SARA 

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

8

0

No problems to report

No problems to report

Roi Alonso

none

ccd

0.8

7

Wind

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

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

6

3.5

Equipment Failure

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

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

8

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Alex

Dieter

Andor CCD

9

2

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Martha Leake

none

Andor

8.3

0

Other

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

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

0

9

Other

Closed due to high dust levels.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

0

9

Other

Stayed closed due to high dust levels.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

8

Humidity

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

Ken Watanabe

Nick Rimbert

N/A

0

8

Clouds

Blazars

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

8

0

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Judi Provencal

none

Andor

8

0.3

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Judi Provencal

none

Andor

8

0

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Tom Rutherford

None

CCD

8

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Todd Vaccaro

N/A

Andor

7.5

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Todd Hillwig

None.

Andor CCD

5

0

No problems to report

PN central star, only second half of the night.

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

9

0

No problems to report

PN central stars.

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

8

0

No problems to report

PN Central Stars

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

4

4

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

0

8.5

Wind

Wind gusting above 45 km/h all night.

Alex

Dieter

Andor CCd

6

2.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Mix of software issues and cloudy weather.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

8.5

0

No problems to report

WDs, empty filter, focus 101500. No autoguiding.

Martha A. Leake

none

Andor

1

8

Other

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

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

RM

0

10

Wind

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

Todd Christopher Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

9

0

No problems to report

PN central star photometric monitoring.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

8

0.5

Equipment Failure

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

Stefan Geier

none

ARC CCD Camera

8

0.3

Equipment Failure

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

Chloe Nelson

Stephen Gillam

Andor Camera

11

2

Equipment Failure

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

Chloe Nelson

Stephen Gillam and Kiara Richardson

Andor Camera

13

0

No problems to report

ROAP Stars No problems :))

Chloe Nelson

Stephen Gillam and Kiara Richardson

Andor Camera

13 hours

none

No problems to report

ROAP Stars No problems :)

James Webb

Viviana Arroyave, Luna Webb, Sparkle Webb

CCD

9

0

Other

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

Todd Vaccaro

None

Andor CCD

7

3.5

Humidity

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

Ross Silver

Dieter Hartmann

CCD

9

0

No problems to report

Photometric redshift of blazars.

Ed Albin

Amy Lovell

CCD

9

1

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

7

3

Humidity

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

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

0

10

Clouds

High humidity early followed by clouds.

Stephen Gillam

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

Andor CCD

11

4

Equipment Failure

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

Saida Caballero

Kamp

CCD

0

10

Clouds

Massive star survey

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

6

2

Humidity

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

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

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

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

8

2

Other

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

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

9

1.5

Other

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

Saida Caballero

Observational Astronomy class

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

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

Roi Alonso

none

ccd

7

1

Equipment Failure

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

Martha Leake

none

Andor

9.75

0

No problems to report

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

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

8

2

Other

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

James Raymond Webb

none

CCD

0

10

Connection Issues

local network down

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

2

8

Other

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

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

0

10

Clouds

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

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

0

10

Clouds

none

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

0.25

10

Clouds

eclisping binary

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

0

10

Humidity

None, high humidity all night.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

8

2

Humidity

asteroid photometry. High humidity, clouds just before sunrise

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Asteroid photometry

Watanabe

Nick Rimbert

CCD

2

8

Software/Control PC Issues

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

0

10

Clouds

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

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

6

3

Clouds

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

Tomomi Otani

Brian, Lorena, Carina, Sima

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

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

Tomomi Otani

Brian, Lorena, Carina, Sima

CCD

8

0

No problems to report

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

Todd Hillwig

none

Andor CCD

10

0

No problems to report

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

Todd Hillwig

astronomy undergraduates

Andor CCD

9

1

Equipment Failure

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

Roi Alonso

none

ccd

6

4

Humidity

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

Keefe Kamp

Caballero, Zamora

CCD

11

1

Software/Control PC Issues

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

James Webb

Viviano Arrayave

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Blazar microvariability

James Webb

Viviana Arroyav

CCD

10

0

No problems to report

Blazar microvariability No problems.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

10

2

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

10

0

No problems to report

No problems

Tomomi Otani

Brian Herbster, Sima, Lorena Sanabria

CCD

8.5

1

Equipment Failure

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

Nuria Torres-Alba

Alex McDaniel, Dieter Hartmann

ORM

9

0

No problems to report

Clemson University, Blazar Observations, Photo-z measurements

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

9

0.5

Equipment Failure

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

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

10

0.3

Equipment Failure

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

Tomomi Otani

Brian Herbster, Lorena Sanabria

Andor CCD

9

0

No problems to report

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

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

8

2

Clouds

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

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor CCD

8.5

1.5

Equipment Failure

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

Amy Lovell

Lam Bradham

CCD

9

1

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Tom Rutherford

Henson

Andor CCD

0

8

Equipment Failure

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

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

12

Humidity

All night with 100% of humidity and hard winds.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

10

Humidity

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

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

0

10

Humidity

windy and high humidity

Tomomi Otani

Andy Baran

Andor CCD

9

3

Humidity

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

Stephen D Fowler

Kamp, Caballero

CCD

6

4

Equipment Failure

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

Michael Fauerbach

none

CCD

7

2

Clouds

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

Tom Rutherford

Henson

Andor CCD

7

0.5

Equipment Failure

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

Saida Caballero

N/A

CCD

0

10

Other

Yong Sheng

Alex McDaniel, Dieter Hartmann

RM

0

12

Humidity

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

Saida Caballero

Malagon,Kamp

CCD

0

10

Wind

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

Todd Hillwig

none

Andor CCD

0

12

Humidity

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

Ted von Hippel

Jack McDonald

imaging

0

13

Clouds

student observing for Observational Astronomy class

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

9

2

Equipment Failure

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

Yong Sheng

Alex McDaniel

RM-griz

0

11

Humidity

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

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD camera

8

4

Wind

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

Jack McDonald, Ted von Hippel

Sarah Kokkinakas

imager

7

6

Clouds

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

Yong Sheng

Dieter Hartmann

SARA-RM

10

0

No problems to report

Clemson University blazar study

James webb

Viviana Arroyave, Luna Webb, Sparkle Webb

CCD

0

10

Equipment Failure

Blazar Microvariability Observatory is still down.

