SARA 

Rutherford

Andor CCD

7

2.5

Clouds

Asteroid 18488 Light Curve Dec Oscillation at around -1 HA while tracking object. Problem appeared as reported by other observers, went to Zenith park and then back on target with no further occurrences. Band of cirrus clouds after midnight. Seeing and tracking with autoguider excellent most of night.

Andy Baran

Andor CCD

12

0.3

Software/Control PC Issues

Photometry time series of a hot subdwarf star. Thank you very much, Brian, for adding the decimal points to the observation time of the image header. Everything was good but the telescope started moving to the DEC direction at the Hour Angle ~ +3 hours. This was the same issue that we experienced the last night, so it may repeat again in future.

Andy Baran

Andor CCD

12

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Photometry time series to check pulsations. The telescope suddenly started moving to the DEC direction (the target's y position moved 2 pixels/image). So I moved the telescope to the zenith and moved it back to the target, then the issue was solved. The camera connection suddenly disappeared while taking images, so I used the regular procedure to reconnect the camera. The header's observation time did not have decimal digit (so we could not obtain less than 1 second accuracy).

NA

CCD

9

3

Clouds

Clouds off and on throughout the night. Heavy cloud cover in the morning.

Mabel Clausen & Harum Ahmed (REU students)

N/A

0

12

Clouds

A text note was open on the desktop saying that due to testing the telescope limits had been disabled and the telescope should not be used. Was that a one-day affair, or is this ongoing for multiple nights? If the latter, perhaps a note should go out to sara-tech... (This didn't affect us since clouds were thick and the weather forecast poor)

C. Zuluaga, A. Bosh

Andor Camera

1

9

Equipment Failure

Outer solar system astrometry and Pluto occultation. When trying to pre-set to the night's occultation field, which was going to be very low and rising, the telescope became stuck in the limits and would not back out. No motions responded from the hand paddle. In the end, we closed things up as it was.

None

CT griz

13

0

No problems to report

Clemson Blazar study.

None

CCD camera

12.5

0

No problems to report

AGN monitoring program. An excellent night, with a dark sky and sub-arcsecond seeing.

3 cats

Andor CCD

7.5

0

No problems to report

Nebulae, galaxies behind dust. Focus=126500, guider focus 9000.

C. Zuluaga, A. Bosh

Andor Camera

2

0

No problems to report

Outer solar system astrometry.

None

Andor Camera

12

0

No problems to report

ROAp stars

NA

CCD

7

4

Equipment Failure

As mantioned in my email to sara-tech, the whole telescope computerACE crashed after a CCD abort. After recovering, the Default DEC Encoder fault kept flashing. Tried to reboot computer etc but nothing got rid of it. I was able to park, close the covers and close the dome shutters -at least it said it did. I have not seen this error before, and I was not able to recover from it.

none

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binaries

none

CCD

0

10

Clouds

none

none

CCD

0.25

10

Clouds

eclipsing binary

None

CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Landolt Fields. Open Clusters. No problems at all.

None

CCD

0

9

Clouds

Clouds all night-- unable to open.

None

CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Landolt fields. No problems-- everything worked perfectly.

NA

CCD

8

3

Clouds

asteroid photometry. Clouds the first three hours, else fine

NA

CCD

8

2

Clouds

Clouds early in the morning Filterwheel 2 is not responding to commands

C. Zuluaga, A. Bosh

Andor Camera

11

0

No problems to report

Outer solar system astrometry. One instance where the tracking stopped. Not clear why. Able to re-enable and keep going.

Stephen Gillam

Andor Camera

12

8

Clouds

Observing Program: ROAp stars Problems: It was very cloudy during the entire observation Suggestion: Filter wheel 2 might indicate a problem due to its constant blinking. *relates to the May 11th and May 12th night of observation

Stephen Gillam

Andor Camera

12

6

Humidity

Observing Program: ROAp stars Problems: Humidity was very high towards the end of the night and so we had to pack up early. Suggestion: Filter wheel 2 might indicate a problem due to its constant blinking.

