SARA 

Tom Rutherford

ETSU

None

CCD

0

8

Equipment Failure

Could not detect stars in images. Checked to see if the spectrograph was in the way-- it wasn't-- not sure at all what the issue was-- closed up after trying for a couple of hours.

Tom Rutherford

ETSU

None

CCD

4

3

Clouds

Asteroids. Cirrus clouds at first but cleared after local midnight. No issues with the telescope or CCD.

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

N/A

ARC CCD & Spectrograph

6.5

0

No problems to report

Galaxy monitoring and spectroscopy practice.

Roebrt Berrington

Ball State University

none

ARC

7

0

No problems to report

Short period variable stars

Ken Rumstay

VSU (Emeritus)

Max the Cat

CCD camera

8

1

No problems to report

AGN Monitoring. First hour lost to stupidity. Observing went swimmingly once Todd reminded me to move the spectrograph out of the way.

William Keel

University of Alabama

3 cats

ARC CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Finished merger sample of Dead Quasar Survey. Oddity: TEL computer RAdmin connection froze often, and mostly when the CCD was reading out, requiring making a new connection. Focus 438200, guider focus -1600.

William Keel

University of Alabama

2 cats

ARC CCD

2.5

6

Other

Closed due to dust/smoke per 4m operator (Ken Rumstay pointed that out - at sunset a couple of domes including WIYN were open so I was lulled). Dead quasar survey. Focus=439500, guider focus 0.

Stephen Gillam

ERAU

None

ARC Camera

10

0

No problems to report

rOAp stars. Note: The CCD isn't quite lined up with the cardinal directions. N is to the right and W is up on images. There is a slight rotation of the CCD wrt the cardinal directions.

Martha A. Leake

Valdosta State University

none

ARC camera

9

1.5

Other

Asteroid observations, no problems to report. Another event causes the 1.5 h hours lost. Smoke was not an issue.

Van Hamme

FIU

Samec

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Observations of interacting binaries. GSC 30151656 and NSVS 10803881.

Amy Lovell

Agnes Scott

Alex Yep, AST200L students

CCD + spectrograph demo

4

4

Wind

Training for AST 200L students with CCD, plus demo of spectrograph at the end Closed due to high and increasing winds, but we got most of what we needed ascom guide camera (for spectra) is not seeing the sky consistently, something odd is afoot, one time "move" made the star reappear, but it would disappear again with no explanation

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

N/A

ARC CCD

4

0

Clouds

Intermittent clouds, but was able to collect some good data.

Ted von Hippel

ERAU

Leila Alamos, Yaneicy Jimenez

imaging

6

0

No problems to report

variable WD

Stephen Gillam

ERAU

None

Andor Camera

10

0

No problems to report

rOAp stars.

Tom Rutherford

ETSU

None

CCD

4

0

No problems to report

Asteroid. No issues.

Walter VanHamme

FIU

Samec

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Observations of interacting binaries.

Ted von Hippel

ERAU

Lelia Alamos, Yaneicy Jimenez

imaging

7

0

No problems to report

Variable white dwarf photometry. The remainder of the night went to Kyle Pellegrin, a PhD student at Clemson for GRB work.

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

N/A

ARC CCD

3.25

0

Software/Control PC Issues

Had to restart ACE Node service to allow camera to download images to MaximDL. Other than that, everything went well.

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

N/A

ARC CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Monitoring galaxies for variability; exploring drizzle and lucky imaging.

William Keel

University of Alabama

3 cats

ARC CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Finished [O III] images for dead quasar survey merger phase. After moving to my third target and taking a test exposure, I watched as the focus readout shifted spontaneously by +35000 units. The actual focus did not change. Testing binning 2x2 during guiding worked well, speeding up the start of guiding. One long exposure wiped out by fast RA oscillations near 345W +41.

William Keel

University of Alabama

3 cats

ARC CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Dead quasar survey. Focus 395500, guider focus 0.

Keefe Kamp

Florida Tech

Gokuldass, Tobolski

CCD/Spec

2

8

Clouds

Be Spectra and Tess Photometric follow-up planned however clouds appeared to come in because the CCD image began to look smeared and darker closed up after that

Zorayda Martinez

Texas A&M University-Commerce

Kurtis Williams

Andor

7

0

No problems to report

white dwarf time series

Zorayda Martinez

Texas A&M University-Commerce

Kurtis Williams

Andor

7

0.5

Other

white dwarf time series, time lost due to forgetting to click autosave

XIANMING HAN

Butler University

none

CCD

80

1.5

Equipment Failure

filter wheel stuck

William Keel

University of Alabama

3 cats

ARCC CD

9.5

0

No problems to report

Dead quasar survey, When connecting in afternoon, connector client would not start. Brian Brondel had a look and found something messed up in the Windows registry. CCD focus 394000, guide focus=0.

William Keel

University of Alabama

3 cats

ARCCCD

8.5

1

Clouds

Dead quasar survey. Focus 394000. Guide focus -18000; had to change X rate in guide settings from 1 to -1, and reconnect QSI guide canera from MaxIm.

