SARA 

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

12

Other

The observatory closed due to volcanic eruption

Nuria Torres-Albà

Dieter

SARA ORM

0

12

Other

We could not observe due to the active volcano.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

12

Other

Observatory closed due to volcanic eruption. Suggestion: GUI with option to turn plate tectonics off or on.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

12

Other

Observatory closed due to volcanic eruption

Kurtis Williams

nobody

Andor

0

12

Other

Was hoping to do H-alpha imaging, but was stymied by telluric silicate dust emission.

Ted von Hippel

students

imaging

0

12

Other

Not opening due to volcanic ash risk.

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

6

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binary

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

4.5

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binary, sharing the night

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binary

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

7

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binary

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

8

Clouds

Overcast, high humidity.

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

Ccd

9.5

0

No problems to report

WD photometry. Avoided HA larger than 3h, and problems with tracking.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

9

0.25

Equipment Failure

M31, Asteroid. Had to do a single restart at an hour angle of around +3 (not unexpected), but no issues other than that. A mostly uneventful night (which is a very good thing). No issues from the volcanic eruption.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

8

0

Other

Asteroid photometry. No problems to report

Núria Torres-Albà

Dieter Hartmann

SARA ORM

7

2

Software/Control PC Issues

Clemson University observations of high-z blazars At the beginning of the night, software crashed when trying to observe using a filter. Sequence tool message was: 'Filter Wheel Failed'. After that, software crashed. We did a full restart, and the same issue occurred. We contacted Peter and Brian, who fixed the issue remotely. The rest of night was smooth.

Alex McDaniel

Dieter

Andor CCD

0

10

Humidity

Blazar Photo-z measurements. Unable to open/observe due to bad conditions (humidity/rain, wind, dust).

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

9.5

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

I could not control either the telescope or camera computers with either VNC or Radmin. Brian Brondel rebooted both computers remotely and they worked well after that.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

8

Other

Asteroid photometry. The humidity changed over the night and reached the limit values. Beyond that, I had connections problems. I did connect on the computers, but these did not respond to my commands.

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

ccd

6

2

Equipment Failure

WD photometry. Tracking issues after the first half of the night, getting more and more frequent until we surrendered (tracking failing only few minutes after a full restart sequence).

Saida Caballero

Fowler, Gokuldass, Van Putten

CCD

1.5

10

Equipment Failure

Massive star survey. Telescope would not accept slew command and returned a "Telescope unable to slew due to equipment failure." Moving the telescope with the hand paddle seemed to work but was not practical. Tried a simple restart and still had the same error.

Judith Provencal

none

Andor

0

9

Other

too dusty to open

Andy Baran

Tomomi Otani

Andor

9

1

Equipment Failure

1hr lost due to telescope failure, (frequently stops tracking after HA=2)

Andy Baran

Tomomi Otani

Andor

9

1

Equipment Failure

The telescope keeps stopping after HA=3hrs again.

Andy Baran

Tomomi Otani

Andor

9

1

Equipment Failure

The telescope keeps stopping after HA=2hrs, and this issue becomes very severe after HA=3hrs. Cycling ACE control cabinet power helps to get the telescope back in tracks but this task gets very irritating when one needs to do this every minute or so.

Andy Baran

Tomomi Otani

Andor

8

0

Equipment Failure

The same tracking issue happened at HA=2hrs. The telescope just stopped tracking and cycling the ACE cabinet power fixed the issue. The camera was taking images even though the D drive was full and the images were not saved. No notification showed up, so be careful.

Andy Baran

Tomomi Otani

CCD

6

2

Clouds

Cloud cover in the evening and during first 2 hours, the telescope stopped tracking right after HA=2hrs. restarting all ACE (including control cabinet) helped.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

3

5

Equipment Failure

Asteroids photometry. Problems with the tracking after few hours. I had to fully restart the software a few times, but it did not fix the problem.

Saida Caballero

Norton, Gokuldass, Kamp

CCD

6

6

Other

B star monitoring Dust counts were too high at the beginning of the night.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

M31, Landolt fields. No problems at all-- everything worked well.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

8

2

Software/Control PC Issues

Galaxies in H-alpha. Focus=101500, guider focus=1000. Initially could not control QSI guide camera. Brian and Peter got it connected, but then nonsense offsets were shown on the graph and any guide move stopped the drive (additional drive stops at all declinations around 3 hr west). Late in night, saw inconsistent count rates between frames even when GTC camera did not show clouds.

Lisa Altinier

Roi Alonso

CCD

7

2

Equipment Failure

White Dwarf photometry. Tracking problems from the middle of the night.

Alex McDaniel

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD

8

2.5

Equipment Failure

Blazar photo-z measurements. Technical issues: Had issues with tracking, and ultimately had to restart the software a few times to get things working. On one reset the node service wouldnt shutdown/startup properly but Paul and Brian helped resolve this. After that no other issues for the remainder of the night.

