SARA 

Patrick Stanley

Jarrod Bieber

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Wet observing run. Fixed the issue with the mirror cover gui always showing opening by resetting ACE. However the DIO96 diagnostic still does not look correct.

Angel Strobach

Caitlyn Mattison, Kaylee Grace, Patrick Stanley

SARA RM Telescope

12

0

No problems to report

Dome was vignetting after being unlinked and parked for the night

Patrick Stanley

Millie, Kaylee, Zach

Andor CCD

10

0

No problems to report

WET run. Still having problems with the mirror cover gui always showing "opening". The open and close buttons still work. We used the dio96 diagnostic to tell if the cover was open or closed

Jarrod Bieber

Patrick Stanley, Caitlyn Mattison, Evelyn Palmer, Ben Kaiser

SARA-RM

6

4

Humidity

Minor issue with the Mirror Cover. The control window for the mirror always says "Opening" regardless of whether it is actually open or closed.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

7.5

3

Humidity

AGN-ionized clouds. Focus 98870, guider focus 1000. One incidence of dome sticking at PA 75, cleared not just by cycling dome azimuth power but by restarting node service and connector client plus a slew. Left dome shutter power after shutdown, off per Peter's recent instructions (note to self: turn off night light after opening dome and before observing).

William Keel

None

Andor CCD

0

10

Humidity

If it wasn't the cloud cap it was the humidity. Dome exhibited interesting follies - onsite workers reported it was open when software said closed. Would not respond to commands; closed under weather sensor when rain appeared. Peter Mack recommends turning dome-shutter motor off during operation and when closed (now in the instructions on the telescope computer desktop) to avoid uncommanded opening/closing.

William Keel

Sam Grunblatt, AY203

Andor CCD

1

10

Humidity

Clouds plus humidity. Found that computers had rebooted overnight; had to cycle ACE cabinet power, dome control, restart all the software. Sucker holes gave just enough time to verify focus. Guider focus is +1000 (after initializing the focus stage), which is a change.

Ken Watanabe

Jonathan Zielinski

CCD

0

8

Equipment Failure

Appears I had similar problem to the last report. Telescope would not slew to any object (I tried different ones) and would say "Unable to complete slew due to an equipment error". All images would come out completely black or with some white streaks. However, they were saving properly. Dome closed and at home. Mirror cover closed and telescope slew should be canceled.

Mai

Alexandra Yep

Andor Camera

6

6

Equipment Failure

Dome failed to slew to telesecope. Telescope failed to slew to object. "Unable to complete slew due to an equipment error". Images seems to replace image file instead of making a new one. Dome PDU log in failed. Images all failed due to heavy bars, sliced lighting and overall poor quality.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

M31, binary star, supernova, attempted asteroid. No problems-- moon was very bright however so could not detect the asteroid (it was at opposition so too close to the moon).

Michael Fauerbach

none

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

I found 2 asteroids with short periods that were far enough from the bright Moon to make it a worthwhile night. Telescope parked and dome moved to 235.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

10

0

No problems to report

AGN-ionized clouds, nebulae. Focus 98700, guider focus -60. Guider still needs ROI around star input manually (+/-100 in each coordinate works, even when set to bin by 2 in guiding). Dome parked at 235.

Michael Fauerbach

none

CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Asteroid photometry. No issues to report, focus @97522 with sdss r' filter.

Roi Alonso

None

ccd

5

4

No problems to report

WD photometry, no filter. Focus 101044, guider focus 20. Tracking stopped when target at west, around 45 degs in altitude, 307 Az. Closed early due to commitments in the morning next day. Telescope parked to zenith, dome closed and at AZ 235, and controls hidden.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Binary Star, M31, EE Cep. No problems at all-- a good night.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

6

1

Humidity

Started idle due to humidity. No problems observing. Used guider by taking full-frame image, identifying a guide star, and entering 201x201 ROI -- guiding was fine. Ended when done with primary target due to classes tomorrow. Parked telescope, closed dome, parked dome at AZ=235, and closed dome control panel. (Telescope was at zenith with dome at a different az when I started)

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

M31, close binary star, NGC 7331. No problems, but when I logged in the dome was open and at azimuth 235 (although the dome control was hidden like we are supposed to do). When I finished, I verified that the dome was closed and at azimuth 235, then closed the dome control window.

William Keel

Sam Grunblatt, AY 203 class

Andor CCD

10.5

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

AGN-ionized clouds, class objects. One drive shutdown at 0H53 EAST, +25. Guider sometimes works with auto ROI, sometimes it needs to be entered manually (I use star position +/-100 in each coordinate). Focus 98150, guider focus -100.

Robert Berrington

none

arc

2

8

Equipment Failure

Very poor transparency also after a planned power outage for maintenance. Numerous issues on startup. The focuser did not function until Peter logged on much later to reset the system. He indicated that it had faulted with an unknown reason. The filter wheel was also having difficulty in locating the filter, and Peter indicated that it is considerably pas its lifetime and in need of replacement. He indicated that would happen on the next trip out to SARA-RM. No issues with the dome, and operated without issue.

William Keel

Sam Grunblatt, AY03 class

Andor CCD

5

5

Humidity

AGN-cloud survey, class objects. Focus 97600. Initialize guider stage, focus -60; guider sometimes needed manual ROI setup, sometimes found guide star and ROI automatically. Spent the night playing hopscotch with periods of high humidity.

Zach Savery

Patrick, Caitlyn, and Evelyn

CCD

10

1

Humidity

Closed an hour before sunrise/tracking limit as the humidity reached up to 90%. Otherwise there were no issues with RM. The telescope tracking has been great, we haven't needed to adjust things at all to keep our targets centered in the imaging throughout the night. The focus point has also been very steady.