Todd Vaccaro

Ball State University

Nicolette Terracciano

ARC CCD

7.5

.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Eclipsing binary. We had some problem getting our target at a low altitude, possibly too low for dropout, but after homing the dome and moving the scope to confirm it was looking through the slit and going back to the target things were fine except for the beginning of a Bessel R and I sequence that got stuck trying to move the filter wheel to I, so I INIT wheel 1 after pausing the sequence and then restarting; things went smoothly for the rest of the night.

Nayra Rodríguez Eugenio

IAC

none

none

0

5

Clouds

Clouds and humidity > 80% for the entire second half of the night. I didn't even connect to the telescope

Tom Rutherford

ETSU

None

CCD

4

6

Clouds

Asteroid. High cirrus clouds-- sky became washed out once the moon came up.

Ted von Hippel

ERAU

Leila Alamos, Yaneicy Jimenez, Kathryn Closius

imaging

9

0

No problems to report

Student programs on variable white dwarf and reflection nebula.

Martha Leake

Valdosta State University

Logan Spooner

ARC camera

9

1

Other

No problems to report. Much time spent finding best focus (several times). No slips in focus noted. Needed to close up for 7:30 am commitment. Will transmit data shortly. Also, will stow telescope in 0 HA and -30 degree Dec position.

Todd Hillwig

Valparaiso University

None.

ARC camera

9.5

0.5

Other

PN central stars. A few times during the night the tracking could not keep up with the object, creating E-W elongation/trails. This happened mostly in the west, but at intermediate altitudes in the NW. But also happened in the NE with one target.

Ted von Hippel

ERAU

Leila Alamos, Yaneicy Jimenez

imaging

6

0

No problems to report

One filter reinit required. Some pedagogically useful operator errors from the students. Needed to move the spectrograph out of the way.

Nayra Rodriguez Eugenio

IAC

none

ARC CCD

4.5

0

No problems to report

Student research projects on exoplanet transits, 2nd half night.

Todd Vaccaro

Ball State University

Nicolette Terracciano, Jonathon Smith

ARC CCD

2

9

Wind

EB time of minimum, missed b/c we had to close due to high winds (lost 5 hrs and no flats at the end of the night), lost 3 hours at the beginning of night due to threatening clouds (no early flats), lost 1 hr b/c we thought clouds an issue, but the dome was not aligned with the scope (had to home dome, park scope, restart auto dome). Would be nice to have web cams work, but they don't appear to be working. We also had to login to each machine to start and nothing was up and running, which was confusing and couldn't get the telescope machine to initiate ACE at first, so that machine was rebooted. The night will be a complete loss if we don't have someone offer some Bessel R and I flats for us to use.

William Keel

University of Alabama

3 cats

ARC CCD

11

0

No problems to report

Dead quasar survey. Spent an hour chasing focus, discovered it had changed by 110,000 units since my last KP night, then had a couple of hours of the worst seeing I've ever experienced at Kitt Peak. Focus eventually settled to 39250, slid to 385200 later in the night (kind of like airport gates in Airplane). Guide stage still seems stuck at edge of field; focus was -17600. With fixed guider position, trick of binning guide exposures 2x2 in Setup panel (I think I heard that from Kurtis Williams) really helped for faint guide tars.

Ken Rumstay

VSU

None

CCD camera

0

11

Humidity

AGN's

Gary Henson

ETSU

None

Spectrograph

0

9

Wind

High humidity off and on but winds at 4m up to 60 mph

Gary Henson

ETSU

Rutherford

CCD and Spectrograph

0

9

Clouds

Threatening clouds early, clear for a couple hours but more clouds moving in soon after that. Not enough good weather to open.

Dr. Alexandra Yep

Agnes Scott College

none

Spectrograph

4

0

Software/Control PC Issues

I was trying to do spectroscopy and could not figure out how to get a decent spectrum. I don't know what focus to use or what I'm doing wrong. Besides that though, I think I maybe needed the StellaCam3? Every time I clicked that tab, the whole Ace program crashed. That might be a problem?

Ted von Hippel

ERAU

Elvis Santana

imaging

6.5

0

No problems to report

Observation (Seyfert type 2 galaxies and quasars) went well. SARA-KP was responsive, imaging went off without a kink, and weather conditions were good.

Martha Leake

Valdosta State University

none

Andor

11.2

0

No problems to report

Asteroid light curve work for three objects and images for a Stars and Galaxies class. All went well but needed to connect to camera computer near start up; used the Ace connector from the start button. Pointing slightly off center. Stowed the telescope.

Xianming Han

Butler University

Josh Wanninger

CCD

0

10

Humidity

did not open

Xianming Han

Butler University

Kaylee TenBarge

CCD

4

6

Wind

eclipsing binaries

Xianming Han

Butler University

Kira Baasch

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binaries

Xianming Han

Butler University

Josh Wanninger

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binaries

Xianming Han

Butler University

Maya Leonard

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binaries

Xianming Han

Butler University

Kaylee TenBarge

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binaries

Xianming Han

Butler University

Kira Baasch

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binaries

Xianming Han

Butler University

Josh Wanninger

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binaries

Ted von Hippel

ERAU

none

imaging

0

0

Other

Meant to be student observing program for our 1/2 night but student had last minute problems and couldn't show. I put out the offer to SARA-Board then SARA-Tech, but no takers.