Todd Vaccaro

None

Andor CCD

0

8

Other

Never opened due to dust. NOT weather page never fell below 30, but there were several domes open throughout the night including NOT. The site map never showed NOT had dust warning, only GTC showed it. The mirror cover was showing as open when I logged on and not knowing if there's an issue there I left as is. I only took bias frames.

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

2

6

Other

1. Dust. 2. Telescope keeps loosing tracking. DEC was 46 degrees, air mass ~1.2 when this happenned.

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD

0

9

Other

Too much dust in the air (24-38 micrograms per cubic meter) to open dome. Gave up an hour before sunrise.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

3.5

4.5

Equipment Failure

We observed about 3.5 hours until the tracking start to fail. I did the full restart two times, but it is not fixed the problem.

Lisa Altinier

Roi Alonso

CCD

3

5

Equipment Failure

WD photometry. After about 3h of observations, tracking started to fail, and became unbearable shortly after, lasting only a few minutes after RA/Dec resets, and same after full restarts.

Martha Leake

none

Andor

4.5

4

Clouds

Asteroid photometry. Dust at 27-23 at start of night, stable most of evening; after I closed b/c of clouds, aerosols increased to 35 suddenly. Clouds interfered for at least half of my 4 hours. No tracking problems, but incomplete slew ("unable to complete slew...") message forced a full restart, and a re-setting my protocols. File space disappeared without warning, so all asteroid files and later darks were lost. Slewing was fine after restart.

Ken Watanabe

Nicolas RImbert

CCD

3

0.5

Equipment Failure

Blazars. Stopped tracking at the end.

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

7

1

Equipment Failure

At the beginning of the night telescope tracked for about 30 minutes without issue on a target while using autofocus and waiting for twilight to end. Within 10 minutes of starting guiding, tracking turned off. After full restart didn't use guiding and tracking only turned off two more times (both very close to airmass 2 in the west, though).

Ken Watanabe

Nicolas Rimbert

CCD

6

1

Equipment Failure

BL Lac and other Blazars. Telescope stopped tracking.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

6

3

Equipment Failure

Asteroid photometry The first 3-4h were great, the telescope pointed and tracked fine, but then it stopped tracking. The usual reboot fixed that, but only for a short while.The period between the loss of tracking became shorter and shorter. After 5 reboots, it would not even track for a single exposure.

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

4

4

Equipment Failure

eclipsing binary, jupiter The telescope lost tracking often. It lost tracking, but displays it was still tracking, and could not slew. Only full restart will restore tracking.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

RM griz

7

3

Equipment Failure

The dome didn't move as the telescope moves. The tracking was also done.

Stephen Gillam

None

Andor camera

5

5

Software/Control PC Issues

The system worked well until we got to about 1hr and 20 mins west of the meridian. The scope was at an airmass of 1.12 and an altitude of ~62 deg. It was no where near any of the limits. Then, the scope suffered the first of five episodes of tracking failure and/or the "unable to slew due to equipment failure". In the first two instances, reselecting the target and slewing (the short distance) to it was sufficient to get it tracking again. Over the next three hours the tracking failed three more times with the "..due equipment failure" message. I notices that the not only was the RA tracking not working, but the the scope was also drifting in declination. These episodes were fixed by doing the full ACE restart procedure. Except that the filter wheel GUI on the camera computer also stopped working during the fourth episode. This resulted in a loss of filter and other info. in the file headers. During the fifth instance, the filter wheel GUI went away and could not be coaxed into starting up again. I tried two full restarts for this one. I was able to get bring the telescope control up again and park the scope. During two of episodes the camera GUI froze. It displayed the following error message. "tr1::bad_weak_ptr." Even after the full ACE restart procedure the old instance of the ACE control system was still present. It would crash and go away only when I clicked buttons on the service selector. The, a new instance of the camera control could be started.

Todd Hillwig

None.

Andor CCD

2

7

Equipment Failure

Nearly complete waste of a beautiful night. Tracking turned off repeatedly. It took four complete restarts to finally get the telescope to keep tracking for more than 10 or 15 minutes. Observed for 2 hours and tracking turned off again, repeatedly. Three more complete restarts and I finally gave up. Tried several positions on the sky, with no success. Even when it was tracking it didn't track well. With the guiding on (which it didn't seem was very effective), the telescope drifted by several arc seconds every ten minutes or so. Also, the "Park" entry under "Presets" sends the telescope to the wrong position: it sends it to an RA of 0:00:00 NOT an HA of 0:00:00...and leaves the telescope tracking, which is obviously very bad. Oh, and the mirror covers never read closed, still read "closing."

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

CCD

3

5

Wind

First half of night with high wind gusts. Second part ok, with already known problems. Tracking was difficult/impossible at end of night, too many RA resets needed. Not clear status of mirror petals, they seem to be open, but closing them takes forever and seems not to have an effect (opening again is almost immediate).

Tom Rutherford

None

Andor CCD

8

0.5

No problems to report

M31, Kepler exoplanet. Had to do three restarts at around 2:30 UT but that is fairly typical behavior so no real issues to report-- an uneventful night.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

6

2

Other

I began the observation night very well without problems. In the middle of the night, it was necessary to do the full restart because the slew shows me an error (unable to complete the slew due to an equipment error), I did a full restart again and it was fixed. The big problem was at the end (close to 03:00 UT), it was necessary to do the full restart two times, and it was impossible to continue the observation. I finished because the tracking did not work.