Zach Savery

Angel, Evelyn, and Caitlyn

CCD

11

0

Software/Control PC Issues

Had to do a ACE restart at the very beginning. Did the full 2 minute ACE cabinet and node restart sequence. Also had to go through the dome azimuth recycle process to get it to move. Initially it still didn't want to rotate counter clockwise between 235 and 200 degrees, but it would move when slewing to Polaris. So we did a complete dome and telescope slew to Polaris, and then we could move to the zenith park position for flats. Had no issues when slewing to targets. Later in the night the dome had no trouble moving through the 235-200 degree region.

Zach Savery

Evelyn, Ben, Caitlyn, Angel, and Jarrod

CCD

10

2

Software/Control PC Issues

Had to restart the ACE power box several 4 times at the beginning of the night, as the switch panel kept showing that the "RA Reset" and "Dec Reset" were on after the restart. Finally did the telescope tracking fix, where I restarted the ACE node service on the telescope computer and that worked. During the night hit a tracking limit at 45 degrees after following the target across the meridian. This also required the telescope tracking fix to get the telescope to slew again, but had to restart the ACE node on both computers. Followed a second target until hitting this same limit and had to again reset using the tracking fix. Lost an hour to these various restarts, and another hour to clouds.

Roi Alonso

none

andor

8

1

Equipment Failure

Two WDs observed, with regular issues: three/four full restarts needed, tracking stopped when target was at west (about 50 degs above horizon). Managed to make the autoguider work (apparently), setting the regions of the detector manually, and bin = 1. Stopping the autoguider sequence typically requires a full restart to get the controls back. Dome closed and parked at 235. Used a borrowed windows machine to connect.

Ken Watanabe

Jonathan, Xavier

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Dome closed, lens cap closed, telescope parked. No problems to report. 9/12/25

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

active stars

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

10

Other

Though not my night, dust levels were very high all night long which would have prevented opening (I am completing this report for the record).

Robert Berrington

none

arc

0

10

Clouds

Poor weather--high humidity/rain and clouds--prevented opening for the evening.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

6

0

Equipment Failure

M31, binary star. The dome stopped reporting its position at some point, although it still seemed to be moving with the telescope (although at one point, the dome suddenly closed on its own). A recycle failed to bring it back. When I closed up, the dome was reporting that it was at an azimuth of 38 degrees, although my target at 350 degrees azimuth was visible to the scope so I think that is actually where it was pointed. Unable to move it to azimuth 235 so I closed the dome and hid the dome control window as we have been instructed to do.

Alexandra Yep

Mai Le, Stefan Geier

Andor Camera

2

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Mai and I met virtually with Stefan for a training session on the RM telescope. Stefan reported the problem as follows: "After taking Skyflats, the tracking went to idle and didn't start anymore. We tried with cycling the Telescope Computer and also the ACE Control Cabinet. However, when we restart the ACE Node Service on the telescope computer and tried to open the Connector Client again, it doesn't open anymore. I've never had that before (up to now, whenever there was some crash, the Connector Client opened up again, this is the first time that it doesn't start at all anymore)." We did a full restart and then restarted the ACE Node Service on each computer a couple times, and this got everything working again. Then everything worked fine.

Martha A. Leake

none

Andor CCD

12

0

No problems to report

Observed familiar nebula, galaxies and clusters to relearn the ropes. I'm very happy to report that skies were clear and there were no problems. Data is being transferred now.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

10

0

No problems to report

Clemson blazar study. The dome was parked to 235 degrees at the end of the night.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

5

0

No problems to report

M31, binary star, variable star. No problems.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

3

0

No problems to report

Variable stars. No problems. Used the telescope for the first few hours of the night, then turned it over to Bill Keel for the remainder of the night.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

5

0

No problems to report

M31, exoplanet, binary star. No problems. Used the telescope for the first half of the evening, then turned it over to Bill Keel.

William Keel

DragonCon Live Astronomy

Andor CCD

6

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Outreach objects. Focus 100053. Two events where CCD hangs during readout. Once it was fixed by cycling ACE control cabinet, second time shortly before morning twilight not so (so I shut down, dome at 235 and dome control hidden).

William Keel

DragonCon Live Astronomy

Andor CCD

2

1

Other

Outreach objects. Focus 99364, tracking seemed poor since 5m exposures even near the meridian would often be trailed. Session ended by hotel fire alarm at 0030 local time (a new one for the bingo card).

Garima Rajguru

Dieter Hartmann

ANDOR CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Clemson Blazar Study

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

M31, binary star, NGC 7331. No problems.

Todd Vaccaro

N/A

Andor

0

8

Humidity

Never opened. Took bias frames near sunset and they looked fine, but that was it.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

8

2

Software/Control PC Issues

AGN-ionized clouds. Focus 100087. QSI camera still not guiding - it will do single exposures and is in good focus, but the guiding panel gets only a single exposure and the second one never shows up. (Peter called in and saw the behavior). One tracking shutdown at 3h23 W, +56. Dome stowed at 235.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

8

1

Software/Control PC Issues

The tracking stopped at HA=03:59. Then the software stopped saving fits files. I restarted multiple times to solve the issues. The dome was parked at 235 degrees at the end of the night.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

9

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

AGN-ionized clouds. Focus 100765. Did restarts/power cycles to restore control of mirror cover (worked) and QSI camera (did not work, even with advice from Peter). Had to cycle power on ACE cabinet to clear mirror-cover fault and filter wheel 1 sticking at shutdown.

Tom Rutherford

Faith Simmons

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

No problems. Telescope stopped tracking at HA +03:04-- no issues other than that. M31, Exoplanet, Supernova. Dome closed and parked at 235, dome controls hidden.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

8

1

Other

Started closed due to high dust; it dropped below limits but stayed marginally high all night. I had to do a full restart with power cycle of cabinet three times at start of night before the connector client on camera computer would fully connect; last time I allowed 3 minutes between each step and it worked, at least until I went to focus and the focus mechanism would not move until I did a quick restart on just the telescope connector client and node services. Then everything worked through the night. Parked dome at 235 and closed dome tool at end of night. Still unable to connect with a Mac or a PC using VNV without Radmin. QSI camera did not connect. Pointing and tracking were awesome though.