Nayra Rodriguez

IAC

none

ARC CCD

4

0

No problems to report

Student research projects on SNae, 2nd half night

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

None

ARC CCD & Spectrograph

8.5

0

No problems to report

Images of M31, M82, and spectra of Arcturus and Regulus.

Gary Henson

ETSU

Rutherford

spectrograph and ccd

6

4

Wind

Monitoring Nova in M31 - Spectroscopy of Massive Stars SE Wind preventing observing target in that direction but targets to west Ok. Filter Wheel 1 requiring initialization, X-stage maybe stuck?

William Keel

University of Alabama

3 cats

ARC CCD

12

0

Equipment Failure

Dead quasar survey. Focus 497600, guider focus 2150. Guider X-stage is stuck, did not move even when commanded to initialize. Also, every move of filter wheel #1 required an INIT command to complete. Filter 2 wheel moves were OK.

Todd Hillwig

Valparaiso University

None

ARC camera

0

10

Clouds

No observing, clouds.

William Keel

University of Alabama

3 cats

ARC CCD

6

6

Clouds

Dead quasar survey. Focus 501100, guider focus 1150. Good image quality tonight.

Ken Rumstay

VSU

None

CCD camera

12

0

No problems to report

AGN monitoring program

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

None

ARC CCD

1

7

Clouds

Began observing M33 until the clouds rolled in for the night.

Nayra Rodriguez Eugenio

IAC

Sandra Benitez

ARC CCD

5

0

No problems to report

Student research projects on NEO follow-up and exoplanet transit, 2nd half night

Ted von Hippel

ERAU

Lauren Ashworth, Elvis Santana

imagining

2.5

0

Other

Student training. Some slight clouds but no real issues. We had the first 1/2 night, but used only the first 2.5 hours for student training.

Jim Webb

Florida International University

Luna (cat)

CCD0

0

10

Other

COVID illness

James Webb

florida International University

Luna (cat)

CCD

0

10

Other

Blazars, Didn't observe due to COVID illness

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

none

ARC CCD

0

7

Humidity

Humidity kept slowly rising towards limit, so I did not open the dome.

William Keel

University of Alabama

3 cats

ARC CCD

6.5

0

No problems to report

Dead quasar survey. merging galaxies. Focus 499000, guider focus 750. Focus slipped twice while tracking one object across meridian.

Todd Vaccaro

Ball State University

Nicollette Terracciano, Patrick Noble

ARC

0

11

Humidity

Eclipsing binaries. Wheel one got caught moving and I had to INIT it to stop and go to Bessel R after it "home" stopped at Bessel I.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Andor CCD

4

4

Clouds

M31 H-alpha nova monitoring

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Spectrograph

0

8

Clouds

High thin and thick clouds all night with bright moon, never opened.

William Keel

University of Alabama

3 cats

ARC CCD

12.5

0

No problems to report

Dead quasar survey, Focus 494500, guider focus 0. It took INIT to get filter wheel 1 to properly position filters most of the time.

James Webb

Florida International University

none

CCD

0

10

Clouds

Blazar micro variability

Walter Van Hamme

FIU

Samec

CCD

6

4

Equipment Failure

I had problems on this run. First the focus was far off. After I achieved focus, the pointing was moving to other positions so badly that I would lose the variable and/or check stars and I had to repoint. Next the sequencer started failing. I was given help on all of these but the sequencer was my downfall. I usually take several hundred BVRI observations and I need the sequencer to work. I would have observed for the entire 10 or more hours. But the system was apparently shut down by ACE for repairs.

Martha Leake

Valdosta State University

none

ARC camera

13

0

No problems to report

Asteroid light curves, a comet, and gathering images for classes that begin Monday. No problems--just the SARA Observatory computer. Good night.

Todd Vaccaro

Ball State University

Aaron Brown-O'dell

ARC CCD

11

0

Other

Eclipsing binaries. Using Wheel 2 for R and I at the beginning of night for one system I noticed that while focused for R it looked poorly focused (much larger FWHM) for I, might they not be parafocal? Wheel 1 was on empty all night. I switched to R and V for the second target, which seemed focused to begin with, but then stars became crescent-like and moving the focus down 3k or so made for a better focus where FWHM got as good as 2".

Stephen Gillam

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Lilyanne Pepe, Chloe Nelson, Aakash Thiyagarajan

Leach Camera

14

0

No problems to report

At the beginning of the night, there was some slight star trailing once the telescope azimuth moved below about 35 degrees. roAp stars

Stephan Gillam

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Lilyanne Pepe

Leach Camera

14

0

No problems to report

Slight star trailing appeared in images taken when the telescope azimuth was below roughly 40 degrees. roAp stars

Stephen Gillam

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Lilyanne Pepe, Aakash Thiyagarajan

ARC Camera

14

0

No problems to report

Bright blotch with sharp edge that appeared to evaporate as we took flat fields. Humidity was around 1% all night. roAp stars & sparse clusters

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Spectrograph

0

9

Humidity

Clouds, Rain, High humidity with winter storm, never opened.