Todd Vaccaro

N/A

Andor CCD

5

3

Equipment Failure

Eclipsing binaries. Missed early flats due to telescope RA not reporting correctly to fits headers, which apparently is only occurring when tele is idle. Mirror cover was saying "closing" when I first logged on and continued to do so after I closed. I lost the majority of an eclipse egress due to tracking failures (over 5 times before I gave up on the target). It was failing ~+2 hrs HA at +78 deg. A full reset was needed to move the tele anywhere as it kept reporting an equipment error. After a full reset I could reacquire the target, but it would produce trailed stars after a few frames. When I went to another object that had yet to transit it started doing the same thing at HA 00:15:00. Something wrong on W side of mount?

Keefe Kamp

None

CCD

0

10

Other

Cyg X-1 and Be Star Observations Planned but was too dusty to open

Keefe Kamp

None

CCD

5

1

Equipment Failure

Cyg X-1 and Be star observations. Problems with petals. where it would continuously say closing but would not close. Also when telescope starting tracking it would change from open to opening but everything appear normal. Full restart fixed both issues

Núria Torres-Albà

Dieter Hartmann

SARA ORM

6.5

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Clemson University observations of high-z blazars. Problems: -Computer PC was unresponsive at the beginning of the night. Called Brian and he rebooted it. -Tracking stopped working (could see star traces on the image). Stopped tracking and attempted to restart it, but 'Slew Telescope' window showed an error (Unable to complete slew due to an equipment error). Restarted the system as usual (Full Restart). Problem persisted. -After restart 'Mirror Cover' window was stuck in 'Opening' for almost 5min. -Restarted once more. This time, no issue with mirror covers. Problem was only fixed for one single exposure (5min) and then returned. -Restarted a third time, and switched to a higher altitude source. Tracking worked afterwards.

Yong Sheng

None

RM griz

0

10

Wind

Clemson University blazar study. The wind speed is over or around the threshold.

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

9

0

Other

At the start of the night when I opened the dome, it read as opening, but never got to "Opened." Restarting the software fixed this. The telescope tracking was not great. Five minute exposures showed drifting. There is no option to open the Guider GUI, so I couldn't guide. When I sent the telescope to Park position, it went to the correct place then started tracking. Had to hit Cancel to get it to stop tracking. And after closing the dome, it says "Doors ajar."

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

4

4

Clouds

WD photometry, no filter, focus around 103400. Full restart needed to be able to move the telescope at the beginning of night. Telescope stopped tracking around middle of night, but conditions were cloudy anyway.

Robert Berrington

Todd Vaccaro

Arc Camera

0

9

Equipment Failure

Observatory closed due to mechanical failure...Did not open.

Tom Rutherford

None

Andor CCD

6

2

Equipment Failure

H-alpha filters were missing (this was the most critical issue I had). Dome did not point with telescope at first, but got them re-synced. CCD computer gave only a black screen with no controls visible-- eventually came back, but was unresponsive (as if it were only an image of the screen instead of the screen itself)-- I was able to control the CCD through the Telescope screen. Usual multiple restarts when changing targets later in the night.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

8

Equipment Failure

Equipment Failure. The problems with the mirror cover are not fixed.

Martha Leake

none

Andor

1

7

Equipment Failure

Asteroid photometry. Was able to get biases, some darks, and flats (to be transferred later), but unable to get any stellar images because of problems with the mirror cover. I didn't fully know that it was fixed, but apparently was able to get light to the camera for my flats. The mirror cover never fully opened, but did shut down quickly. Dome azimuth was checked and improved with the Dome Azimuth restart. Ken Rumstay, Brian Murphy and Peter Mack all helped on various pieces of the problem. I was/am embarrassed that this was akin to forgetting to remove the camera lens cover. But the problem is tougher and will be looked at Monday. Good luck to all involved. (Dust was not a problem.)

Roi Alonso

none

ccd

0

8

Clouds

As in previous reports, sky was cloudy and dust above 40 ugr/m3 as reported in the tng weather server. Did not try to open.

James Webb

none

CCD

0

10

Other

Blazar microvariability. Lots of dust and sky was obscured on all sky cameras at the start of the night so I threw in the towel.

Keefe Kamp

None

CCD

0

10

Clouds

Cyg X-1 and Be stars planned but was too dusty and cloudy to observe

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD camera

5

3

Other

AGN monitoring program. No mechanical or software problems to report. Telescope pointing and tracking was excellent. High aerosol levels at start of night and then again just before morning twilight.

Stephen Gillam

Thiyagarajan, Alamos, Nelson

Andor camera

0

10

Equipment Failure

r0Ap Telescope unable to slew due to equipment failure. This is presumed to be due to driving the scope to the west limit, reported last night (7/8 -7/9/21).