Kurtis Williams

Breadstick (feline)

Andor

8.5

0

No problems to report

Both telescope & camera computers sluggish at login; during autofocus the focuser failed to move. Did quick restart to no avail; full restart solved both latency and focuser problems. Still unable to log on without Radmin viewer or Radmin VPN. Unable to connect to QSI but tracking was excellent even without autoguider. Parked dome at az=235 and closed dome tool after closure.

Kurtis Williams

Breadstick (feline)

Andor

--

--

Other

Addendum: Just-submitted report was for civil night of 13 Aug 2025, not 14 Aug 2025 as stated. Mea culpa.

Kurtis Williams

Breadstick (feline)

Andor

9

0

No problems to report

Dome turned to 235 deg and dome control window closed as requested. QSI camera not connecting so unable to autoguide; since autoguiding is not required for my data, I did not try and troubleshoot. Unable to connect from school computers due to prohibition to connect via radmin and need to connect via Mac and/or VNC.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

5

3

Other

M31, DDE 155. No real issues, although the scope stopped tracking at HA -00:10 (target was at DEC +02). I sent it to the zenith park position and then back to the target where it tracked until HA +03:30 (about what was expected). Closed up early due to rising dust levels.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

3

5

Other

Dust kept hovering around the closing limit so I closed up, then reopened for a short period of time once my target was high enough, then closed again. Comment-- dome reported being open when I first opened the dome control window-- I checked with the camera and it was in fact open. M31.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

8

Other

Dust all night. Did not open.

Todd Vaccaro

n/a

ANDOR

8

0.5

Equipment Failure

EB program. I did not encounter the dome failing to follow the tele as I did last night, but the tracking of the tele stopped at the exact same point in HA (3h29m) for an object at 69 dec, so I moved to another target. When closing the dome I watched with the cameras and it looked closed but the Ace gui said it was ajar, so I opened and shut again while watching and it looked closed again but the gui didn't complain, so I parked the dome.

Todd Vaccaro

n/a

ANDOR

7

1

Equipment Failure

Eclipsing binaries program. Missing Maxim DL made it difficult to gauge s/n and seeing conditions, I may have wasted time on a saturated star. The dome stopped following the tele after the first hour and ACE crashed requring a full reset. The target at the time of vignetting was northern with a +69 Dec, but not quite transiting yet; however, when the dome was at exactly 0 AZ it failed again and I had to slew tele, unlink dome, slew, link to finally get it to move with the scope and it was fine till the tracking of the scope failed at around HA 3h29m and I had to move on. There's no time checking on the CCD pc, the time.is web page is blocked as a threat, though it works on the tele pc and the time was good. There's a setting on the CCD pc that likely needs tweaking for the file browser as sorting on the Date Modified usually would have new images appear at the top of the list to monitor progress it requires constant refreshing and scrolling for every new file, which is a major nuisance.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

4

5

Software/Control PC Issues

Constellation of problems which Peter traced to corrupted instruments.cfg file. CCD stuck on fast readout with extremely high bias ~4100, guider completely unreachable, no autofocus, object names not transferrable to headers. Parked dome at 235 and closed dome-control panel. Focus 99500.

Tom Rutherford

Faith Simmons

CCD

8

0

Software/Control PC Issues

No real issues but the autofocuser window never appeared, even following a couple of recycle sessions. Exoplanet, M31, NGC 7331.

Gary Henson

none

Andor CCD

6

0

Other

Asteroid light curve and tracking test. Dome closed, parked at 235. No tracking problems following target to 24 deg in SW, however tracking stopped ~3.5 HA for target to NW, still at 45 deg altitude. Details on Discord.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Billy Quarles

Jacqueline Venuto

Andor CCD

7

3

Software/Control PC Issues

Observing Hot Jupiter WASP-153. Most of night was great. Telescope lost tracking at HA 2:41. Possibly due to a spike in humidity (from 4% up to 60%). ACE on Camera comp. stopped responding and would not stop service. Had to stop acenodesvc using Task Manager. Restarted ACE service on telescope and camera computers. Was able to take darks. Stopped for the night as dew point was rising and temperature dropping.

Roi Alonso

None

ccd

0

8

Connection Issues

Unable to connect with realVNC using a Mac, offered the night in discord, but appartently not used.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

2

0

No problems to report

Telescope appeared to be not in use so I logged on for about two hours to collect data on M31. No problems to report. When finished, dome was closed, parked at 235, and then the dome control window was closed.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

8.5

0

No problems to report

Time-series photometry. Still no joy with VNC connections, though Radmin worked. For first target of the night, guider camera image displayed properly (though acquisition sequence still crashed the Connector Client). For second target, guider camera image did not display. Dome parked at 235 degrees, then closed, then connecter client dome gui was closed as requested.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

8.5

0

No problems to report

White dwarf time series photometry. Unable to observe from campus due to ongoing lack of VNC access. Autoguiding has same issue as mentioned by Bill last night - starting to guide causes connector client to crash, and close-up of guide star not appearing in guider gui. At end of night parked dome at 235 degrees and closed Dome Tool window afterwards as requested. Followed first target to HA=+3; no tracking issues.

William Keel,

Sam Grunblatt

Andor CCD

8.5

0.5

Equipment Failure

AGN-ionized clouds. Focus 98800. Drive quit once at 3h30 W +66 in the middle of a 60m exposure. Parked dome at 235 and hid dome control panel per Peter's suggestion about mystery dome openings. Guider continues to act strange - usually freezes or indeed kills the Connector Client process on CCD computer on acquiring star (restart the process and it's OK except for resetting to 1s default exposure and not displaying the star image in the guider panel). Twice, there were mystery redundant CC processes on that machine.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

Exoplanet, M31. No problems. Dome closed and parked at azimuth 235 degrees.