Van Hamme/Samec

FIU

none

Andor CCD

0

10

Clouds

Winter Storm activity, never opened.

Van Hamme/Samec

FIU

none

Andor CCD

0

10

Humidity

Early Clouds, High Humidity, High Winds, mountain remained closed all night with touch and go weather.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Spectrograph

0

8

Clouds

Partly Cloudy skies most of night, no ACE backup with poor weather forecast so didn't open.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

none

0

0

Other

Observatory Holiday Closure

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

none

0

0

Other

Observatory Holiday Closure

Tom Rutherford

ETSU

None

CCD

0

4

Equipment Failure

Shutter appears to still be an issue-- all images looked like biases.

William Keel

University of Alabama

1 cat part-time

ARC CCD

0

13

Equipment Failure

Tried test images at sunset; only got bias pattern. Checked filter wheels, spectrograph pickoff, dome position, all OK. Brian Brondel connected and did a bunch of wizard incantations, and concluded the CCD shutter has probably failed. ACE will take a spare to the mountain tomorrow.

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

none

ARC CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Monitoring starburst galaxies.

Tom Rutherford

ETSU

None

CCD

5

0

No problems to report

M31. No real problems except that filter wheel #1 would hang on "moving,' during filter changes, although initializing it seemed make it work.

Stephen Gillam

ERAU

None

Andor Camera

1

9

Wind

ROAp stars

Stephen Gillam

ERAU

None

Andor Camera

1

9

Clouds

ROAp stars.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

spectrograph and ccd

8

0

No problems to report

Spectroscopy of Massive Magnetic Stars & M31 Nova Monitoring Track Rate: 15.060, +0.012

Nayra Rodriguez Eugenio

IAC

none

ARC CCD

0

5.5

Humidity

Student research projects. Cancelled due to 90-100% relative humidity and cloud cover throughout the night

William Keel

University of Alabama

3 cats

ARC CD

11

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Dead quasar survey. Focus 401000, guider focus 0. Lost 60-minute exposure to ACE closing (possibly pilot error while checking on the run with different VNC client). Really nice to have the focus mechanism repaired, responsive, and repeatable.

Stephen Gillam

ERAU

None

ARC Camera

9

0

No problems to report

rOAp stars. The weather was excellent, the sky very stable, and the equipment worked almost flawlessly. The RA tracking wobbles a little at hour angles greater than +3 hours and 45 mins. The CCD camera was operating at the unusually low temperature of -120C to -130C.

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

None

ARC CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Observed starburst galaxies.

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

None

ARC CCD & Spectrograph

0

7

Clouds

Took a set of spectrograph bias images. Couldn't observe due to clouds.

Kurtis Williams

TAMU-C

none

Andor

0

12

Equipment Failure

Observatory closed for focus mechanism repair

Kurtis Williams

TAMU-C

none

Andor

0

12

Equipment Failure

Entire top of telescope, including secondary mirror, missing, so little light was reaching the CCD. Focusing mechanism was also inoperative.

Martha Leake

Valdosta State University

Kyle Kent, Sam Panzika, Val Carey

ARC camera

10.3

1

Other

Student projects in Obs. Techn., asteroid light curve continued. Filter wheel 1 stuck twice in I filter; able to return to normal by small changes, initializing. The usual -1000C readings for CCD Temp; returned to normal when Obser. window refreshed. Ghost streak on dark after bright star on previous frame. Have appts to keep this morning, so stopping early.

Priya Gokuldass

Florida Tech

Kamp

CCD/Spectrograph

1.5

8

Clouds

Cyg X1 and Be spectroscopic observations planned but canceled due to high altitude clouds.

Martha Leake

Valdosta State University

Observational Techniques class

ARC camera

12

0.3

Software/Control PC Issues

Filter Wheel 2 seemed stuck in the filter changes; tried restarting Ace, later Peter helped with the problem. I kept expecting the filter message to read "At filter X" but it read "Moving to filter X". Main clue is that all filters visible and the one needed has a dot. Otherwise, no problems. One "jerk" in morning, but it steadied shortly after. Looked at many objects including Comet 67P. Too many students to give all a chance.

Ken Rumstay

VSU (Emeritus)

None

CCD camera

9

0

No problems to report

AGN monitoring program. A fairly productive night, despite the variable cloud cover. Note: 300-second dark frames show two vertical streaks; I'll post an example.

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

Samalka Anandagoda

ARC CCD & Spectrograph

9

0

No problems to report

Continued monitoring of M31N 2008-12a field. Additional images of nebulas and NGC 6946. First night getting spectra.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Spectrograph

9

0

No problems to report

Spectroscopy of Massive Magnetic Stars Find track rate of 15.064, +0.011 works very well for long exposures.