Gillam

Pepe, Alamos, Thiyagarajan, Nelson

Ansor

10

0

Other

roAp stars. At the start of the night, the camera and telescope computers were locked up, We power-cyc;led them. The telescope control was then not talking to the hardware. We carried out the procedure to restart the ACE node services and the camera and telescope controls then worked. Shortly after this, the dome stopped moving. We recycled the Azimuth control and homed the dome. The dome the worked perfectly until about an hour before the end of the night. The dome again needed to azimuth-cycled and homed. This was successful. I then allowed the scope to reach the western limit. It is currently stuck there. Could you move the scope off the limit? - Thanks!

Stephen Gillam

Lilyanne Pepe, Leila Alamos, Chloe Nelson, Aakash Thiyagarajan

Andor Camera

10

0

No problems to report

Image type header keyword is missing from FITS headers. roAp stars

Xianming Han

none

none

0

8

Software/Control PC Issues

ACE was upgrading Windows 10, and after the upgrade, something went bad with the telescope.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

8

0

No problems to report

No problems to report

Lisa Altinier

Roi Alonso

CCD

7.5

0.5

Equipment Failure

Photometry of WD977. At the beginning of the night the dome didn't track with the telescope. A full reset was needed to correct it. The night was good.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

RM griz

9

0

No problems to report

Clemson blazar study. No problems to report. Everything worked pretty well.

Lisa Altinier

Roi Alonso

CCD

7.5

0

No problems to report

Very defocussed photometric sequence. Good night, no problems. First night of observations of Lisa :-)

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

RM griz

7

1.5

Equipment Failure

Clemson blazar study. When I started using the telescope, there is no source on the image. I restarted several times, the problem remained. After sending the dome back home, I saw sources on the image. I am suspecting there is something wrong with the dome, my guess is that the dome doesn't move as the telescope moves (even if I linked the dome.)

Ross Silver

Dieter Hartmann

CCD

5

4

Equipment Failure

Photometric redshift of blazars. The dome did not track with the telescope. I reset the system multiple times and it did not fix the problem. By the end of the night, the dome would not move at all from 160 degrees azimuth.

Brian Brondel

None

Andor Camera

6

0

No problems to report

Software upgrade & pointing model update

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

8

0

No problems to report

No problems to report

Roi Alonso

none

ccd

0.8

7

Wind

Wind gusting above 45 km/h most of the night. Tried autoguiding, but no offsets were being sent back to telescope.

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

6

3.5

Equipment Failure

Dead quasar survey, nebulae. Focus 99940. Cloudy at sunset, cleared after twilight. Lost 1.5 hours of long exposures to tracking shutdown (we could really use an obvious indicator for that). Guiding worked very well even during intermittent clouds.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

8

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Asteroid, M31. Other than a restart about 6 hours in, no issues to report.

Alex

Dieter

Andor CCD

9

2

Software/Control PC Issues

Had to reboot following the instructions in the READ.ME a couple times which typically fixed any issues. At one point towards the end of the night (~5 UTC) even after rebooting the ACE program would crash while I was trying to setup an observation.

Martha Leake

none

Andor

8.3

0

Other

Asteroid photometry. No major problems. One instance of "ace-client-gui exec stopped working" on telescope computer. Closed the program, noted red exes; did a quick restart and that fixed it. Tracking did not stop and dome remained open. One instance of lost tracking; reset coordinates, slewed and continued. Good weather, no dust this night

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

0

9

Other

Closed due to high dust levels.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

0

9

Other

Stayed closed due to high dust levels.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

8

Humidity

We had clouds at the beginning of the night. After the humidity grew up and reaches values bigger than 70%.

Ken Watanabe

Nick Rimbert

N/A

0

8

Clouds

Blazars

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

8

0

Software/Control PC Issues

WDs, empty filter, focus 100574. At some point, ACE connector client in telescope computer with all "x" in red, but system kept tracking and responding from the camera computer. Observed with the camera computer, and at the end of the night killed the ACE client task in the telescope computer to go back to "normal".

Judi Provencal

none

Andor

8

0.3

Software/Control PC Issues

Observed the DBV GD358. There were issues again tonight with the telescope gui. It stopped several times. The program seemed to hang twice, requiring stopping the program via the Task Manager, and then restarting. The first time the program hung, the telescope stopped tracking and the dome closed.

Judi Provencal

none

Andor

8

0

Software/Control PC Issues

Observed the DBV GD358. Minor software issues include the telescope ace gui crashing three times, and issues with the dome tracking. No observing time was lost.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

8

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Open Clusters. Had to restart everything on one occasion-- everything was fine except unable to reach the power switch to recycle it due to a constant warning message from the browser about the connection being insecure. Everything did fine without resetting that part.

Todd Vaccaro

N/A

Andor

7.5

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Eclipsing binaries and variable stars. Dome had trouble tracking tele; closed/reopened, homed, and finally worked. ACE crashed when trying the focus routine, required a simple restart of ACE. Lost an eclipse as tracking failed at HA +3:50:00, tele wouldn't move, kept saying equipment failure, so a full restart of tele/ccd software/nodes required; happened again middle of the night, same reason. Keyboard on CCD must've been set to Spanish layout, I couldn't type login/pw to my Box folder with browser b/c shift+2 would give " instead of @ etc...Maybe someone can set it back to US standard?