C. Zuluaga, A. Bosh

Andor Camera

0

11

Clouds

Outer solar system astrometry.

None

None

0

13

Connection Issues

ROAp stars A recent update to windows 10 killed the Cisco VPN client on my computer. I was unable to reinstall it. This is the 7th time in the last 3 years that I have had to reinstall the Global VPN client, the Cisco VPN client, the DNE program, and run Winfix.exe after a Windows update. Running winfix.exe corrupted the Windows Installer neccessitating a complete reinstallation of my Operating system. I strongly recommend replacing the Cisco VPN service, which is no longer supported by Cisco, with one that is supported and compatible with Windows 10.

NA

CCD

0

10

Clouds

Never opened cloudy all night

None

Andor CCD

10

0

No problems to report

None.

None

Andor CCD

10

0

No problems to report

PN central star monitoring

Henson

CCD

5

0

No problems to report

Southern T Tauri stars. No problems-- everything worked well.

Rutherford

Andor CCD

4

1

Equipment Failure

Lost first hour when Altitude Limit tripped. Telescope not near horizon, but Slew not recovered until ACE turned off switch to move telescope. Pointing, tracking, filter wheel sequence all worked fine so observations excellent once started.

samec

camera

null

0

No problems to report

Observations of active solar type binaries.

3 cats

Andor CCD

11

0

No problems to report

H II regions near and far. Explored stray light mitigation by doing images with shutter open and telescope covers closed. Early on, a span of panic when it appeared that stars left charge trails along -y but this seems to have been asymmetric telescope bounce. Focus 126800, guide focus 2000. Pleased to see that the Andor CCD can recover control after an abort just by reopening the "observations" panel in ACE software. Guider was not able to correct for NS telescope motions near -65, 1hr west.

3 cats

Andor CCD

5

5

Clouds

Galaxies in H-alpha, checking out stray light. Focus=127800, guider focus 2000. Guider parameters had been corrupted; reset to X speed = Y speed=1, angle=0. The stray light between filters is puzzling - it looks brighter (in ADU/minute) in H-alpha than in R, and only slightly dimmer in B than in R. Its contrast across the field does seem to change with filter.

Yong Sheng, Dieter Hartmann

CT

6

5

Humidity

Blazar Photo z measurements

Kamp, Le, Fowler, Richards, Miorelli

CCD

12

0

No problems to report

Photometric survey Be stars.

None.

Andor CCD

9

1

Clouds

PN central star photometry

3 cats

Andor CCD

11

0

No problems to report

Dead quasar survey, H II regions, stray-light checkout. Focus=128300, seeming finicky tonight.

C. Zuluaga

Andor Camera

11

0

No problems to report

Outer solar system astrometry. No issues to report.

C. Zuluaga

Andor Camera

12

0

No problems to report

Outer solar system astrometry, and basic testing of new Andor camera to understand the performance in the various modes. Looks good.

None

CCD camera

9

0

No problems to report

AGN monitoring program No problems to report Optimum focus = 127800 at T = 16 Celsius Telescope pointing after slew not perfect, but target was always within CCD filed.

Dieter, Yong

CCD

11

0

No problems to report

Photometric redshifts of BL Lacs.

Andrew Gebken

CCD

8.5

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binary

Andrew Gebken

CCD

8

0.5

Clouds

eclipsing binary

Andrew Gebken

CCD

8.5

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binary

Andrew Gebken

CCD

8.5

0

No problems to report

Eclipsing binary

3 cats

Andor CCD

11

0

No problems to report

Dead quasar survey, Andor CCD checkout. Focus 128000, guider focus 2000. Found potential gotcha when recovering from sequence abort - CCD came back in 3 MHz readout instead of previously set 1 MHz; bought myself some noise for the next hour or so. There is a diffuse pattern in darks at about 1 ADU/minute which looks like a light leak but persists at night so it seems to be an actual property of the chip.