Kurtis Williams

juvenile Mediterranean house gecko

Andor

8.0

0.5

Connection Issues

time series photometry. Excellent weather, great to have external cameras! As requested, at end of the night I parked dome at 2135 degrees, closed dome, and closed dome dialog panel on telescope computer connector client. About a half hour of time lost due to Real VNC being unable to connect; I was able to connect with Radmin at home. Autoguider worked well, though starting a new autoguide sequence did crash connector client on camera computer. I was able to simply reopen connector client; autoguider was continuing its acquisition routine and commanded image sequence was also continuing without problem.

Garima Rajguru

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Clemson Blazar Study.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

2

0

No problems to report

No Problems. M31. Telescope was not in use so I logged on for a couple of hours just before morning twilight in order to get data for a long-running project.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Clemson blazar study.

William Keel

Cat

Andor CCD

10

0

No problems to report

AGN-ionized clouds, interstellar comet, nebulae. BVR focus 101094. Autoguider works but freezes and kills Connector Client window on camera computer when it locks on a star; I opened an Andor control panel on the telescope computer to keep control access to it with all the guider-induced restarts and freezes. Tracked one target from 2-3 hours west with no problems.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

No problems at all except that the telescope stopped tracking once it reached an hour angle of about +2 (as expected). M31, M33, C/2025 N1.

Kaylee Grace

N/A

CCD

7

0

Software/Control PC Issues

Had an issue at one point that an RA reset fixed, then had to do a full reset when the scope hit the +2 hour limit. No other issues to report! It was a beautiful night and the scope worked really well.

Robert Berrington

none

arc

7

0

Equipment Failure

The control software was stable at the beginning of the evening. The prevented me from taking flats in the normal fashion because the telescope tracking failed at flat time, and I was not able to enable the tracking with out a full reboot with a power cycle of the control rack. I also lost tracking at ~+2 hrs hourangle which happened the night prior. Fortunately a HA reset fixed the problem, but there appears to be an issue with >~2 hrs in hourangle tracking by the telescope. This is in contrast to the second half of the evening where I started at ~-4 hrs hrouangle, and had no problem tracking the entire night.

Robert Berrington

none

arc

7

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Short period variable star program. The telescope control interface was very unstable this evening. At the beginning of the evening I were multiple crashes off the telescope control software. This required multiple full restarts of the system, and two reboots of the computer. I also saw loss of telescope tracking at high hourangle +1-2 hrs. The guide camera was functioning at the start of the night, but crashed about an hour after the start. I was unable to establish any guiding there after.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

0

10

Equipment Failure

SARA-RM still down

Kaylee Grace

Millie Dill, Zach Savery

CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

SARA-RM still down

Kaylee Grace

Millie Dill, Zach Savery

CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

SARA-RM still down

Kaylee Grace

Millie Dill, Zach Savery

CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

SARA-RM still down

Martha A. Leake

none

Andor

0

9

Equipment Failure

Able to log in to the RM computers (a surprise to me) but did not proceed further because of the known dome problem. I did not bring up the ACE screen on the telescope, but did set up a file on the camera computer, which I'll rename and use on another day. Called Ken to check on the computers. It has been a while since I last used RM (maybe November?) I hope this report is sufficient for Peter's request to check on the closure; I did not open the dome, nor had ACE on screen. Weather out there is nice this afternoon, with some clouds expected tonight. Normal start time would have been an hour from now (2:13 ET)

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD camera

0

10

Equipment Failure

The telescope is out of commission until dome repairs are complete.

Zach Savery

Kaylee Grace

CCD

0

10

Other

Broken dome

Zach Savery

Millie Dill, Kaylee Grace

CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

Dome broken

Zach Savery

Millie Dill, Kaylee Grace

CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

Dome Broken

Isaiah Cox

Dieter Hartmann

CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

Closed due to dome.

Kurtis A. Williams

none

none

0

10

Equipment Failure

Ongoing observatory closure due to dome failure

Kurtis A. Williams

none

Andor

0

10

Equipment Failure

Observatory continued to be closed due to dome failure.

Ken Watanabe

Max Smuda, Jacob Kinney

RM

0

11

Equipment Failure

Dome still being repaired

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

None

0

10

Equipment Failure

The dome is being repaired, so i can't observe.

Matt Wood

NA

CCD

0

all

Equipment Failure

Mechanical problem with dome.

Peter Mack

None

None

0

12

Equipment Failure

The dome is closed due to failure of a circuit board and mechanical linkage.

William Keel

0 cats

Andor CCD

0

9

Clouds

Thought I had it, but that cloud bank to the NW rolled in right at sunset. Left dome closed at PA 235. (Checked later to make sure it stayed closed.)

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

7

0

Software/Control PC Issues

Exoplanet. After several hours of tracking a target across the sky, the scope was nearing HA 2 (where it often starts mistracking). The transit was over and I clicked the "abort" button on the telescope sequence control (I had miscalculated how many exposures I needed so had many left in the sequence when I needed to close up). Upon clicking the "abort" button, the telescope computer immediately rebooted. When it came back up, the connector client would not open. Since I was trying to close down, I used the duplicate controls on the CCD computer to close and park the dome (235 AZ), close the mirror cover, and zenith-park the telescope. After three or four restarts, the telescope computer did come back up and all appears fine now. Other than that, no issues.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Exoplanets. No problems-- kept the scope on the eastern side of the pier though so none would be expected.