Todd Hillwig

None.

Andor CCD

5

0

No problems to report

PN central star, only second half of the night.

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

9

0

No problems to report

PN central stars.

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

8

0

No problems to report

PN Central Stars

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

4

4

Software/Control PC Issues

We have some problems with the GUI from the telescope computer. It was showing some bug and close the connection. The first time, at the beginning of the night, the problem was fixed. The second time, later, the movement of the telescope was not answered more and we finish the night.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

0

8.5

Wind

Wind gusting above 45 km/h all night.

Alex

Dieter

Andor CCd

6

2.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Mix of software issues and cloudy weather.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

8.5

0

No problems to report

WDs, empty filter, focus 101500. No autoguiding.

Martha A. Leake

none

Andor

1

8

Other

Asteroid photometry. Calibration images(biases, darks, flats) made but I closed dome when I noted on NOT that aerosols were high. They remained high for 7 hours. Lost connection to saracamera repeatedly (radmin), but able to connect. Secured telescope at stow position. My computer then decided to reset. Programs had disconnected and weather had not changed.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

RM

0

10

Wind

The wind speed was very high initially. Though it dropped a little later, but it was still around the threshold values. So I was not able to observe for the whole night.

Todd Christopher Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

9

0

No problems to report

PN central star photometric monitoring.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

8

0.5

Equipment Failure

WDs. Tried once more autoguiding with no success, both setting binning 2, all regions to 1, and auto ROI, or manually selecting a 400x400 box around a star in the guiding camera. No clear idea when hit the "stop" button at the guiding sequence to avoid the "unknown error" message that impedes to restart a sequence (e.g., changing exptime), and needs a full restart to try again.

Stefan Geier

none

ARC CCD Camera

8

0.3

Equipment Failure

At the beginning of the night (around the end of astronomical twilight), the telescope suddenly stopped tracking, and when I tried to point again, it failed with a message about an "equipment error". I then did the "full restart" which is described in the readme, and after that, it worked fine again.

Chloe Nelson

Stephen Gillam

Andor Camera

11

2

Equipment Failure

ROAP Stars <3 We conducted two "azimuth recycles" (found in the notes) during our observation and one "full restart" (also found in the notes).

Chloe Nelson

Stephen Gillam and Kiara Richardson

Andor Camera

13

0

No problems to report

ROAP Stars No problems :))

Chloe Nelson

Stephen Gillam and Kiara Richardson

Andor Camera

13 hours

none

No problems to report

ROAP Stars No problems :)

James Webb

Viviana Arroyave, Luna Webb, Sparkle Webb

CCD

9

0

Other

blazar microvriability Wasn't able to park telesope in recommended position. It kept telling me that location was out of limits, so I left it zenith parked.

Todd Vaccaro

None

Andor CCD

7

3.5

Humidity

Eclipsing binary; ACE crashed twice, but simple restart seemed to fix, but I had to reset most observing parameters; Humidity over 80% during last 3 hrs and never dropped to reopen.

Ross Silver

Dieter Hartmann

CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Photometric redshift of blazars.

Ed Albin

Amy Lovell

CCD

9

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Imaging training, M101 galaxy. Note: Focus setting for BVR filters was 98300. Focus setting for Empty filter was 100400. Software crashed "Ace Client software not working." Rebooted to restore session.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

7

3

Humidity

The humidity at the beginning of the night varied between 70% and 100%. The humidity was stable after 00:00 UTC.

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

0

10

Clouds

High humidity early followed by clouds.

Stephen Gillam

Savannah Caldwell, Leila Alamos, Aakash Thyigarajan, Lilyanne Pepe, Chloe Nelson Kiara Richardson

Andor CCD

11

4

Equipment Failure

ROAp stars. The dome azimuth rotation stopped working around 5 AM. We carried out the following procedures. 1. Full ACE client restart. Three times. No joy there. 2. Azimuth recycle. Twice. It worked on the second attempt. Dome did not need homing. The first attempt likely failed because we turned OFF the recycle, then turned it on.

Saida Caballero

Kamp

CCD

0

10

Clouds

Massive star survey

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

6

2

Humidity

WDs. Tried autoguiding without success. Setting binning to 2, regions all to 1 and "auto ROI" worked for a few images, then the star moved out of the field. Making any change in the autoguiding setup typically involves a full reset. Without autoguiding I noticed some DEC sudden jumps (about 30 px) during the night, probably the reason of the failure above. Dome got stucked at az aprox. 330, and the end of the night the humidity was unstable.

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

AGN monitoring program. Had to recycle dome azimuth power once.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

8

2

Other

The weathering at the beginning of the night was good, but it was getting worse until be impossible to observe (the seeing reached 5.8'').

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

9

1.5

Other

some time lost to tracking turning off for targets in the northwest at an airmass of about 1.7 One hour lost to clouds at the end of the night.