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

none

ARC CCD & Spectrograph

5.5

0

No problems to report

Observed NGC 6946, M31N 2008-12a field, and dumbbell nebula.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Spectrograph

10

0

No problems to report

Spectroscopy of Massive Magnetic Stars, Training for Clemson Observer Note Good Track Rate of 15.064, +0.011

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

Dr. Dieter Hartmann

ARC CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Observed planetary nebulae and NGC 6946

William Keel

University of Alabama

Astro 203 class

ARC CCD

3.5

0

No problems to report

Planetary nebulae for class. Focus 502500 was pretty good; approaching focus from much lower values seemed pretty well behaved.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

spectrograph

6

0

No problems to report

Spectroscopy of Massive Magnetic Stars

Emmett Dalton

ASC

CCD

1

3

Other

Asteroid rotation period. Low altitude warning. Moved back with paddle. Humid at beginning of night.

Keefe Kamp

FIT

Gokuldass

CCD/Spec

0

10

Wind

Be Photometric and Spectroscopic Observations planned but could not open due to sporadic high winds

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Spectrograph

5

5

Clouds

Spectroscopy of Massive Magnetic Stars Lost first half of night to clouds, no issues after that.

William Keel

University of Alabama

AY203 class, 2 cats

ARC CCD

6

3

Equipment Failure

Dust in galaxies, nebulae. Happened upon magic focus at 138100 for 1st four hours (thanks to Brian Brondel for going to the dome and restoring operation after storm and power outage), after which a 20-degree move made the focus slip and not only lost 1-hr exposure but 1.25 hours getting it back. Then it continued to slip during exposures, so I knew when I was beaten. But that first exposure stack is great.

Emmett Dalton

Agnes Scott College

CCD

0

5

Connection Issues

I was unable to connect to computers.

Martha Leake

Valdosta State University

Logan Spooner

ARC camera

10.0

0.25

Student projects and asteroid light curves and parallax test this Oct. 8. Slightly late start on this telescope, as I was observing at CTIO too. KP weather started cloudy and humid but improved then worsened at morning twilight; so I missed flats (will use those from 10/5). Slow slews were restarted. Successful night, despite confusion

William Keel

University of Alabama

Marcos Santander, Password-change Kitty

ARC CCD

8

3

Dead quasar survey, observer training. 138100 was an unusually good focus; guider focus ranged from -300 to +100.

Martha Leake

Valdosta State University

Eight students in Obs. Techniques

ARC camera

9

1

Student projects and asteroid photometry after they finished. Noted interesting small streak in lower left corner of a 180s dark, but no streak in the biases after that. Humidity was high earlier than I expected, but then fell from 12 midnight on. Spent one hour waiting for humidity to improve. Focus was great until I reached about HA of 2.5h.

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

Samalka, Dr. Hartmann, Madeline, Kouser

ARC CCD

1

5

Had to stop observing due to clouds.

XIANMING HAN

Butler Univ

Sera Shaughnessy

CCD

9

0

eclipsing binary, asteroid

Martha Leake

Valdosta State University

Alicia Heger

ARC camera

0

12

Student projects and asteroid light curves. I was unable to connect to KPNO. Gary said that he could get it and that the problem may be local. Using RADMIN, I was not able to connect with any of the three KPNO computers, although I could connect to CTIO and ORM. I will be checking with our IT folks soon. Skies were partly cloudy. Xianming was able to use the night.

XIANMING HAN

Butler Univ

Josh Wanninger

CCD

10

0

eclipsing binary and asteroid. ACE helped fixing the camera (which was reported not functioning in the previous day).

XIANMING HAN

Butler University

Josh Wanninger

CCD

0

10

Lost first half of the night due to clouds. Lost 2nd half due to camera issues: The CCD camera on SARA KP is not functioning. It does take images. But all images look like bias. I tried different exposure times, different filters, checked X-stage guider positions and made sure the spectrograph is not checked, turning on and off the dome red lights, telescope mirror cover open and close. But none of these seem to make any difference. Have emailed ACE. And tried to call ACE but did not succeed yet.

William Keel

University of Alabama

2 cats

ARC CCD

0

12

Dead quasar survey, wiped out by clouds thicker and lasting longer than in the forecast.

Keefe Kamp

Florida Tech

Norton, Gokuldass, Tobolski, Baranowski

CCD and Spec

0

10

Be Star and TESS follow-up observations planned. Right at twilight threatening clouds came in and did not look like they were going anywhere.

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

Samalka Anandagoda, Dr. Hartmann

ARC CCD

0

5

Couldn't observe due to clouds and chance of rain during the night.

Kyle Pellegrin

Clemson University

Samalka Anandagoda, Dr. Dieter Hartmann

ARC CCD

4

0

Observed starburst galaxies.

XIANMING HAN

Butler Univ

Sera Shaughnessey

CCD

5.5

4.5

CCD camera froze. Tried to access Switch 1 to recycle power to ACE control Cabinet. But switch 1 is not accessible (only switch 2 is accessible). Will email ACE about this problem. After restarting ACE software, a camera does begin to take images, but this camera appears to be a different camera (same stars do not show up). So please take a look.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Spectrograph

9.5

0

Spectroscopy of Massive Stars, Spectrograph appears to be working nominally after summer shutdown. FLI ccd cooled to -37C running TEC at about 97% power. With external air temp ~17C, focus settings were Fiber plate (-515), Spectrum (-3650), Telescope (151000). Found track rates of 15.065, +0.011 to be reasonably good before autoguiding, but autoguiding was excellent and system stable although I observed and tracked a single target all night.

