SARA 

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

10

Clouds

outer bands of TS Hermine....

Van Hamme

Samec

CCD

4

5

Humidity

Observing interacting eclipsing binaries. I was able to catch 0.2 d period eclipsing binary last night for nearly a full cycle.

Ross Silver

Dieter Hartmann

CCD

1

9

Humidity

Calculating photometric redshift of blazars

Martha Leake

none

Andor

0

9

Humidity

Asteroid photometry. Did not open because of clouds, high wind, high humidity, rain, high aerosols (which decreased). Will download darks, biases later today. Left near morning twilight.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

8

Wind

Asteroid photometry

Todd Vaccaro

Morgan Moore, Mel Isenbarger

Andor CCD

9

0

Software/Control PC Issues

EB program. Found the telescope and dome not parked correctly and were pointing NW (Dec +58). Zenith parking kept saying vignetting, reset tele ACE, then full reset, but never changed, though the Mirror cover stopped blinking that it was trying to open and simply said open. Camera not controllable from tele computer, so ran from Cam computer, but it wasn't filling in the headers with observer or object until the end of the night when I typed new information in. AIJ missing and C drive is full (D image drive not a problem) and had trouble getting MaximDL to open images till later on. The Focus routine on tele side would do its thing, but then plot nothing for bright star field or faint, so left as is for focus, but feel it could have been much better as mnt reporting 0.6" or less most the night; I was getting 1.4 down to 1.1". Cam computer also started up with an error saying that it failed to update Windows. I couldn't get the dome cam to work, which would've been nice since at one point I thought the dome/tele weren't lined up (Az were off by 70 degrees and I saw a lot of moonlight for an hour and a dark shadow of something bottom left on images).

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann, Isaiah Cox

Andor CCD

1

8

Other

I have to stop observing due to my health issue after finishing the calibration frames. But I did notice a tracking issue. The images show strips instead of point sources.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

8

Clouds

Asteroid photometry

William Keel

DragonCon Live Astronomy

Andor CCD

3

0

No problems to report

End of night outreach session. Focus 10400. Guider again very reliable.

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

CCD

6

1

Clouds

WD photometry, closed for about 1h due to clouds. Autoguiding and almost everything working nicely. Mirror covers stay in "closing" status forever.

Clouds

End of night for outreach event - Crab, NGC 157, NGC 7469... Focus 100500. Guider is more trouble-free and routine than I've ever found it before.

james Webb

Jonathon Barata

CCD

0

8

Connection Issues

My home computer failed to connect and couldn't log in. My issues, not RM issues.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

9

1

Software/Control PC Issues

For the ssecond time in a row, both the camera and telescope computer were unresponsive when I logged in and the dome said 'Doors Ajar' Autofocus failed tried restart, but that did not change anything. Seeing was poor at the beginning of the night, but got better towards morning.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

8

2

Clouds

Both the camera and telescope computer were unresponsive when I logged in and the dome said 'Doors Ajar' Plenty of intermittent clouds and poor seeing wtih wind at the threshold most of the night.

Roi Alonso

none

ccd

0

9

Clouds

High dense clouds and dust increasing. Did not open.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

8

0

No problems to report

Asteroid photometry

Ron Kaitchuck

None

CCD

3

3

Equipment Failure

Exoplanet transits. The dome rotation failed. Peter Mack fixed that but the camera only produced “bias” frames after that. My guess is the dome was not properly synced to the telescope. My targets were then low in the west, so I alerted Peter, closed the dome and went to bed.

Nuria Torres-Alba

Dieter Hartman

SARA RM

9

0

No problems to report

Clemson University observations of high-z blazars. No problems to report.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

8

Clouds

M31

Ron Kaitchuck

none

CCD

6

3

Equipment Failure

Dome stopped turning at 320 deg AZ I was not able to recover, but clouds came in antway.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

7

0

Software/Control PC Issues

Asteroid, M31. Autofocuser did not finish routine.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

7

0

Equipment Failure

Asteroid, M31. Autofocuser would not operate.

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

9

0

No problems to report

H II regions, radio galaxies. Focus in BVR 100300. Mirror cover remains open after close command.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Clemson University Blazar study The observation is pretty smooth.