Saida Caballero

Observational Astronomy class

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

End of the semester observing for class. Did not try to use guider due to the previous nights report.

Roi Alonso

none

ccd

7

1

Equipment Failure

WDs, no filter. Focus 100426. Tried autoguiding, but despite having an apparently good star in the window, there were no offsets sent. Stopping the guiding sequenece to e.g. increase the exp. time makes the autoguiding camera unresponsive and needs a full reset to get it back. Observed with no guiding. Tracking issues (stopped in RA) at end of the night, not solved with the usual RA reset; needed a full reset.

Martha Leake

none

Andor

9.75

0

No problems to report

Asteroid photometry for light curves and selected objects for Stars and Galaxies class. No problems. Weather OK with some wind. Transfer in progress.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

8

2

Other

The humidity raised to 100% during a couple of hours. After the humidity dropped and stabilized, it was possible to observe normally until the end of the night.

James Raymond Webb

none

CCD

0

10

Connection Issues

local network down

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

2

8

Other

Misunderstanding about availabilty of the night. CCD computer is very slow and has warning that disk space is low. Deleted all my files at end of the night. Autofocus failed multiple times. MaximDL has issues. I assume this is all due to the full disk space?

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

0

10

Clouds

The computer disks are quite full. Please take a look at it.

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

0

10

Clouds

none

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

0.25

10

Clouds

eclisping binary

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

0

10

Humidity

None, high humidity all night.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

8

2

Humidity

asteroid photometry. High humidity, clouds just before sunrise

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Asteroid photometry

Watanabe

Nick Rimbert

CCD

2

8

Software/Control PC Issues

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

0

10

Clouds

Dead quasar survey. "Measuring optical depth profiles of clouds" would have worked better.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

6

3

Clouds

WDs photometry. Increasing cloud coverage. Autoguiding camera becomes unresponsive if for some reason there is a need to stop and re-start the guiding sequence (e.g. change exp. time, or location), and needs a system reset. Doors ajar at the end, and stacked in Az- A dome az recycle for a couple of minutes solved both.

Tomomi Otani

Brian, Lorena, Carina, Sima

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Rotation period and pulsation period determination for Gyrochronology and Timing method. Everything was working well.

Tomomi Otani

Brian, Lorena, Carina, Sima

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Rotation period and pulsation period determination for Gyrochronology and Timing method. Everything was working well.

Todd Hillwig

none

Andor CCD

10

0

No problems to report

PN Central stars. The method Brian showed me for using the guider worked without issue all night.

Todd Hillwig

astronomy undergraduates

Andor CCD

9

1

Equipment Failure

Astronomy student projects, PN central star photometry. Guide camera was not relaying information to telescope. Brian logged on and he showed two things to overcome this problem (that I've encountered several times previously): set binning to '2', then set all ROI boxes to '1' and use the "Auto ROI" option. This worked for the rest of the night.

Roi Alonso

none

ccd

6

4

Humidity

WD photometry. Bad weather first half of night. Autoguider not sending offsets at beginning, a full reset solved it.

Keefe Kamp

Caballero, Zamora

CCD

11

1

Software/Control PC Issues

At the beginning of the night, ACE crashed when taking flats and had to perform a full restart. The guide camera stopped working partway through the night had to do a full restart 2x to get everything back to normal. When a minor planet is used as a target the Telescope position pane constantly resizes to the entire width of the screen.

James Webb

Viviano Arrayave

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Blazar microvariability

James Webb

Viviana Arroyav

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Blazar microvariability No problems.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

10

2

Software/Control PC Issues

We did have problems at the beginning of the night with the control of the telescope, but it was fixed.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

10

0

No problems to report

No problems

Tomomi Otani

Brian Herbster, Sima, Lorena Sanabria

CCD

8.5

1

Equipment Failure

photometry time series to find the star rotation periods for Gyrochronology. The telescope suddenly started moving once and reached the software limit. So we needed to cycle the control cabinet. Brian helped us and moved the telescope back using the control pad (Thank you so much, Brian!) and we could start our observation again.

Nuria Torres-Alba

Alex McDaniel, Dieter Hartmann

ORM

9

0

No problems to report

Clemson University, Blazar Observations, Photo-z measurements

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

9

0.5

Equipment Failure

WDs observed with guiding. After a full reset before starting obs, everything running smoothly. Some tracking losses at the very end of the night, when the target was at around 35 degs above the horizon. RA-DEC resets solved them for a short time.

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

10

0.3

Equipment Failure

Dead quasar survey. My first time with new all-on-one guider panel. It was much more reliable - lost control once and had to restart software all around to restore it. Excellent night. BVR focus 97353, guider focus 330.

Tomomi Otani

Brian Herbster, Lorena Sanabria

Andor CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Rotation periods search for gyrochronology. Good night and no problem to report.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

8

2

Clouds

Lots of clouds early on. Cleared up towards the morning. I turned off the cooler -not sure if we still are supposed to do this or not.

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

8.5

1.5

Equipment Failure

Tracking turned off six times. Did a full restart before the night began, then did another halfway through the night when the tracking turned off three times in less than half an hour. Tracking turned off twice after that. Clouds came in just before morning twilight.