Keefe Kamp

FIT

Caballero, Gokuldass

CCD, Spec

0

12

Planed Be photometric and Spectroscopic observations however with a 50% chance of rain tonight. decided not to open.

Tomomi Otani

ERAU

Brian Herbster

CCD

0

10

Since dome control UPS appears to have failed, Gary suggested us not to open the dome if precipitation threat within 24 hours. Precipitation threat tonight and tomorrow, so we could not open the dome.

Todd Vaccaro

Ball State University

None

ARC CCD

8.5

1

Eclipsing binary stars. Imaging sequence froze with ccd computer stuck at 100% exposure and tele computer unable to take exposure; after finding the instructions for resetting things on the camera computer I lost about half an hour. Another half hour was lost at the end of the night as tracking failed at about HA 3:30 and I missed the last half of eclipse egress.

Tomomi Otani

ERAU

Andy Baran, Brian Herbster, Johnathan Hodge

CCD

10

0

Wide binary stars observation forgyrochronology, and subdwarf B star observation for pulsation search. The focus was okay if we do not touch it (we used B filter to set the focus). The good focus position changes when we move focus even a little bit, and it requires long time to set the focus again.

Tomomi Otani

ERAU

Andy Baran, Carina Shanahan

CCD

10

0

Searching star rotation period for gyrochronology, subdwarf B star observation. It was difficult to find the right focus. We obtain a good focus at 110000, but I am not sure this value still gives up good focus tomorrow night.

Ken Rumstay

VSU

None

CCD camera

0

9

Personal stupidity. I failed to realize that light wasn't getting to the camera because the spectrograph was in the way.

Tomomi Otani

ERAU

Johnathan Hodge,

CCD

0

9

We could not connect to the computer PC. Peter is currently helping us to check this issue.

XIANMING HAN

Butler Univ

none

none

0

8

observatory was shut down for the season ahead of schedule.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Spectrograph

0

7

Rain early then overcast skies. Monsoon weather set in.

Samalka Anandagoda

Clemson University

Kyle Pellegrin, Dr. Hartmann

ARC CCD

0

7

Didn't open the dome due to clouds

Martha Leake

Valdosta State University

none

ARC camera

7.3

0

Asteroid photometry for light curve and M27. Finished transfer before KPNO IT work today (27th, Sunday)

Ron Kaitchuck

Ball State Univ.

None

CCD imager

8

0

KIC object follow up.

Andy Baran

ERAU

n/a

CCD

8

1

No technical issues, cirrus and altocumulus clouds passed by. After observation darks show residual charge from saturated stars and the readout columns. The silicon requires to be flashed after each star image.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

spectrograph and ccd

7.5

0

Spectroscopy of Massive Stars and GRB afterglow Note: Maxim Connection to QHY guide camera kept freezing requiring software restarts. Lost one long exposure do to this. Also a very poor seeing night.

Samalka Anandagoda

Clemson University

Kyle Pellegrin, Dr. Hartmann

ARC CCD

6

2

GRB afterglow observations. It was difficult to maintain the telescope focus. Other than that there are no issues to report.

Ken Rumstay

VSU

None

CCD camera

9

0

No problems, aside from the usual one of maintaining a usable focus. A better night than last night.

Ken Rumstay

VSU

None

CCD camera

7

0

AGN monitoring program. Not a great night: scattered clouds. Very difficult to maintain a usable focus.

James Webb

Florida International University

none

CCD

4

0

Blazar microvariability

Samalka Anandagoda

Clemson University

Kyle Pellegrin, Dr. Hartmann

ARC CCD

6

0

GRB210610B afterglow observation

Ken Watanabe

FGCU

Nick Rimbert

CCD

6

0

Blazars

Sima Vaidya

Embry Riddle Aeronautical University

Brian Herbster, Carina Shanahan

Research Camera

5

0

Student Observation. When taking flats, the filter wheel would move by itself and exposures were taken without manually taking exposures. To fix this, the system was restarted. Throughout the observation, the telescope would not slew to a location when using the SoftPad and would only slew to the inputted RA and Dec. Focusing took an hour, and the telescope continuously lost focus many times.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Spectrograph

6

2

Spectroscopy of Massive Stars All worked fine. Lost hours at beginning of night to clouds.

XIANMING HAN

Butler Univ

Sera Shaughnessey

CCD

8

0

eclipsing binary

XIANMING HAN

Butler Univ

Sera Shaughnessey

CCD

0

8

none

XIANMING HAN

Butler Univ

Sera Shaughnessey

CCD

8

0

eclipsing binary

Todd Hillwig

Valparaiso University

Olivia Krugman, Sean Egan, Peyton Grimm, Will Bakke

ARC camera

8

1

Closed last hour due to dust/smoke in the air. No other problems.

Todd Hillwig

Valparaiso University

Will Bakke, Sean Egan, Olivia Krugman, Peyton Grimm

ARC camera

8

0

PN central stars.