None

Andor CCD

10

0.5

Equipment Failure

Telescope routinely pointed about 10 arcminutes to the north. This was corrected every time by simply hitting "Send" a second time, at which point the telescope pointed correctly with the target in the inner third of the chip.

Rutherford

Andor CCD

0

6

Other

NOTE: this happened night of 4/28 so 4/28 report is really for 4/26, don't see way to edit old reports so submitting with wrong date for some completeness of logs. Power Failure at Dome just after flats, Power out 4+ hours but all systems came back up once power restored. Uncertain of failure cause and night half gone so closed up and quit early.

Henson

CCD

6

0

Other

Asteroid light curve. Due to the filter wheel issue, I set wheel #2 to clear (where it was supposed to have been already, but wasn't) and moved wheel #1 to "R." Both wheels seemed to behave normally. Did no filter changes from this point onward-- everything else behaved properly and I had no problems with the scope except for a sudden jump toward the south by an arc minute or so (something that has happened to me before with CT) halfway through the run.

keslo Estil

CCD

4

0

Other

Imaging nebula and galaxies Tracking was horrible at 2 hours before transit. Not even the auto guider could correct guiding errors. Every where else, tracking was great.

Alex McDaniel, Dieter Hartmann

g, r, i, z filters of CT

1

10

Equipment Failure

We can't observe because of the filter issue on the wheel 2. It won't change to the correct filter, and it got stuck.

Carlos Zuluaga

Imaging camera

11

0

No problems to report

Outer solar system astrometry. At sunset, clear, T=12.6C, RH=56%, Windspeed=4.4mph A smooth night.

Caballero, Zamora

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Observed Comets for ObsAstro Class and Standard Feilds with help from guide camera for ETC. Everything behaved normally

None

FLI CCD

10

0

No problems to report

PN central star monitoring. Only used Filter Wheel #1 and had no issues with it.

3 cats

FLI CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Dead quasar survey, galaxy dust lanes. Focus 132200. guider focus 2000.

students

FLI Cam

2

7

Clouds

Added comment: I attempted to change filters from SDSS_R to empty, in order to use the Bessel filters in Wheel 1. The filter change didn't progress, and looked like a blockage of the frame. Ran the initialization of Wheel 2 with unknown success. Filter remains sdss_r.

Students in Tools class

FLI Cam

2

7

Clouds

80 percent high clouds, star fields visible through it, however. Predicted high humidity reached near morning twilight. Student participation delayed because of local connection issues.

Yong, Alex, Dieter

CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

Photometric redshift of blazars. Filter wheel 2 is still not reliable and working consistently, therefore we could not observe.

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Objects for lab - images and lightcurves

Malagon

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Standard star fields. No issues to report.

AST200L: Kimbarl King Krahm Nguyen

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Imaging a variety of objects with AST200 lab students

Caballero

CCD

4

0

No problems to report

Observed Various Targets with Observational Astronomy Class. Telescope tracking seemed slightly off as stars were elongating even with short (~10 sec) exposures.

N/A

CCD

0

10

Clouds

Too cloudy to open. From previous night (24 Feb) forgot to mention that the guide camera was not working. Did not test it tonight.

Kamp, Klare, Le, Zamora

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Class project for creating an Exposure time calculator. No problems to report. CCD was back online after having stopped when aborted the night before.

Kamp

CCD

10

0

Software/Control PC Issues

Starting taking darks before the end of the night and had to abort the observations for morning flats. Followed the restart instructions for the camera (even restarted both computers) and was not able to get the camera back online. Message is "Exposure start failed."

CCD

6

5.5

Equipment Failure

Started okay, but then camera disconnected, required ACE intervention. Once restored, no problems to report.

Yong, Alex, Dieter

SARA CT

7

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Clemson University blazar observations Problems: Sequence tool got stuck and we had to restart ace control software

Kimbarl, King, Krahm, Nguyen

CCD

9.5

0

No problems to report

A few of the images had some streaks of interrupted tracking, otherwise all was well.