Amy Lovell

Lam Bradham

CCD

9

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Observing Demo with Students, things were great for hours (did a pre-emptive reset at the start of the night, and only needed to do one quick reset later), then Dome Vignetting started, and home didn't work after Azimuth recycle. I tested a couple of sources and though there may have been stars in them, they looked like flats, still well enough before dawn (and small enough moon) that they shouldn't. Otherwise no problems to report.

Tom Rutherford

Henson

Andor CCD

0

8

Equipment Failure

High humidity and high wind delayed opening. Once both had dropped, I opened the dome, but never received a confirming "dome is open" signal-- it just kept showing "dome is opening." Same thing when I reversed this and tried to close the dome-- it just stayed on "dome is closing" without ever saying "dome is closed." I repeated this procedure several times, but with the same result each time. I don't think that the dome actually opened since when I tried to take an image it had no stars. Same thing later when I decided to give up and close down-- I got a perpetual "dome is closing" message. I took an image to verify that the dome was closed and it came out with no stars so it did seem to be closed.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

12

Humidity

All night with 100% of humidity and hard winds.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

10

Humidity

Never opened. I hit the trifecta with 100% humidity, high wind, and temps below freezing

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

0

10

Humidity

windy and high humidity

Tomomi Otani

Andy Baran

Andor CCD

9

3

Humidity

TESS follow-up observation. We needed to close the dome because of the humidity and cloud at the end (after 3:20 AM local time). When we stopped the observation, the ACE connector client had "no-response". The normal cycling process solved the issue. The best focus was 97800 with no filter.

Stephen D Fowler

Kamp, Caballero

CCD

6

4

Equipment Failure

During observations, filter wheel got stuck and we were able to circulate power, but the issue was not resolved. On camera computer ACE connector client failed and restarted. Command sent to slew telescope, but nonresponsive. Dome was able to close.

Michael Fauerbach

none

CCD

7

2

Clouds

plenty of clouds and Moon at 83% illumination. No technical issues to report.

Tom Rutherford

Henson

Andor CCD

7

0.5

Equipment Failure

While changing filters at the beginning of the night, filter wheel #1 began cycling through all of the filters and not stopping. After two restarts it started behaving again and I had no further issues with it or with anything else for the rest of the night. No further issues of any sort.

Saida Caballero

N/A

CCD

0

10

Other

Yong Sheng

Alex McDaniel, Dieter Hartmann

RM

0

12

Humidity

Clemson University blazar study. The weather is not good for observation the whole night.

Saida Caballero

Malagon,Kamp

CCD

0

10

Wind

ETC Class project. Winds were rather high and forecasted to be so the whole night, so decided not to open.

Todd Hillwig

none

Andor CCD

0

12

Humidity

Opened long enough to get flats and started to get science images, but humidity jumped rapidly just prior to the end of evening twilight and stayed there all night.

Ted von Hippel

Jack McDonald

imaging

0

13

Clouds

student observing for Observational Astronomy class

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

9

2

Equipment Failure

WDs using autoguider. Had to restart the services to have the guide camera responding, but no problems after that. The dome az stopped responding at an az = 313. Recycling the az solved it. Last hour not used to get some sleep (and target had set).

Yong Sheng

Alex McDaniel

RM-griz

0

11

Humidity

Blazar study We can't observe because of the bad weather (rain, high humidity and high wind speed. )

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD camera

8

4

Wind

AGN monitoring program No problems to report; had to recycle the dome azimuth power twice. The telescope pointing and tracking were excellent. Closed dome at about 03:00 due to high winds.

Jack McDonald, Ted von Hippel

Sarah Kokkinakas

imager

7

6

Clouds

Student projects identifying H alpha bright targets in WHaM beam and RRLs in a globular cluster. Although the dome was open for ~7 hours, the students obtained only perhaps 2 hours of useful data because of RA constraints on their targets and intermittent and worsening clouds. We nonetheless thank Kurtis W for turning over the night when he lost his local electron supply, as this was a useful student experience.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

SARA-RM

10

0

No problems to report

Clemson University blazar study

James webb

Viviana Arroyave, Luna Webb, Sparkle Webb

CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

Blazar Microvariability Observatory is still down.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

11

Equipment Failure

Warm room PDU presumably still offline.

Kurtis Williams

none

none

0

11

Equipment Failure

Gary Henson

Rutherford

CCD

0

6

Equipment Failure

Warm Room PDU not accessible, filter wheels not responding, uncertain condition of icy dome.

Martha Leake

none

Andor Camera

0

10.3

Other

Asteroid photometry and remote observing for class later. Never opened the dome. No connection issues to camera and telescope PC until I tried a full restart to solve the filter wheel access and locking. I was unable to restart the JKT Warm Room PDU . With recent snow and dome locked in position there may have been a power problem regarding the JKT Warm Room PDU access and filter wheel locking mechanism. (A quick restart didn't solve the problem, so I tried the full restart.) No observing possible until these problems are analyzed, fixed, and a clear go ahead is given. Brian was very helpful in explaining what may have happened.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

12

Snow

Snow

Roi Alonso

None

CCD

0

12

Snow

Bad weather

Saida Caballero

Kamp

CCD

0

12

Connection Issues

Class observing. Was never able to connect to any of the computers. Seems to be a problem on the mountain side.

