SARA-KP Report Archive

Date	Name	Affiliation	Other Observers	Instrument	Hours Observed	Hours Lost	Reason	Observing Program
11/01/2023	Cara Ebers	Agnes Scott College	N/A	KPNO	8:30pm - 4:00 am (ET)	none	Equipment Failure	Had an issue trying to take flats with Wheel 1– they did not turn out the way they should. Wheel 2 works.
10/29/2023	Gary D Henson	ETSU	Rutherford	Spectrograph & CCD	9	0	No problems to report	Spectroscopy of Massive Stars, Photometry of M31 and Periodic Comet Filter Wheel and Autoguider for CCD with issues reported on Discord.
10/28/2023	Stephen Gillam	ERAU	None	ARC Camera	0	10	Software/Control PC Issues	Micro-variables. The ACE connector client on the camera control computer was not available. So, I was unable to run the ARC camera.
10/27/2023	Terry Oswalt	ERAU	open house visitors	Leach camera	0	0	Software/Control PC Issues	We did not open the dome; only displayed ACE control system and camera system to visitors during our general open house. For some reason, the ACE control system and the camera window could not be put on separate screens. We had to toggle between them. Likely this is a local IT issue, but worth noting in case other observers experience the same inconvenience. The night was handed over to ASC observers around 11pm EDT.
10/26/2023	Kurtis Williams	TAMU-C	Fangyi Zhu	ARC Camera	0	11	Equipment Failure	Tried to do photometry with the repaired shutter. ACE.exe kept reporting being unable to connect to cameras. Tried multiple attempts of restarting node services, telescope and camera computers, and ace control cabinet. No luck. Gave up quickly because moon was probably too bright anyway.
10/11/2023	Kurtis Williams	TAMUC	none	ARC	0	11	Equipment Failure	Wanted to do photometry, but ARC camera shutter still down. Inconsiderate observer forgot to offer the night up to someone who wanted to do spectroscopy - sorry.
10/14/2023	Kurtis Williams	TAMU-C	none	ARC	0	11	Equipment Failure	Wanted to do photometry, but ARC camera shutter still down. Idiot observer forgot to offer the night up to someone who wanted to do spectroscopy - sorry.
10/17/2023	Walter Van hamme	FIU	Samec	CCD	6	0	Other	Chip showed large gradient of response across chip during flats 6000-32000. Observations of eclipsing binaries, V752 Cep.
10/15/2023	Nayra Rodríguez	IAC	IES Las Maretas (Fuerteventura)	ARC camera	4.5	0.5	Clouds	Student research projects on exoplanet transits and galaxies, 2nd half night. ARC camera shutter still out
10/17/2023	Walter Van Hamme	FIU	Samec	ARC CCD	6	0	Other	Flats show large gradient across field. I am not sure if they are useful/ Ron
10/15/2023	William Keel	University of Alabama	1 cat	ARC CCD	6	2	Equipment Failure	Giant AGN-ionized clouds (probably observed mostly out of sheer obstinacy). ARC camera shutter still out, so I used a sequence of bias-obect-3 biases (i.e. zero exposure) to cleanse the chip and subtract the pattern from light reaching the chip during exposure. Furthermore, unless the guide star was really bright, the guider would only work for short periods before the star jumped away, and had "star faded" roughly every other exposure. The guider x-stage is not moving (and even after it thought it was running off to initialize was still in the same place). Images on the guider are pretty poor; it may be way off the edge of the field. Telescope focus jumped from 8500 to 62500 while I watched the readout change.
10/06/2023	Martha Leake	Valdosta State University	none	ARC or Leach	10	0	Other	Early ds9 observations of the early evening sky showed a nice gradient from top (high) to bottom, low, which equalized with time. The orientation of the ds9 images was upside down and backwards. Cloudy at the start and finish, with episodes of clearer weather. Observed Comet C/2022 A2, and two asteroids, and Saturn (not successful).