Students in two classes observed

FLI Cam

10.5

0.3

Equipment Failure

Demonstration objects and asteroids (light curves). Most everything worked well, but a few glitches. On last asteroid in the 12:54 RA, -9 17 Dec (meridian area), a 240 second exposure had short streaks--a slippage? This short streak was repeated on each subsequent frame--not as if tracking stopped--it was engaged (and not red), but perhaps a slip. Two slews were so long I used the Stop button, then went to the object without problem. One of these was adjusting HA to 00:00 for the final parking at +15 deg Dec. After the streaks I moved to zenith park, tested a no-tracking streak of different lengths, and then tracked (aimed near zenith) and tracked the area. No problems appeared. I expected high humidity tonight but it did not exceed 72% (at start). Early on, noted ds9 wasn't displaying data (just image); Tried the XPA. Closed ds9, started Ace connector on camera computer, followed by reopening ds9 and using the telescope computer to take pictures. This worked (and is in the manual). Focusing poor, seeing not the 0.6 " advertised on Tololo conditions. Remembered to disconnect vpn link when done.

Dieter Hartmann

CCD

0

9

Equipment Failure

Photometric redshifts of BL Lacs.

Logan Spooner

FLI Cam10.7

10.7

0

No problems to report

Student targets (M92, LMC) and asteroids 445 Edna and 13093 Wolfgangpauli. Parked telescope at HA = 00:00 and Dec = +15. NIce weather. No problems other than busy day just prior to run.

3 cats

FLI CCD

8.5

0

No problems to report

Merging and backlit galaxies. Focus 132500, guider focus 0. Used only filter wheel 1 with no problems. When moving to park at dec +30, ACE control gave error message about faulty dec encoder. Compared to KP, CT computer gave UT 22 seconds slow (and KP agreed with cellphone time to a second or so).

Viviana Arroyave, Keslo Estil

CCD

6

0

No problems to report

Blazar monitoring and imaging galaxies

Meenakshi Rajagopal

SARA CT

0

10

Software/Control PC Issues

Study BL Lacs Problem: Can't use the filters in wheel 2, the filter options are in grey

None

CCD camera

0

10

Equipment Failure

The #1 filter wheel is not operating, as noted by Amy Lovell last night.

none

CCD

2.5

8

Equipment Failure

Filter Wheel 1 is unresponsive: INIT Wheel 1 just continually displays "Finding HOME for Wheel 1" and never returns.  All filters in Wheel 1 are grey.  The filter wheel window also persists after closing the Science Camera.  Any attempt to fool the wheel by selecting a filter in the sequence tool is similarly met with no response. The camera reset procedure (from the text file on the desktop) does not fix this, whether with the Observations window or the whole ACE software. Reboot of either or both computers in any order doesn't fix. After the resets, etc, the camera will expose and write an image, with "---" in the FILTER field, but the filter may have been stuck on B or between B and V.

3 cats

FLI CCD

8.5

0

No problems to report

Focus 133000; Guider focus 0. Near the meridian at dec -69, there were frequent instances of the telescope bobbing N-S by 5” or so that the guider took 5 minutes to correct. After recent nights, I kept closer track of the CD temperature and took multiple darks during the night to see whether hot pixels are really changing that fast. Two darks during twilight were suspiciously bright - light may be leaking around the shutter.

Samec

FLI

8

0

No problems to report

All went well. Observations on EI Oct and WISEJ051352.5-170113. The network did kick me out 20 or so times but I was able to easily connect again.

Kamp, Class

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Class observing and standard star field. X-stage guider did not seem to like moving to the W fields. Had to reinitialize. Guiding worked very well. We did reach the horizon limit when trying to slew away from it, but were able to move the telescope with the paddle and slew normally.