Robert Berrington

none

Andor Camera

5.5

.5

Equipment Failure

Seeing and overall night quality was spectacular. The telescope worked flawlessly up until the 2 hrs tracking limit. I posted a snap shot the Telescope position and the MAXnet Status window at time of tracking loss on discord per Peter Mack' request. The camera computer crashed shortly afterwards. I did a full reset of the system--killed and restarted the ACE node service and cycled the power on the control cabinet. That fixed the problem on the first try. Closed up shortly afterwards because of approaching dawn. I parked the telescope at the "park" preset location, and closed the dome pointed toward home (Az=235).

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

10

Humidity

Humidity-- never opened.

Samuel Quinutolo

Collin Sunes

1-M

0

6

Humidity

Did not get to open op the telescope, humidity was fluctuating rapidly above the limit and then it started to rain so I called off the observation.

XIANMING HAN

none

ccd

0

10

Humidity

100% humidity

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

1

8

Humidity

AGN-ionized clouds. Focus 95700, guider focus 1000. Humidity spiked followed by a cloud cap after about an hour of observing. Dome opened itself in afternoon; had to reboot telescope computer to restore control of CCD camera. Left dome parked at 135 degrees. Out of curiosity I left the telescope tracking on a target at +30 to see when HA disease would set in - this time it was 3:01 west instead of the previous 2:26 W on the same object.

Todd Vaccaro

N/a

Andor

0

10

Humidity

Never opened b/c of rain/humidity

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

11

Humidity

Humidity and rain-- never opened.

Martha Leake

none

CCD

0

11.5

Humidity

Asteroid photometry

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

8

3

Humidity

AGN-ionized clouds. Focus 96674, guide focus 1000. Night light was on, APC rack wouldn't let me turn it off - Peter fixed it. Reset guider ROI from 991 to 99 pixels.Ended night with high and spiking humidity - dome was closed and parked at 135 degrees;

Ken Watanabe

Max Smuda, Jacob Kinney

RM

0

11

Equipment Failure

Upon opening computer, it said "mirror cover fault." Tried clicking "close" and it said "closing" before returning to the fault. Was not able to connect to APC computer to cycle power. Took an image and it did appear that the mirror cover was closed. Dome stayed closed the whole time.

Todd Hillwig

Astronomy Students

Camera

5

1

Wind

High wind about halfway through the night, so closed. Wind died down after a while, but I had no targets the second half of the night, so did not re-open. There was a mirror cover fault when I closed the mirror covers. (Peter found the problem the next morning and fixed). Peter found the dome to be open the next morning. I *think* that I closed it, but don't specifically remember, so it is possible I did not.

Aarran Shaw

N/A

CCD

3

5

Equipment Failure

First 3 hours of the night tracked a CV simultaneous with XMM-Newton. Then the tracking problem happened at HA +3, after multiple full restarts I couldn't get the tracking to come back. I had no backup target so I'm calling it a night. The three hours I got will be useful anyway. Dome parked at 235 as requested.

Kaylee Grace

Millie Dill, Zach Savery

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

The telescope hit the expected +2HR HA limit while we were observing. Once done, we performed a full ACE reboot, and then closed up and parked the dome at 235 degrees.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

2

Equipment Failure

When I first logged on, the dome was stuck on "closing." I clicked on the icon to to open the dome and it never reported that it was open (stayed stuck on "opening.") Tried taking a 10-second image to check things out and it looked like a bias-- I concluded that the dome was not, in fact, open, but was still closed. Recycled everything twice but it did not help so I logged out after an hour or so (although I did park the scope at azimuth 235).

Kaylee Grace

Millie Dill

Andor CCD

0

11

Equipment Failure

Combination of issues tonight - shortly after sunset the humidity on the island dropped rapidly and skies were clear, so about 2-3 hours after sunset when the humidity was safely below 70% or so I attempted opening the dome to use the rest of the night. The shutters of the dome refused to open, becoming stuck in an endless "dome is opening" message. I tried cycling the dome shutters, dome azimuth, and full ace restart as listed in the "Restart Notes" on the PC, but none of that seemed to help. Given that we were almost halfway through the night at that point I stopped there as that was the extent of my solutions. Unfortunately it seems the island is back up to 100% humidity now.

Kaylee Grace

Millie Dill, Easton Honaker, Tali Natan, Zach Savery

CCD

0

11

Humidity

Cloudy, humid, unable to open :(

Kaylee Grace

Millie Dill, Easton Honaker, Tali Natan, Zach Savery

CCD

0

11

Snow

Snowy and humid, so never opened. Did take some biases and darks over the course of the night to attempt to determine why darks often have lower average counts than biases.

Isaiah Cox

Dieter Hartmann

CCD

0

11

Humidity

Rain/snow and humidity. Never opened.

Billy Quarles

None

CCD

0

12

Humidity

100% Humidity all night.

William Keel

no time for cats

Andor CCD

5.5

5.5

Humidity

AGN-ionized clouds. Focus 95600, guider focus 0. Drive stopped at 1h44m west - I did only targets to the east after that. Humidity spiked very quickly as an exposure was ending - closed as fast as I could then. ING weather showed rain half an hour later.

Todd Vaccaro

n/a

Andor

2.5

7.5

Humidity

EB program and monitor ASASSN-24fw. Lost most of the night to humidity as fog rolled in, but I lost about an hour on the dome not following scope. I also logged on around 2pm EST to prepare and the dome light was on, dome was listed as AJAR, but it was parked at 235. I missed eve flats b/c of dome issues and could use someone's flats from recent nights in BVR... Ace also crashed on me a couple of times in the beginning on tele pc and I had to do a full reset. I made sure the dome was shut, parked at 235, and tele stowed at 0HA and 0DEC.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

10.5

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

AGN-ionized clouds. Focus 97900; guider focus 0. QSI guide camera would hang at point of readout; had to cycle camera power and wait for Andor to cool back down. Then Andor would hang; restarted connector client and node server to fix. Dome parked at 235. Drive shut off at 209 W +47 near end of night.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

11

0

Equipment Failure

The tracking failed twice tonight. I closed the dome and parked it 235 degrees at the end of the night.

