 | Clouds | Clouds after a couple of hours |
07/25/2025 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 9 | 2 | Clouds | Asteroid photometry, intermittent clouds |
07/24/2025 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 7 | 4 | Clouds | Asteroid photometry. Clouds throughout most of the night, until it became completely overcast. |
07/23/2025 | Aarran Shaw | None | CCD Camera | 7 | 4 | Clouds | CV candidate. Clouds rolled in at around 2:30am so I called it a night. |
07/21/2025 | Kaylee Grace | Maura Kelley | CCD | 5 | 0 | No problems to report | Did some imaging! No problems to report :) |
07/20/2025 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 0 | 10 | Clouds | Short Period variable star program. Persistent clouds prevented opening up. |
07/20/2025 | Billy Quarles | Sierra Kunigus | Andor | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Observing asteroid (5132) Maynard. No issues. Found focus at 128600. |
07/17/2025 | Stephen Gillam | None | ARC Camera | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Microvariables. |
07/15/2025 | Billy Quarles | Sierra Kunigus | Andor | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | Observing asteroid (5132) Maynard. Found focus at 127401. |
07/14/2025 | Kurtis Williams | ETAMU REU | Andor | 0 | 12 | Clouds | Sky was partly cloudy at sunset with clouds forecast to thicken and a slight chance of rain, so did not open. |
07/13/2025 | Billy Quarles | Jacqueline Venuto | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | I observed a Hot Jupiter. No problems to report. Used focus 126756. |
07/12/2025 | Billy Quarles | David von Meyer | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Observing binary eclipsing stars. |
07/10/2025 | Kaylee Grace | Maura Kelley | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Observed some asteroids and some Messier objects! |
07/09/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | No problems. Exoplanet. |
07/08/2025 | Tom Rutherford | Faith Simmons | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | No problems. Exoplanet. |
07/07/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | No problems. Comet 3I/ATLAS. |
07/05/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 6 | 1 | Other | Scattered clouds for the first hour or so but they eventually cleared. No issues (other than one I created). |
07/04/2025 | XIANMING HAN | Aidan Cain | ccd | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | star |
07/03/2025 | XIANMING HAN | Aidan Cain | ccd | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | star |
07/02/2025 | XIANMING HAN | Luke Evans | ccd | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | star |
07/01/2025 | XIANMING HAN | Luke Evans | ccd | 2.5 | 8 | Clouds | eclipsing binaries |
06/30/2025 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Short period variable star program. Cloudy night, and did not open as a result. |
06/29/2025 | Ava Webber | Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson Blazar study |
06/28/2025 | Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid photometry |
06/27/2025 | William Keel | 1 cat | Andor CCD #2 | 10.5 | 1.5 | Clouds | Nebulae and galaxies. Focus 124800. |
06/26/2025 | Aarran Shaw | N/A | CCD | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | CV candidate. Cut run short due to having to catch an early flight. Best focus found at 124700 |
06/25/2025 | Billy Quarles | Sierra Kunigus | Andor | 0 | 12 | Clouds | Clouds and chance of rain in the forecast. Didn't open. |
06/23/2025 | Tomomi Otani | None | CCD | 8 | 0 | No problems to report | Hot subdwarf photometry time series. It was a good night. |
06/22/2025 | Tomomi Otani | None | CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Hot subdwarf photometry time series. It was a great night. |
06/21/2025 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 3.5 | 6.5 | Clouds | Short Period variable stars. Night was not a very good night with periodic clouds interfering with observing. Decided to call it quits at ~12AM. |
06/20/2025 | Martha A. Leake | none | Andor CCD13 | 13 | 0 | No problems to report | Asteroid photometry and other objects. Pointing was great, connections good, sky clear. |
06/18/2025 | Xianming Han | Luke Evans, Aidan Cain | ccd | 8.5 | 0 | No problems to report | asteroid |
06/18/2025 | Billy Quarles | Sierra Kunigus | Andor CCD | 6 | 0 | No problems to report | Observing asteroid 6377 Cagney. Drop out says closing but not closed when logged on. Light clouds around sunset, dissipated by 12 AM UTC. Found focus at 124800. |
06/16/2025 | Billy Quarles | David von Meyer | CCD | 7 | 3 | Clouds | Observed Hot Jupiter. No problems to report. |
06/15/2025 | Isaiah Cox | Dieter Hartmann | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Cloudy all night. |
06/13/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | |
06/12/2025 | Keefe Kamp | None | CCD | 0 | 10 | Clouds | Observatory was in the cloud layer |
06/11/2025 | Keefe Kamp | None | CCD | 2 | 8 | Clouds | Feild Observations around Be Star. No problems to report. Clouds rolled in 2 hours in. |
06/09/2025 | Tom Rutherford | None | CCD | 0 | 11 | Clouds | Couldn't get connected to the VPN. Night was cloudy until around midnight so might not have mattered. |
06/10/2025 | Tom Rutherford | Gary Henson | CCD | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | Exoplanet. No problems-- all went well. |
06/08/2025 | Garima Rajguru | Dieter Hartmann | Andor CCD | 10 | 0 | No problems to report | Clemson Blazar Study |
06/07/2025 | Robert Berrington | none | arc | 0 | 10 | Clouds | Night started clear, but clouded up just in time to start on my object. It remained cloudy the rest of the night. |
06/05/2025 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 8 | 2 | Clouds | asteroid photometry. Clouds at sunset and early in the morning, but no technical issues. |
06/04/2025 | Michael Fauerbach | na | CCD | 9 | 0.5 | Software/Control PC Issues | asteroid photometry
had some issues with the telescope not moving at the beginning of the night. A telescope computer reboot did the trick. |
06/01/2025 | Michael Fauerbach | NA | CCD | 9 | 0 | No problems to report | asteroid photometry. Plenty of cirrus clouds and the Moon, but no technical issues to report |
05/30/2025 | Ken Watanabe | Jonathan | Andor | 12 | 0 | No problems to report | Observed AGN target, everything shut, telescope parked. |
05/28/2025 | William Keel | 3 cats | Andor CCD #2 | 11 | 0 | No problems to report | AGN-ionized clouds. Focus 127500. Pointing good. Retrieved data using Google Drive through the VPN firewall thanks to a tip from Todd Hillwig. |
05/26/2025 | XIANMING HAN | none | ccd | 0 | 11 | Clouds | never opened |
05/23/2025 | XIANMING HAN | Luke Evans, Aidan Cain | ccd | 10.5 | 0 | No problems to report | asteroid |
05/22/2025 | XIANMING HAN | Luke, Aidan | ccd | 11.5 | 0 | No problems to report | asteroids |
05/21/2025 | Xianming Han | Luke Evans, Aidan Cain | ccd | 11.5 | 0 | No problems to report | asteroids |
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. |
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