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

9

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

H II regions, radio galaxies. Focus 102300; software lost control of focus early on, cycled power on ACE cabinet at Brian Brondel's suggestion. (This also seems to have fixed the mirror covers not reaching their open limit switches when first opening). Never did get QSI camera to finish a readout to try guiding even after the restart. Note: mirror covers did not close at end of night (no response at all to clicking the CLOSE button).

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

6

2

Other

Asteroid photometry. The dust was over the limit for couple of hours.

Roi Alonso

none

Andor CCD

8.5

0.1

Equipment Failure

WDs photometry. Autoguider working, all good. Dome stuck at AZ=315 (coming from higher values). Solved with dome AZ reset, and manually turning the dome in the other direction (steps of 90 degs) until AZ 300, and then linking the dome again. Mirror petals not closing.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Had to restart several times, MaximDL crashed not sure what happened, maybe the CCD computer needs to be rebooted? Else No issues, good night.

Stephen Gillam

Jacob Romeo

Andor Camera

8

2

Clouds

rOAp stars. One technical problem occurred. The dome rotation failed when the dome reached an azimuth of 313 degrees. We did an azimuth recycle and homed the dome. Note that the "home" did not work until we had moved the dome a small angle with the "GO" button.

Stephen Gillam

None

Andor Camera

8

2

Clouds

ROAps. The dome stopped tracking late in the night. The dome azimuth was 314 degrees. An azimuth recycle got it going. Again, I had to move the dome manually before it would home, after the recycle. There is a bug in the RA, Dec offset GUI. When an RA offset is commanded of >60 arc seconds, or perhaps >59", the scope tracking is turned off. "IDLE" is indicated. No errors are reported. The scope can be slewed. But, it will not track when it reaches the target coordinates. This was fixed by closing down the telescope ACE node service, power-cycling the ACE control cabinet, and re-starting the ACE nodes service.

Stephen Gillam

None

Andor Camera

10

0

Equipment Failure

ROAps. The dome stopped tracking late in the night. It was also not tracking when I started up at 4;15 EDT. In both cases, the dome azimuth was 314 degrees. An azimuth recycle got it going in both cases. Oddly, I had to move the dome manually before it would home, after the recycle.

Stephen D. Gillam

Leila Alamos, Jacob Romeo

Andor

10

1

Equipment Failure

rOAp stars. Telescope tracked to just over 4 hours west and stopped tracking. Attempts to move the 'scope to the zenith failed with the following error. "Unable to complete slew due to equipment error."

Stephen Gillam

Leila Alamos, Laina Talman-Bogusta, Jacob Romeo

Andor Camera

10

0

Software/Control PC Issues

Rapidly Oscillating Ap Stars. The Dropbox share service is not available.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

6

2

Other

Dust was intermittent above the threshold value. Closed the dome a couple of times during the night.

Martha Leake

none

Andor

4.5

3

Other

Dusty conditions (over 20 mcg/m3) to start, plus camera computer needed rebooting via APC rack, which was not easy to find; Brian helped. I was able early on to close the mirror covers, then waited for less dusty conditions. Opened dome 22:56 UT, closed it at 3:26 UT. Accidentally using another observer's camera control menu led to long darks that were not mine. Observed Comet and asteroid. Conditions clear, light wind, 0.6-1.5 " seeing; but dust at 23. Closed up; within 15 minutes dust reached 118.8. No problems with dome, mirror covers or pointing.

Priya Gokuldass

None

CCD

0

9

Equipment Failure

Couldn't observe due to the Dome shutter failure

Gary Henson

Rutherford

Andor CCD

4

0

No problems to report

Asteroid light curve Dome shutter still under repair but left open by ACE for night observing as weather clear and dry. Telescope and CCD working normally.

Alex McDaniel

Dieter

Andor CCD

0

9

Equipment Failure

Dome still not functional

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

8

Other

Dome still not functional

Ro

Dieter Hartmann

CCD

0

9

Equipment Failure

Could not observe due to the dome shelter failure.

Yong Sheng

No

RM-griz

0

9

Equipment Failure

A text file on the RM computer says that RM will not be operational until Jun. 01 due to dome shelter failure.

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

CCD

0

8

Equipment Failure

Message in the "telescope computer" from Peter: THE SWITCHED POWER DISTRIBUTION UNIT (PDU) NEED TO BE POWER CYCLED. UNFORTUNATELY, IT WAS NOT CYCLED LAST NIGHT AND SO THE SYSTEM IS NOT USEABLE.