Ken Watanabe

Jacob Kinney

RM

12

0

No problems to report

Dome closed and parked to 235

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Exoplanet, variable stars. No problems, although I had to recycle the CCD computer at about midnight GMT. Parked the dome 235 azimuth.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

0

No problems to report

Addendum: so don't know if the issue was windshake or not. After that the oscillation damped out. Dome parked at 235 degrees and verified closed.

Kurtis Williams

Emily Cunningham

Andor

10.5

0

No problems to report

Time series photometry. No problems to report other than a noticeable E-W oscillation in the first hour or so on the first target; wind was 10 m/s

Matt Wood

Kurtis Williams

CCD

2

10

Equipment Failure

Kurtis started the night for me as I had class. He had an issue that the light came on at some point. It didn't appear that any observers had connected, so this is a mystery. I took over at about 22:00 UT, and by 23:00UT I was getting Dome Vignetting error. Dome stuck at 51 deg. I tried the PDU off-on, software off-on, and finally full reboot. No joy. Closed dome and parked telescope.

Xianming Han

none

ccd

12

0

Other

there is a thing layer of clouds

Xianming Han

none

ccd

4

2

Equipment Failure

telescope could not track at about HR=3 hours

William Keel

None

Andor CCD

0

10

Clouds

I got suckered in - after an afternoon of blue sky and good weather, a cloud cap appeared just after sunset, joined later by spiking humidity.

Todd Vaccaro

Robert Berrington

Andor

10

1

Equipment Failure

EB program. Missed sunset flats b/c weather was uncertain with RM's main weather page down all night and wind was near 40mph and humidity was coming down; SARA tele pc weather panel wasn't updating, so conditions were uncertain. Connection was lost several times and the cam pc seemed to reboot itself and both needed a full restart. Another full restart was needed after reaching +2 HA and telescope refusing to move. Also, at the beginning of the night after the dome was parked and then linked the telescope kept saying vignetting, even at zenith but cleared after I went to my first object. I took morning flats and watched the dome close after parking the scope.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

5

0.5

Equipment Failure

Images began to trail at HA of about 2, but I misread the read-out and thought that it was mis-tracking near the meridian. Sent it to zenith park (took a couple of attempts) and then back to my target, where it started tracking again. I eventually realized that the scope was over beyond HA 3 but it was tracking. The scope eventually stopped tracking again so I repeated what I did above and sent it back to the target. The scope tracked until it reached about 40 degrees from the western horizon and then started mis-tracking again. I was due to turn the scope over to another observer so at this point I sent it to zenith park and closed up with the dome at azimuth 235. No issues other the mis-tracking, but no issues recovering from that.

Jennings

ASC200L

ARC Camera

5

1

Equipment Failure

Slew equipment error

James

ASC Students

ARC Camera

0

9

Humidity

Bad weather all night

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Asteroid photometry plus interacting galaxies at the end of night (pretty picture for use in class). Checked that dome was closed with camera (AZ 135) and then moved it to AZ 235

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

6

5

No problems to report

Asteroid photometry logged in late, but no issues to report other than telescope stopped tracking @ Ha=1:45. checked that dome is closed with camera and then moved it to AZ 235

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

6

5

Humidity

Asteroid lightcurve photometry Had to close several times as humidity suddenly increased.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

11

Wind

High winds above the limit all night long.

Isaiah Cox

Yong Sheng, Dieter Hartmann

CCD

4

6

Wind

Tracking stopped several times. Full restart fixed it each time. Wind picked up a few hours in so I closed. Wind never calmed enough to open back up.

Ken Watanabe

Jacob Kinney

RM

12

0

No problems to report

No issues. AGN observation, dome closed and parked

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

10.5

0.5

Equipment Failure

Asteroid photometry The telescope still stops tracking just passed HA=2. I was unable to move the scope with the handpaddle like others had suggested, but was able to move the telescope after a full reboot. The ACE Node service on the telescope computer did not stop, so I rebooted the computer and that worked. I also noticed that in the middle of the night the weather station on the telescope computer stopped updating -for several hours. After the reboot, the connection to the weather station was restored and the issue did not show up for the rest of the night.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

11

1

Equipment Failure

It stops tracking after a few exposures. A full restart can solve it temporarily but it shows up again after a few exposures. When I try to slew the telescope, it says "Unable to complete slew due to an equipment error". It happened twice during the night. The dome is parked at 235 degrees and closed.

Stephen D. Gillam

None

Andor camera

5

5

Software/Control PC Issues

Microvariables. I tracked the telescope to ~2 hours RA and the tracking stopped. (I forgot about the stuck RA bit.) Several full ACE/Control cabinet restarts later I was able to slew the scope back to the zenith.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

0

12

Humidity

Rain all night, didn't observe at all.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

10

Humidity

100% humidity and temps around the freezing point all night. Never even logged in.

Aarran Shaw

N/A

CCD

0

10

Humidity

Calling it very early, no chance of humidity going down, whole mountain covered in cloud.

Mariel Lares Martiz

none

Photometer

0

6

Other

unforeseen personal circumstances

Todd Vaccaro

na

ANDOR

9

2

Software/Control PC Issues

Initial connections to the cam pc were difficult and it was not running everything and tele pc wasn't letting me move it, so did a full reset and it all worked. Later in the evening tracking failed at only HA< 2, tried full reset and the tele pc hung on "stopping" the ACE Node Service; rebooting the machine several times didn't do anything and I had to kill the service by finding the PID with task mgr, then as admin in cmd prompt used: taskkill /PID <PID> /F to force the service to stop. Then start in Task mgr and restart in services and follow the full reset instructions. I closed and parked the dome, parked the tele and closed mirror cover, turned on the night light to verify things and turned it off. The cam pc might be getting pretty full, so I deleted my previous night and removed it from the trash bin, but people probably need to start deleting old data.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

No problems. Exoplanets.