Todd Hillwig

Valparaiso University

Peyton Grimm, Will Bakke, Sean Egan, Olivia Krugman

ARC camera

4

4

Clouds during first half of the night. PN central stars.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Spectrograph

3

5

Spectroscopy of Massive Magnetic Stars No problems other than clouds at sunset, clearing then thick clouds arriving after midnight KP time with full moon to obscure targets. Small wildfire still burning a few miles south of KP but west wind kept smoke away.

Lorena Sanabria

Embry Riddle Aeronautical University

Brian Herbster, Sima Vaidya

Research Camera

<1

~4

Wildfires reported 12 miles from the telescope location, domes were closed. No observation was conducted due to the weather.

Todd Vaccaro

BSU

N/A

ARC CCD

4

3

Eclipsing binary and variable stars program. Lost 30 minutes to focus issues and the last 2.5 hours due to tracking failing at +3 HA at Dec +50. Telescope was found zenith parked, I stowed it at the end of the night. No other problems.

Sima Vaidya

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Brian Herbster, Lorena Sanabria

Research Camera

3

0

Student Observation. No problems to report.

Sima Vaidya

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Lorena Sanabria, Brian Herbster

Research Camera

5

0

Student observation. Towards the end of the observation, it was seen that the declination is off by 5 degrees.

Lilyanne Pepe

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Aakash Thiyagarajan, Stephen Gillam

Leach Camera

12

0

No problems to report. roAp program

Samalka Anandagoda

Clemson University

Kyle Pellegrin, Dr. Hartmann

ARC CCD

7

0

No problems to report. M51, M66, ngc3593 observation.

Ken Rumstay

VSU

Max the Cat

CCD camera

10

0

AGN monitoring program No problems to report, save the usual one of trying to establish an optimum focus.

Lilyanne Pepe

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Stephen Gillam

Leach Camera

12

0

No problems to report. roAp program

Lilyanne Pepe

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Stephen Gillam, Aakash Thiyagarajan

Leach Camera

11

1

Ace Node Service for the camera stopped working. Fixed by stopping the program, waiting two minutes, and restarting it. This problem occurred a total of 5 time while observing. roAp program

Lilyanne Pepe

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Stephen Gillam, Aakash Thiyagarajan

Leach Camera

11

1

Presumptive ACE Node Restart and Control Cabinet Recycle

James Webb

FIU

Viviana Arroyave, Luna Webb, Sparkle Webb

CCD

9

0

Blazar microvariability. Couldn't get the telescope to go to the park HA-Dec, keot telling me oout of bounds, so I left it zenith parked.

William Keel

University of Alabama

3 cats

ARC CCD

5.2

0

Dead quasar survey. Focus 363000, guider focus 12000. QSI guide camera disconnected once, but disconnect/reconnect from MaximDL worked.

Amy Lovell

Agnes Scott

CCD

8

0

Asteroid lightcurve observations. Much better with the moth-free filter wheel, no problems to report.

Amy Lovell

Agnes Scott

Ed Albin

CCD

.5

10

A training run, which was successful in demonstrating everything including a stuck filterwheel. The filter wheel is on Bessel R, and if you select another filter, it perpetually indicates "Moving to BESSEL V" but doesn't appear to move.  INIT doesn't have any effect, it goes grey normally and then just returns to indicating BESSEL R, with the message "Finding HOME for Wheel 1." Tried taking images anyway, and it seems to truly be the R filter - indicates so in the FITS headers and M51 looked like it does in R. Rebooted telescope computer, then rebooted both computers, with no effect on the problem.

Tomomi Otani

ERAU

Brian, Lorena, Sima

CCD

4

0

The first half was assigned to ERAU. My students took astrophotography for public outreach event. There was no problem to report.

Todd Vaccaro

BSU

Terracciano

Andor CCD

4.5

3

Eclipsing binary. Lost early eve flats and 2 hrs to high winds. Then lost another hour as tracking issues near end of the night at HA +3. CCD maintained -110C temp all night. 2 min darks were about 10 counts higher than bias. At the beginning of the night we had to restart both ccd/tele computers as tele control of taking images was not sending them to the right directory on the CCD machine.

Saida Caballero

FIT

N/A

Spectrograph

0

9

B star spectroscopy. Night started off very cloudy.

Saida Caballero

FIT

Kamp

Spectrograph

0

10

Weather was not looking good at the beginning of the night. Peter used the time to install the new cooling system for the CCD.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Spectrograph

4

5

Spectroscopy of Massive Stars -- No equipment problems but bright Moon with significant cirrus clouds for most of the night hampered observations.

Todd Vaccaro

BSU

Nicolette Terracciano

ARC

5

2.5

Eclipsing binary program. 2 min dark showed bright bottom right corner and top right corner, but 30 second darks used didn't have issues. CCD maintained -99C. Focus wasted about 1.5 hrs from finding optimum focus at the beginning of night and again 2/3 of the way through as it seemed to have lost focus. Last hour lost as tele pointed 311 Az/46 Alt in NW showing trailing stars and wouldn't stop, so I closed up.

XIANMING HAN

Butler University

Andrew Gebken

CCD

9

0

eclipsing binary The filter wheel froze frequently. In the end, I decided to use just one filter instead.