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

Andor

8

0

No problems to report

WDs photometry, with autoguiding working smoothly. First night in a long time with 0 issues (not even restarts of the ace connector client!).

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Radio galaxies, dust in galaxies. Focus 97100, guider focus -50. QSI guide camera twice got stuck refusing to take exposures, even after one full restart.

Kent Montgomery

none

CCD

0

8

Wind

Wind over 70 kph for first two hours of night so we gave up and never opened.

Ken Watanabe

Nicolas Rimbert

CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Blazars

Kent Montgomery

none

CCD

0

8

Humidity

Asteroid Photometry, 100% humidity, mountain was in a cloud, never opened

Martha Leake

none

Andor

2.4

6.1

Humidity

Other issues: Clouds, high winds, Ace-client-gui not working, dome rotation needed homing. Waited for humidity to drop (long wait, and some telescopes never reached less than 100%). JKT was best, but neighboring telescopes' RH spikes usually indicated another wave of high humidity. Waited for high winds to calm. Followed quick restart when ace-gui fault occurred; no reoccurrence. Dome rotation activated when needed. Interesting night and an interesting object (P = 0.132 h) to track.

james webb

none

CCD

0

10

Connection Issues

Blazar microvariability. My home situation prevented me from observing:(.\

Alex

Dieter

Andor CCD

8.5

1.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Clemson Blazar Photo-z measurement program. during the night I needed to do a full reset and azimuth recycle. Other than that no major issues.

Tomomi Otani

Julia Clark, Adrian Moraga

CCD

9.5

0

No problems to report

Hot subdwarf photometry time series. Everything was good tonight.

Tomomi Otani

Julia Clark, Adrian Moraga

CCD

9.5

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Hot subdwarf photometry time series. ACE client stopped working a few times. The regular procedure worked to fix them.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

7.5

0.5

Equipment Failure

WDs photometry. QSI camera not responding to commands. Dome stopped rotating, AZ reset did not work, but a full reset did.

Ron Kaitchuck

none

CCD

5

0

Software/Control PC Issues

The auto-focus routine was unable to change the focus. Fortunately the telescope was already at an acceptable focus.

Todd Vaccaro

N/A

Andor CCD

7

.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Eclipsing binaries. Lost time with the crashing of ACE on tele computer just about every hour during sequences. Dome stuck beginning of night that an Az reset, home fixed.

Todd Vaccaro

N/A

Andor ccd

6

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Eclipsing binaries. ACE crashed on the telescope computer almost every hour, which was rectified by simply closing it and restarting it. The telescope got stuck in the west near airmass 2.3, resetting HA and moving with the hand paddle eventually worked to free it, but lost 20 minutes. Catching the failing ACE during sequences lost me blocks of 5 minutes or so each hour. I noticed on the dome cam that the dome slit has a strip of insulation or something about a foot or two long dangling from near the top, which may fall into the scope. I have an image of it I can share if needed.

Tomomi Otani

Julia Clark, Adrian Moraga

CCD

8

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Photometry time series of Hot subdwarf stars. The focus stopped working, but it started working again after we did a full restart.

Tomomi Otani

Adrian Moraga, Julia Clark

Andor

8

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Photometry time series. Dome stopped rotating one time. We followed the procedures on the note on the telescope PC and the issue was fixed.

Núria Torres-Albà

Dieter Hartmann

SARA RM

7

0

No problems to report

Clemson University observations of high-z blazars No problems to report

Robert Berrington

none

camera

3

5

Clouds

short period variable stars.

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

CCD

7

1

Wind

WDs photometry, around 1h closed due to wind. No success with the autoguider, the QSI camera seems unresponsive (reading takes forever, reported temperature at 1000C and reported size 0x0 pixels).

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

CCD

0

8

Wind

Wind gusts above 45km/h all night, we did not open the dome.

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

WDs photometry with autoguiding. Perfect night. ACE client at telescope PC crashed twice, only needing to close and open the program.

Yong

Dieter Hartmann

RM griz

10

0

Software/Control PC Issues

On the telescope PC, a window popped up multiple times, saying that ace stopped working. Not a big ideal since reopen the ace client will fix it. Restart is not even needed.