Billy Quarles

None

CCD

12

0

No problems to report

Observed TESS binaries. No problems. Dome at azimuth 235, left open as per Peter.

Todd Vaccaro

na

Andor

0

12

Clouds

EB program. Too cloudy, no data.

Walter Van Hamme

Samec

CCD

0

10

Humidity

Observations of close binaries.

Walter Van Hamme

Samec

CCD

0

10

Humidity

Observations of close binaries

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Exoplanet. No problems. Dome closed and at azimuth 235.

William Keel

Shadow the Terrorist Cat

Andor CCD

12.5

0

No problems to report

Ionized AGN clouds. Guider focus 0. Finally able to open after Peter checked the dome and gave the all-clear. I did have to restart node service and connector clients to get DS9 image to update, turn off night light when sky-flat counts looked weird, then cycle camera power and ACE cabinet power to get control of the guide camera (which is working very well now, acquiring guide stars quickly). Focus 96680. Dome parked at 235.

William Keel

no vats

Andor CCD

0

12

Snow

The dome remains locked between fire and ice, desperately awaiting some means of escape as the winter-borne hordes approach.

Ken Watanabe

Jacob Kinney, Max Smuda

RM

0

11

Equipment Failure

Dome still closed due to ice

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

0

12

Snow

The snow covers the dome, can't open the dome.

Ken Watanabe

Jacob Kinney, Max Smuda

RM

0

6

Humidity

Humidity close to warning levels, neighboring Liverpool Telescope showed "high risk of ice," did not open dome.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

0

11

Humidity

Raining all night, never opened.

Isaiah Cox

Dieter Hartmann

CCD

0

11

Clouds

Raining and humid. Never opened.

Todd Vaccaro

na

Andor

5

8.5

Humidity

EB program. Eclipse missed as 3 HA stopped tracking, which required a full refresh of both machines. When humidity hit 80%+ as noticed in the SiteView of RM web pages (SARA tele pc always said 79% and the mini map no longer shows JKT info) I closed down losing the rest of the night. The dome refused to close upon first command, it said Ajar. I parked the dome at 235 and closed dome again, watched it close, checked with light on, and then turned light off.

Kaylee Grace

Millie Dill, Zach Savery

Andor CCD

9

0

Clouds

A little cloudy, but stars still visible! Cut the night a bit short as we were about to hit +2 HA and have KP tonight. No hard resets needed tonight.

Millie Dill

Kaylee Grace and Zachary Savery

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Target: KUV 05134+2605. Studying for pulsations. No problems to report. Only issue was Windows pop-up saying the system (?) will no longer be supported. Clicked out of it, but I figured it should be mentioned here.

Kaylee Grace

Millie Dill, Zach Savery, Raymond Fine, Jarrod Beiber, Ben Mayhew

Andor CCD

9

0

Software/Control PC Issues

Telescope hit the +2 HA limit. No issues other than that! Had to do a reset at the beginning of the night to get started but it was all good after that! Observed a pulsating white dwarf.

Kaylee Grace

Millie Dill, Zach Savery

Andor CCD

10

0

Clouds

Quite cloudy but observed regardless. Could see through the clouds most of the night, so we'll see how the data comes out!

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

11

Clouds

Clouds passing over for the entire night, the sky (on the allsky camera) looked "milky" between the clouds passing over so never opened.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

11

Humidity

High humidity and clouds all night long— never opened.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

11

Humidity

High humidity-- never opened.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

11

Humidity

High humidity all night— never opened.

Todd Vaccaro

na

Andor

0

11

Humidity

EBs

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

11

Other

At the beginning of the night I ran into issues with the ACE Node service on the telescope computer bein stuck in 'stoppig' mode. Thanks to everybody who had suggestions, rebooting both the camera and the telescope PC seemed to do the trick. All the all-sky cams showed clear skies, and the weather parameters at JKT seemed to be great, too. But all the images I took looked there was heavy cloud cover at our scope, so Idecided to close up.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

11

Clouds

Initially, the dome would not respond but I eventually got it working. All for naught though as high cirrus clouds persisted for the entire night. Dome was closed and parked at 235 degrees as has been requested.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

06

3

Clouds

Asteroid photometry, not sure how successfull with partly cloudy skies.

Kaylee Grace

Millie Dill, Zach Savery

CCD

10

0

Software/Control PC Issues

Issue with the computers when closing - the telescope hit its limit of HA around 3 hrs 45 minutes. It wouldn't slew, so I went through the long reset process and was able to slew to 00 HA, -30 Dec. Ace then crashed, I tried to reopen it to no response. Restarted the long reset steps, and upon getting to "restart ACE node services on telescope computer" it was unable to and appears to have logged out of ACE? I have tried just pressing the log in button for all the saved log in information but that isn't doing anything. I was able to close the dome and set it to the right position, and rotate the dome to 235 degrees before all of this happened, but I seem to be unable to do anything further. We likely won't be able to use our night tomorrow because of the weather, so no one will be on tomorrow day or night if you need to investigate.

Millie D.

Kaylee G., Zachary S.

Andor

0

9

Clouds

Observing pulsating white dwarf HL Tau 76. Thick cloud coverage -- reported to last the rest of the night.

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

Andor CCD griz

4

7

Clouds

Clemson University blazar study. A lot of clouds. I can only observe a few sources. Parked telescope at HA/Dec (0 deg, -30 deg), parked dome at 235 deg, telescope mirror closed, dome closed.