Saida Caballero, Natalia Malagon

CCD

11

0

No problems to report

Observed Standard Fields for CCD calibration utilizing Guider

3 cats

FLI CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Galaxies, supernovae, Surveyor 2 Centaur stage. Focus 131500, guider focus 0. Guider stage will only reach positions 0 and E1. There was an error message FAULTY ABSOLUTE DEC ENCODER on ACE screen; unsure when it appeared.

Caballero, Le, Klare

CCD

11

0

No problems to report

Standard Star Feilds taken for calibration. The only problem that occurred was accidentally pressing abort twice and needing to follow the notepad instructions to reconnect the camera.

King

CCD

3

3

Connection Issues

student training, images for lab analysis, connection problems at this end, tried to find the right pointing offset a few times

Krahm

CCD

2

7

Clouds

Student training, thin clouds rolled over after not too long

Samec

FLI camera

9

3

Equipment Failure

Observations of Eclipsing Variables, EI Oct and WISEJ051352.5-170113. Network problems. connection very weak. Closed down multiple times. Very slow reacting.

Samec

FLI camera

12

0

No problems to report

Observations of Eclipsing Variables, EI Oct and WISEJ051352.5-170113.

Samec

FLI Camera

12

0

No problems to report

Observations of Eclipsing Variables, EI Oct and WISEJ051352.5-170113.

Andy Baran

CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Hot Subdwarf stars photometry time series. Focus 134700 at the beginning of the night, and I needed to increase it later. The weather was good but some clouds came during the second half of the night. Telescope was working well.

Gary Henson

CCD

5

3

Clouds

Cloudy first part of the night, but cleared around local midnight. The telescope and CCD worked perfectly.

Samec

FLI Camera

8

0

No problems to report

Observations of Eclipsing variables WISE051352,5-170113 and EI Oct.

Samec

FLI Camera

8

0

No problems to report

Observations of Eclipsing variables WISE051352,5-170113 and EI Oct.

No one

CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Subdwarf B star photometry time series for searching for companions. Everything was working well and the weather was good too.

Keslo Estil

CCD

6

0

No problems to report

Galaxy imaging

Dieter Hartmann

-

8

0

No problems to report

Clemson University Blazar Observations. No problems to report.

Nick Rimbert

None

0

9

Connection Issues

Not able to keep connection using cisco vpn on win 10. Not other way to connect?.

None

CCD camera

9

0

No problems to report

AGN monitoring program No problems to report. Telescope tends to point north of target, as noted by Bill Keel. Optimum focus 131000 at 12 Celsius. CCD temperature was -28 Celsius at start; it cooled to -30 within an hour and remained there.

3 cats

FLI CCD

8.5

0

No problems to report

Test drive, galaxies in H-alpha. Focus=133000. Even after initialization, the guider x-stage has limited movement; to the west it can’t quite reach W1. The NSEW directions are 180 degrees rotated from their previous directions; +x is to the east and +y to the north. The guider settings for x and y speed and angle are 1,1,0 (sign changes on the speeds from previous values). The guider focus is close to 0. Guiding works well; in some parts of the sky there were oscillations of 1-2” lasting several minutes, as if the slow-motion controls didn’t have enough authority in those locations. There was one complete guide failure where the stars wandered around by 30 arcseconds. Evening twilight flats showed a very large elliptical “Eye of Sauron” pattern which is new; bright in some filters and dark in others. There are also three new narrow features looking almost like scratches. I’ll check in the morning to see how reproducible these flat-field features are and compare sensitivities using Landolt standards with the latest pre-shutdown values. The cooler is struggling even with set point -30 C - the reported value ranged from -22 to -28.

none

CCD

7

1.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Observed eclipsing binary. 1. The ACE control cabinet needed rebooting at the beginning of the night. 2. The FWHM was spreading too widely for the same focus position, so that the auto focusing was confused about what is the best focus position. Solution: narrow down the search range. 3. Telescope lost tracking about 2 hours before the end of the night. Once that was fixed, the dome lost tracking It turns out the dome does not move at all, not even manually. So closed the telescope.