B Murphy

Day, Grabarz, Pease

Andor

9

0

No problems to report

Globular Cluster photometry

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

9

0

No problems to report

AGN with emission-line clouds. Focus 97300, guider focus 800. Do not use the "save last image" button while another exposure is in progress - took me a half hour, two connector-client restarts and 2 dome azimuth resets to recover from that bit of genius. (I never did quite recover the setup on the CCD computer) Brian Brondel connected and tweaked the guider to remove E-W oscillations.

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

9.5

0

No problems to report

Finishing merger sample in Dead Quasar Survey. Unsure whether dome fully opened at start of night after talking to Brian Brondel. Doughnuts of dust and defocussed stars looked OK, as did camera view of dome slit at dawn. Focus 97400. Guider continues much more reliable with auto ROI and 2x2 binning.

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

WDs photometry with autoguider (thanks for the new tips!). Everything running smoothly, except ACE connector client at telescope PC crashing twice.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

8.5

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Had to do two full restarts during the night plus an azimuth dome recycle.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

7

0

No problems to report

Telescope GUI crashed twice, else n issues.

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

CCD

8

1

Clouds

WDs photometry. Tried to autoguide, with no success: the QSI focus does not move and seems unfocussed, the X-stage is locked between position 1 and 2, can move to 0 and 1, but stays in the middle when trying to go to 2. Usual problems: ACE restarts needed at telescope, and dom AZ resets.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

8.5

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

The camera computer suddenly rebooted without prior warning. When I logged back in a window poppoed up saying the the AVG anti-virus software has been updated. If something needs updating usually one gets a prompt, not this time. Evrything else went smooth.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

5

5

Other

Thanks to Saida for offering up the night. I got a late start, else the night was rather uneventful. Focus was unresponsive once and when I tried to restart the node service Windows was unhappy and couldn't stop it. Thanks to ACE the problem was solved quickly.

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

CCD

1

9

Humidity

WDs. Brian and ACE prepared the telescope for the night (thanks!). No issues, apart from the humidity suddenly (minutes) going from 20% to 90%. Fortunately we noticed it and we closed the dome in time. It remained high the whole night.

Stephen Gillam

None

ARC Camera

0

12

Equipment Failure

rOAp stars. The dome got stuck at 182 degrees. I homed it and then the dome tracked the telescope azimuth without another hitch. The telescope got "stuck" on the west limit at +3 hours HA. This was odd as I had slewed to the same hour angle just a few mins earlier. I checked the DIO96 bord and found that it was not operating. (The board was not present in the Instacal GUI.) I shut down the Telescope computer from software. Then powered off the Telescope control computer and the ACE control cabinet from the remote APC. A test of the DIO board showed "FAIL" and red lights on all its channels. I repeated the DIO board recycle procedure three times, occasionally recycling the power to the computer and ACE controls, instead of powering off and then on again. All attempts left the DIO board in the failed state.

Ted von Hippel

none

none

0

0

No problems to report

Offered the telescope to SARA-Board yesterday but no takers.

Stephen Gillam

None

Andor Camera

10

10

Wind

ROAp stars.

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

CCD

8.5

0.5

Equipment Failure

WDs photometry. Clouds passing all night. Typical problems with typical solutions (dome not rotating, doors ajar, ace connector resets).

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

RM grizR HAlpha

11

0

Equipment Failure

Clemson Blazar study. The telescope reached the limit and couldn't slew. But it was fixed later.

Martha Leake

none

Andor

9

0

No problems to report

All worked well. I did a quick restart near midnight UT and a dome azimuth restart; otherwise the dome worked and observing went smoothly. Not much dust; in the "green" all night.

Brian

Students

Andor

8

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Globular cluster photometry. Problem encountered: Main Focus was not responding ... Solution: Reboot ACE cabinet. Problem encountered: Dome not moving ... Solution: Do an Azimuth reset per instructions on the desktop. (And waiting 2 minutes.) Dome opened and closed with no issue.

William Keel

not even time for cats to arrive

Andor CCD

0

9

Equipment Failure

Tried opening dome per Brian Murphy's note ,and it stuck slightly open. With Peter and Brian at ACE, decided to wrangle it closed and leave it there for safety.

Todd Hillwig

None.

Andor CCD

0

10

Clouds

None.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

9

Clouds

Never opened. Clouds, high humidity, temperature around freezing.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0.1

9

Clouds

Clouds and high humidity early on. Around 0100UT sky was clear and humidity had dropped to acceptable levels. I noticed other observatories had opened, so I opened up, too. Before I was able to focus the scope, humidity rose again and I had to close. Was open for about 5 minutes.