Nuria

Yong, Alex, Dieter

ORM

8

2

Clouds

Clemson University observation of blazars. No problems to report.

Ted von Hippel

none

imagining

0

12

Snow

Dome iced over.

Ted von Hippel

Tomomi Otani, Brian Herbster, Carina Shanahan, Sima Vaidya, Jack McDonald, Sarah Kokkinakis

imaging

11

0.1

Equipment Failure

Shortly after 7pm EST, when selecting a filter, the filter wheel spun continuously for 5 minutes or so then stopped. It may have stopped on its own or from our second instance of hitting 'empty'.

Amy Lovell

Kimbarl

Andor Camera

11

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Student training, images for analysis in lab Problems: tracking stopped mid-scan, I needed to do a full reset for that, and dome was finicky several times, did 3 dome/azimuth resets over the night, and homed the dome a few times in addition when dark stripes appeared on the side of the image

Saida Caballero

Le, Kamp, Klare, Fowler

CCD

12

0

No problems to report

Landolt Standards. The DS9 window did not show counts when mousing over it, but simply closing and reopening seemed to fix it.

Saida Caballero

Kamp, Zamora, Murphy, Malagon, Fowler, Le

CCD

12

0

Connection Issues

Standard star fields for calibration. The camera was not responsive when trying to take test images for evening flats. Had to restart and missed flats. Tried using the Guide camera, but it became unresponsive after the second star. Did not try to restart connection because did not want to waste more time. There appears to be aberration with the U filter. At first thought it may have been a tracking issue, but only seemed to affect U filter observations (perhaps a known problem), making the stars appear elongated, rather than the expected PSF. Used autofocus, and seemed to work pretty well.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

10

2

Equipment Failure

WDs photometry. System quite unstable. Telescope was out of limits on arrival, Brian and Peter connected to solve the issue rapidly. After about 2 h of observations with autoguiding, the main CCD stopped taking images without any error or warning. Reseting the system solved it. Slewing to a different target kept the DEC drive moving past the object, and had to cancel the slew command manually and repeat the pointing to avoid going out of limits. After retrying with the autoguiding (after a full reset), it only lasted less than 1 h, so I stopped trying, and spent the rest of the night without it. Even so, the acquisition stopped a couple of times without warning again. Finally, when sending the telescope to its park possition, the slew was aborted (as usually happened before), but I could not find the "RA/DEC reset" switches that typically solve the issue even after clicking at the radio buttons at the "ACE connector client" menu window and went for a full reset instead.

James Webb

Viviana Arroyave, Luna Webb, Sparkle Webb

CCD

0

8

Snow

Observing Blazar microvariability,' Did not open the dome after consultation with observatory director. Someone left a message on the telescope computer that the dome might be It was possible the dome was frozen shut. Since the roads were iced over we decided it would be prudent NOT to try and open.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

12

Snow

The telescope was frozen.

Roi Alonso

none

ccd

0

12

Snow

Low temperatures and ice at the Mercator telescope webcams before sunset. The ING weather station looks frozen, the NOT is reporting high winds . Did not open, in case there is still some ice on the dome (could not find any webcam showing JKT, but it seems no telescopes are operating tonight). The different meteo stations seem affected (humidity from 6 to 100%, winds from 0 to 60 km/h, temps from -4 to 24 degrees)

michael fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

12

Connection Issues

Connection issue and dome completely iced over.

Ken Watanabe

Nick Rimbert

CCD

0

9

Connection Issues

Bad Wx and not able to connect. Mx aware of the issue.

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

0

12

Clouds

Dead quasar survey. If it wasn't the clouds, it was the humidity, and if not that, the leftover ice.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

12

Humidity

Never opened, wet all night long.

Judi Provencal

None

Andor

0

8

Humidity

Rain and humidity.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

0

12

Humidity

Raining.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

12

Software/Control PC Issues

The telescope showed one error (on telescope position window - Telescope limits: Hardware HA/Az axis positive and Hardware Dec/Alt axis positive). I did the full restart two times and I try to send the telescope to zenith position, but the telescope did not move and it did not respond. Beyond that, all night was cloudy.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

0

12

Humidity

100% humidity.

Alec Neal

Robert Berrington

ARC

7

3

Software/Control PC Issues

High humidity beginning the night. High aerosol throughout night. ACE client crashed a few times, required multiple resets and restarting telescope computer.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

12

Humidity

The humidity was 100% all night.

Tom Rutherford

Gary Henson

Andor CCD

11

0

No problems to report

M31, asteroid. No problems.

XIANMING HAN

none

ccd

8

4

Clouds

eclipsing binary

Ross Silver

Alex, Dieter

ORM

11

1

Humidity

Obtaining photometric redshifts of blazars.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

12

0

No problems to report

No problems to report