Kurtis Williams

none

andor

0

12

Other

No update from Peter on whether it was safe to open after the weather event, so I stayed closed. Other telescopes are open with good weather.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

11

Clouds

Heavy clouds, never even logged in

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD

0

12

Humidity

At the start of the night the skies were completely cloudy and the humidity 96%, after having rained during the day. The skies gradually cleared (mostly) and the humidity dropped. But, fearing "dripping domes" after the rain, and with more bad weather in the near-term forecast, I decided not to open the dome. The sky didn't appear clear enough for galaxy photometry anyway.

Martha A. Leake

Romeo Montague

Andor CCD

2.5

8

Clouds

Asteroid light curves, for 4824 (Stradonice). Cloudy for about 4-5 hours (until about 6 pm), then starting to clear. Weather expected to turn wetter in early morning hours. Conducted some calibrations early (but no flats), and selected object near the Pleiades, intending to close prior to HA 2. No problems (but weather). Able to gather 2.5 hours of data, to about HA 1 h. RH reached 83% and I began shutdown. Closed mirror covers, dome, adjusted azimuth, then slewed to -25 in Dec and HA 0. Transferring data now. Did not see Maxim DL. Darks gathered last showed no light (although Light type was used for first 3 darks for comparison to Type = dark later. On leaving between 8=9 pm, RH neared 95%. Aerosols only slightly high at sunset and nearer 0 later. Storms expected this morning.

Salman Nejad

NA

SARA-RM

6

2

Other

I was observing and was planning to observe an extra 2 hours but an anonymous user logged in I lost my connection. When I logged in, I was not able to use Andor camera. So, I closed the mirror covers and the dome and logged out.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

0

11

Equipment Failure

Unable to get the mirror cover to open. Also unable to log into the power rack to reset everything-- that apparently was a password issue. G. Henson did get logged in and reset everything and all seems to be working now although target was too far past the meridian to image by the time everything started working again.

Samuel Quinutolo

Jadia Ewing, Thomas Matney, Stephen Gillam, Divyeshwari Vansadia

1.0 Meter

1

8

Wind

Wind and Humidity was too high in the red zone, could not observe

Divyeshwari Vansadia

Salman Abarghouei Nejad

Andor Camera

0.5

5

Humidity

The humidity had been high and fluctuating wildly at RM, so we called the observation off at 8 p.m. SARA Time. The other observers, including me, plan to use it again at midnight if conditions improve and will submit the night report if we use the telescope. The mirror cover and dome were closed, and the telescope was parked.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

2

9

Humidity

M31. Humidity was low enough to open at sunset but began creeping up and required closing up after about two hours. Autofocuser control seemed to be missing. As instructed on the notepad, I'm verifying that the dome was closed and was parked at an azimuth of 235 degrees.

Billy Quarles

None

CCD

0

13

Humidity

Did not open due to high humidity.

Robert Berrington

none

arc

0

10

Clouds

Did not open due to poor weather, and high humidity.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

12

0

No problems to report

M31, Exoplanet. Mirror cover stays on "closing," but no other issues.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

6

3

Clouds

asteroid photometry. Plenty of clouds with some holes in between.

William Keel

cats

Andor CCD

0

11

Clouds

Clouds. I would have known this earlier had I managed to copy the right telescope for the night into my paper planner. (Apologies again to the confused ASC observers at KP).

Aarran Shaw

N/A

Andor Camera

8

2

Equipment Failure

Mostly a good night. However, hit the tracking issue at around HA=03:30 for both of my targets, and only recovered after 2 ACE reboots. With only 2 hours left in the night I decided to close up for the night.

XIANMING HAN

Basra, Erickson, Nixon, McDonough

ccd

2

9

Clouds

eclipsing binaries problems: clouds, humidity

XIANMING HAN

Basra, Erickson, Nixon, McDonough

ccd

11

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binaries (there is no problem other than the tracking stops about about hour angle = 2.5 hrs)

XIANMING HAN

Basra, Erickson, Nixon, McDonough

ccd

11

0

No problems to report

eclipsing binaries

Matt Wood

None

CCD

0

All

Clouds

N/A

Ken Watanabe

Jacob Kinney, Max Smuda

RM

4

0

No problems to report

AGN and Nebula observations, clear weather, no issues

William Keel

Sam Grunblatt, AY203 class

Andor CCD

11.5

0.4

Software/Control PC Issues

AGN-ionized clouds, class projects. Focus 97074, guider focus 0. Two drive shutdowns (HA 2:42 west when I got a value), fixed this time by cycling the HA and dec resets.

William Keel

Sam Grunblatt, AY203 class

Andor CCD

10

1

Software/Control PC Issues

AGN clouds, class targets. Focus 96900, guider focus 0. Tracking shut off at 2h58 W once (in middle of a comet filter sequence), and after that to regain telescope slew control and communication with the QSI guide camera I wound up cycling ACE cabinet 3x, camera power 2x, and rebooting telescope and camera computers, plus waiting for Andor CCD to cool back down. After that everything was well behaved.

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

0

11

Clouds

Clouds+humidity.

Tom Rutherford

Gary Henson

CCD

0.5

10.5

Humidity

Humidity and wind came up just after opening so had to close up for the night. Received a "doors ajar" message while trying to close up-- Gary was able to reset things through the observatory computer and all seemed to work after that.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

M31, Exoplanet. No problems

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

6

0

No problems to report

No problems.

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

6

0

No problems to report

M31, Exoplanet. No issues.

Kaylee Grace

Millie Dill

N/A

0

10

Humidity

Too humid to open + chance of rain

William Keel

Not nobody, not nohow

Andor CCD

0

10

Clouds

Planned class observing session.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

11

Humidity

Moved telescope and dome to proper stow positions, otherwise I watched the dew form on webcams. GCT all sky camera caught a nice view of Comet Tsuchinsan-ATLAS.