Martha A. Leake

none

Andor

0

12

Equipment Failure

Dome problems shutdown. Also today, high humidity and rain. Will not open.

Alex

Dieter

Andor CCD

0

12

Equipment Failure

JKT Shutdown due to dome issue

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

CCD

0

9

Humidity

High humidity and temperatures bellow 0 C, with risk of ice. We did not open.

Ted von Hippel

none

imaging

0

12

Other

The dome was iced over so no one would have been able to observe anyway. That having been said, because of the dome shutter problem I tried to give the night away.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

0

9

Snow

Bad weather, ICE (whenever the weather improves, please confirm it is safe to open the dome!, e.g., checking if other telescopes at the observatory are opening their domes)

Yong Sheng

Yong Sheng, Dieter Hartmann

RM griz

8

2

Software/Control PC Issues

When beginning: dome stuck at "Dome is opening". Fixed it by doing full restart and cycling the Shutter Door Then the doom started vignetting. Tried all my troubleshooting methods, nothing worked, so i have to stop.

Todd Vaccaro

Robert Berrington

Andor

3

6.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Eclipsing binary program. Unable to get eve flats due to dome issues (AZ resets, ACE/CCD connection required pc reboots, and shutter was having problems opening all the way). Half way through the night, and unsure if shutter open all the way, I couldn't close following instructions on the Notepad, but Brian Murphy was able to after hitting the big red X button on Dome Control, which isn't mentioned in Notepad, so we closed for the rest of the night as I was able to get the eclipse I was looking for earlier than expected.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

0

Other

Addendum: Ace Connector Client GUI on telescope computer crashed twice during the night (Windows "gui stopped working" error). Did not affect observing - telescope stayed tracking and camera kept exposing. Simply re-opened gui and checked that dome was linked.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

9.0

0

No problems to report

White dwarf time series photometry. I followed Brian's safe dome handling instructions - dome opened fully despite saying "ajar" and closed fully. Dome camera not responding, so used target images to verify closure. Great weather, 0.9" seeing. Used guider; it worked well (focus 975). Toward end of run dome stopped rotating at an azimuth of ~255 degrees. Cycled azimuth power, homed dome, re-linked it, and all was well.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

10

Other

Did not open due to high stupidity (foggy brain, inability to focus on calendar)

Keefe Kamp

Gokuldass

CCD

0

11

Humidity

TFOP and Be star observations were planned however to do a high chance of rain and humidity no observing took place

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

0

10

Wind

High winds all night.

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

0

10

Wind

High winds all night combined with last minute on-campus observation projects with students (we've had very few clear nights so far this semester).

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

9

Humidity

Unable to open due to high humidity.

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD

0

11

Humidity

AGN's

Todd Vaccaro

Nicolette Terracciano

Andor CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

Eclipsing binary star. Controls for both the telescope and camera computers did not display when using Radmin. A reset of both computers was performed but still didn't display the controls. Did another reset for ACE (we thought maybe is was a connection issue, not a computer issue) and that displayed the controls. Once the controls were up, we couldn't open the dome. We tried following the dome door reset directions many times but the dome wouldn't open. Brian later logged on to help us. After his attempt, he informed us that the dome was stuck and could not be opened tonight for observing.

Ted von Hippel

none

imaging

0

6

No problems to report

Decided not to make this night available to my students because of dome slit issues. Put out a call to SARA-Board@lists.fit.edu to see if anyone else wanted the night and no takers.

Todd Vaccaro

Nicolette Terracciano

Andor CCD

3

8

Humidity

Eclipsing binary; missed primary eclipse due to humidity/clouds. Lost an hour early and ability to get flats b/c dome was not behaving; followed directions for door and Az issues, but had to restart services and cycle things as well. Ace (Tele) crashed on us 2 or 3 times, like once per hour.

Ted von Hippel

Elvis Santana

imaging

0

6

Equipment Failure

The dome door opened but kept reporting it was in an opening status. We tried to close it and could not. I believe we followed the procedures to deal with the recent dome problems, but they failed for a number of attempts. After 3 or 4 hours, the same process (shut down power at the PDU, restart PDU power, hit the red octagon, then click on dome close) finally worked as seen on the camera within the dome.