James Webb

Florida International University

none

ccd

8

1

Blazar microvariability Focus took off again. Took over an hour to get it back.

James Webb

Florida International University

none

ccd

8

1

Blazar microvariability, Focus took off and it took a while to get the focus back, Weird! Telescope was stuck on west limit when I logged in. I had to back it off the limit using t soft hand paddle.

Ted von Hippel

ERAU

no one

none used

0

all

The night originally belonged to TAMUC colleagues but was made available after the camera cooler worked. We had thought it could be useful for our purposes but found that the excessive dark current (and to some degree other problems such as focus jumps), made the telescope + imager unusable for our purposes.

James Raymond Webb

Florida International University

none

CCD

0

10

local network down

VanHamme

FIU

samec

Research Camera

0

11

Observations of eclipsing Binarirs

Saida Caballero

FIT

Klare, Fowler, Zamora

Spectrograph

8

0

Spectroscopy of Be stars

Ted von Hippel

ERAU

Sarah Kokinakkis

imaging

5

5

Observing program: identifying H alpha excess objects Problems: the high dark current on the CCD was a bigger problem than expected both operationally and for our project. Operationally, the previous observer had left the guider pick-off in the beam center and the telescope was out of focus. Add that to the unreliability of focus position and the fact that using the auxiliary instruments window repeatedly crashed ACE (necessary to first see if the pick-off mirror was in the beam and then necessary to move the pick-off), and we spent some hours before we could find targets and obtain focus. From a project perspective, it isn't clear that these data will dark-subtract well enough to see faint H alpha emission, but we'll see ...

Keefe Kamp

Florida Tech

Fowler, Klare, Le, Malagon

Spectrograph

7

0

Spectroscopy of Massive Stars. Everything went well with the spectrograph however partway through the night the Guide Camera could not be focused. Would not initialize and would only "focus" up (Positive)

Saida Caballero

FIT

N/A

Spectrograph

0

10

CCD still not in use. Planned on spectroscopy observations, but too many clouds at the start of the night.

Todd Hillwig

Valparaiso University

none

ARC camera

0

10

The CCD was warm and the temperature was rising. Yesterday was unseasonably warm for the mountain, but it appears during the power outage that something more significant happened (a problem with the cooler or with the dewar vacuum). ACE has been notified.

Tomomi Otani

ERAU

Brian Herbster

CCD

0

8

Student observation. The power was out at the beginning of the night. Although it was fixed around 12 AM EST, we already assumed that we could not observe the night before. So, I could not reach students' observers except one. So I called off for the night.

Ted von Hippel

ERAU

Sarah Kokkinakis

imaging

0

6

We had first 1/2 of night, but could never connect due to power out at dome ....

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Spectrograph

0

8

Power out to Dome all night. Couldn't connect to any computers.

Gary Henson

ETSU

none

Spectrograph

10

0

Spectroscopy of Massive Stars All worked fine tonight.

Saida Caballero

FIT

Kamp, Le, Miorelli, O'Brien, Fowler

CCD, spec

10

0

Standard star fields and B star spectroscopy. Had to initialize the spectrograph because even when aligned w/ fiber, no light was getting to the detector. It helped but not sure if it's initialized to the best spot.

Otani

ERAU

Brian Herbster, Dory Mauretour

CCD

0

9

Checking star rotation periods for Gyrochronology. We could not use the telescope due to the high wind speed.

Tomomi Otani

ERAU

Brian Herbster, Lorena Sanabria, Dory Mauretour, Sima Vaidya, Carina Shanahan

CCD

6

1.5

Dome azimuth is off by 15 degrees below the azimuth of the telescope (i.e. telescope azimuth=47 had to move dome azimuth to 32) Had to move dome manually with azimuth control. Seems like the auto dome was causing the azimuth of the dome to sync with the altitude of the telescope.

Ted von Hippel

ERAU

Clara Chedzoy

imaging

3

0

Clara had the first 1/2 of the night for her class project, which is to determine if image quality was sufficient to detect gravitational lensing distortion. The object wasn't available for the first 3 hours, so we used that time just to leisurely set up. The 2nd 1/2 of the night belonged to an IAC observer.

James Webb

Florida International University

Aviana Arroyaev

CCD

9

0

Blazar microvariability

James Webb

Florida International University

Viviana Arroyaev

CCD

9

0

blazar microvariability

James Webb

Florida International University

Vivaia Arroyave

CCD

8

0

Blazar microvariability

Martha Leake

Valdosta State University

none

ARC camera

4.5

4.5

Observing asteroid to establish light curve. Weather turned from poor to promising to poor, with high clouds to 100% of sky, with mid level clouds expected. No problems with equipment; parked the telescope in the stow position. Focus not bad but seeing poor all night; left at midnight MST.

Nayra Rodríguez Eugenio

IAC

none

ARC CCD

4.5

0

Student research projects on NEOs follow-up and exoplanet transit, 2nd half night. Focus 364000, did not have to change it. ACE connection system on CAMERA PC crashed at the end of the night (~11:50 UT), but images continued to be taken.