SARA 

Billy Quarles

ETAMU

None

CCD

0

9

Clouds

Weather site indicated domes were closed due to threatening clouds for first couple of hours. Forecast indicated moderate cloud cover through the night. Did not open the dome.

Ken Rumstay

VSU (Emeritus)

None

CCd camera

0

10

Equipment Failure

L'observatoire est fermé pour rénovation.

Martha A. Leake

Valdosta State University

none

NA

0

8

Other

SARA KPNO not yet open (after monsoon season). Weather tonight 20% cloud cover, but clearer late, according to KPNO weekly conditions/predictions. Posting this report at 6:23 EDT, 3:23 MST.

Kaylee Grace

UD

N/A

N/A

0

8

Other

KP still not open after close for monsoon season.

William Keel

University of Alabama

one cat

ARC CCD

4

4

Clouds

AGN-ionized clouds. Focus ~559000, still floppy by 5000 units over small moves. Guider focus 0.

Steve Gillam

ERAU Retired

Matthew Hernandez

ARC Camera

1

7

Equipment Failure

ROAp stars in open clusters. The camera temperature read -1000 C intermittently and at the start of the night the temp was -103 C and not at the set point of -110 C. Six hours later, the CCD temp read -108 C. Thee cooler appeared to have difficulty reaching the set point. The big issue was that the secondary mirror did not appear to move in response to commanded focus changes. At the start of the night, there were double images. A change of focus of 200 units produced more round images. We attempted to adjust the mirror position for better focus but the images kept getting bigger, no matter whether we jogged the mirror up or down. Eventually, we arrived at large donuts. We did a full system recycle including recycling the power on to the telescope, the telescope computer and ACE control cabinet. Though we did not cycle the camera control computer. This appeared to fix the camera temperature readout issue. After the system restart, the indicated focus position was "1'. We commanded the focus to zero and then back to the nominal focus position in the "Go to focus" box but the images was the same large donut. Focus jogs as large as 3000 units failed to change the size of the image. The encoder reflected the commanded jog but the image size did not change. The secondary mirror appears to be stuck.

Gary Henson

ETSU

None

Spectrograph

3

5

Clouds

Spectra of WR stars : Threatening Clouds early and Dust closure late.

Todd Vaccaro

Ball State University

na

ARC

8.5

0

No problems to report

EB and novae. No major issues, though you still have to send tele to the first target of the night 2x before it will move. I noted in Discord that both pc's were showing anti-virus messages about publicly visible IPs and tracking cookies along with updates that may require pc reboots; Peter said he'd look into it.

Gary Henson

ETSU

None

Spectrograph

6

0

No problems to report

No major issues, But guide camera kept disconnecting early, Focus required driving to Zero couple of times before it would respond.

Robert Berrington

Ball State University

none

arc

0

10

Clouds

Clouds prevented opening.

Kurtis Williams

ETAMU

none

ARC

0

8

Other

Astronomers and REU students on field trip; night put up for grabs but no takers.

Ava Webber

Clemson University

Dieter Hartmann

CCD BVRI

8

0

No problems to report

Clemson transients study