Xianming Han

none

CCD

10

0.5

Equipment Failure

eclipsing binaries The telescope mysteriously crashed. Restarting the ACE services on both computers fixed the problem. The dome also stopped rotating while observing.

Xianming Han

none

CCD

10

0

Equipment Failure

eclipsing binaries the dome stopped rotating at the beginning of the night, and ACE helped . To fix dome not rotating problem, using the PDU to cycle the power to the Azimuth (be sure that its normal state is "OFF").

Xianming Han

none

CCD

5

5

Humidity

eclipsing binaries humidity and the dome stopped rotating.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

M31, open clusters, asteroid. No problems.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

RM griz

0

12

Equipment Failure

The dome can't be opened. Contacted Peter and he said that this issue hasn't been fixed yet

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

12

0

No problems to report

Dead quasar survey, H II regions in galaxies. Focus 96700, guider focus 900. Brian Brondel gave hints that made guiding much more reliable: use 2x2 binning and auto ROI instead of manually selecting a guide stars. I rewrote the guiding instructions and sent to the SARA mailing lists.

Van Hamme

Samec

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Observation of interacting binaries. AH Gem.

Van Hamme

Samec

CCD

0

10

Other

Ice covering dome did not allow opening.

Todd Vaccaro

Nicolette Terracciano and Aaron Brown-O'Dell

Andor

0

10

Clouds

Eclipsing binaries

Roi Alonso

Lisa Altinier

CCD

9

2

Other

WD photometry, no autoguiding. Some problems to open the dome at the beginning: the "smart dome" switch at the Dome PDU had been set to "off". The focusser was not moving either, and required a full restart. After that, only the known issues (dome az reset was needed at some point). Last hour of the night the target had set.

James webb

none

CCD

0

8

Other

senior care prevented me from observing. Offered it up but no one took it to my knowledge,

Ken Watanabe

Nick Rimbert

N/A

0

10

Humidity

None.

CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

Dome would not open. Made numerous attempts, reset multiple times using the power outlet-- to no avail. Displayed "opening" and "closing," messages which never went away. Looking at it using the interior camera showed that the dome shutter was not responding to commands.

Todd Vaccaro

Nicollette Terracciano

Andor

0

11

Humidity

eclipsing binaries. Never opened due to high humidity and threat of rain.

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

1.5

10

Humidity

Dead quasar survey. Had time to troubleshoot guiding a bit with Brian Brondel. BVR focus 95843, guider focus close to 0.

Nuria Torres-Alba

Dieter Hartmann

SARA ORM

0

11

Humidity

No observations due to 100% humidity all night long

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

3

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Took several restarts before things started working properly-- with each restart, another function would come back online. Eventually, all was working and had no further issues.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

4

Humidity

Unable to open due to high humidity the entire night

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

2

0

Other

M31. No real issues, except that the "dome closing" message still persists and never goes away. I did a couple of recycles of the shutter door power, but that did not seem to have any effect.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

4

Humidity

Had to close just after getting flats due to high humidity and low temperatures. Dome never did give a "closed" message, but kept indicating "closing."

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

3

10

Clouds

Dead quasar survey. Focus 99150. Guider focus -600. Guider did new weird thing - offsets always showed 0 (more exactly listed number was something E-301), even when star disappeared behind a loud after guiding started..

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

RM griz

0

13

Other

Observatory closed due to volcanic activity.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

5.5

6.5

Wind

Deep H-alpha imaging lost due to high winds at start of night. White dwarf time series photometry in second half of night. No major problems. Winds were high but below limits for 2nd half of night. Seeing was marginal (2 arcsec or so); other ORM observatory DIMMs reported bad seeing too. Suggestion: Have wind speed in same units on Clarity, within the ACE interface (which I really liked tonight), and on the Closing limits on the SARA website. It's tough to convert m/s and kph to mph at 2am. Nice to be observing with this instrument again.

Yong Sheng

None

RM

0

12

Other

Observatory closed due to volcanic activity.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

13

Other

Surtr is preparing for Ragnarok and the battle against Aesir. Allegedly.

Alex McDaniel

None

Andor CCD

0

12

Other

Observatory closed due to volcanic activity.

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD camera

0

12

Other

Observatory closed due to volcanic activity.

Martha Leake

none

Andor

0

10.8

Other

Asteroid light curves but volcanic eruptions continued with some high winds early and clouds. Leaving LP midnight.

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.