Kurtis Williams

none

Andor

0

11

Equipment Failure

Warm room PDU presumably still offline.

Kurtis Williams

none

none

0

11

Equipment Failure

Gary Henson

Rutherford

CCD

0

6

Equipment Failure

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

Martha Leake

none

Andor Camera

0

10.3

Other

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

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

12

Snow

Snow

Roi Alonso

None

CCD

0

12

Snow

Bad weather

Saida Caballero

Kamp

CCD

0

12

Connection Issues

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

Nuria

Yong, Alex, Dieter

ORM

8

2

Clouds

Clemson University observation of blazars. No problems to report.

Ted von Hippel

none

imagining

0

12

Snow

Dome iced over.

Ted von Hippel

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

imaging

11

0.1

Equipment Failure

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

Amy Lovell

Kimbarl

Andor Camera

11

0.5

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Saida Caballero

Le, Kamp, Klare, Fowler

CCD

12

0

No problems to report

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

Saida Caballero

Kamp, Zamora, Murphy, Malagon, Fowler, Le

CCD

12

0

Connection Issues

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

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

10

2

Equipment Failure

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

James Webb

Viviana Arroyave, Luna Webb, Sparkle Webb

CCD

0

8

Snow

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

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

12

Snow

The telescope was frozen.

Roi Alonso

none

ccd

0

12

Snow

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

michael fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

12

Connection Issues

Connection issue and dome completely iced over.

Ken Watanabe

Nick Rimbert

CCD

0

9

Connection Issues

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

William Keel

3 cats

Andor CCD

0

12

Clouds

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

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

12

Humidity

Never opened, wet all night long.

Judi Provencal

None

Andor

0

8

Humidity

Rain and humidity.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

0

12

Humidity

Raining.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

12

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

0

12

Humidity

100% humidity.

Alec Neal

Robert Berrington

ARC

7

3

Software/Control PC Issues

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

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

0

12

Humidity

The humidity was 100% all night.

Tom Rutherford

Gary Henson

Andor CCD

11

0

No problems to report

M31, asteroid. No problems.

XIANMING HAN

none

ccd

8

4

Clouds

eclipsing binary

Ross Silver

Alex, Dieter

ORM

11

1

Humidity

Obtaining photometric redshifts of blazars.

Javier Licandro

Hissa Medeiros

Andor camera (JKT)

12

0

No problems to report

No problems to report

HIssa Medeiros & Javier Licandro

HIssa Medeiros & Javier Licandro

JKT

0

12

Humidity

Humidity 100% all night

Ken Rumstay

None

CCD camera

0

12

Humidity

AGN monitoring program Rain and 100% humidity during first half. Humidity dropped slightly below safe limit after midnight, but was varied erratically, With rain forecast for the following day, decided not to open.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

12.5

0

No problems to report

WDs photometry, no filter, focus 99335. Could not use the autoguider: guider camera not working even after full restart procedure. Shows a temperature of 1000C, which I believe is slightly overestimated. Is there any other switch at the rack that we are allowed to cycle? If the answer is yes, an update of the README file would be appreciated.

William Keel

Fluffiest Cat

Andor CCD

10.5

2.5

Humidity

Dead quasar survey. Focus=96500. Guider camera would not respond to exposure commands after first one. Surprise patch of humidity near midnight - I was surprised that the Boltwood sensor did not close the dome before I saw stars dimming in images and checked the other weather stations. An unexpected discovery was that the plots from the TNG weather station use the local time in the browser.

Saida Caballerto

Minh Le, Sydney Tobolski

CCD

0

10

Humidity

Cyg X-1 monitoring. The humidity was 99% on the ING website, RH at JKT was 82%, so we decide not to open up just in case.

Michael Fauerbach

none

CCD

11

0

No problems to report

Asteroid photometry wind was marginal at the beginning but calmed down as night progressed. Seeing was horrible all night long.

Chris Karwin

Yong Sheng, Alex McDaniel, Nuria Torres-Alba, Dieter Hartmann

RM

9

1

Clouds

Optical counterparts of Fermi-LAT BL Lacs for determination photo-z redshifts.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

8

3

Wind

WDs observations with autoguider. After stopping for 2.5h due to wind, I was not able to open again the dome (rain sensor was indicating rain, while humidity was around 75%). Bill and Peter dropped-in (thanks again!) to solve the issue. At the end of the night, with the star still at 38 degs, the tracking stopped, and a full reset was needed.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

3

9

Humidity

WDs photometry with autoguider. No problems to report. Humidity was high most of the night.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

3

8

Clouds

asteroid photometry as mentioned before the all sky camera seems to be not connected

Keefe Kamp

Saida Caballero

CCD

1

11

Clouds

Everything worked fine. It appears the all-sky camera is down/not connected.

Tom Rutherford

Gary Henson

Andor CCD

7

2

Software/Control PC Issues

M31 nucleus. Had to close the dome during the run due to increasing humidity levels. They eventually dropped back down and was able to resume imaging. Autoguider camera stopped responding to commands and restarting did not have any effect. No issues with the scope itself.

Saida Caballero

Kamp

CCD

0.5

10

Clouds

Observing Cygnus X-1. Clouds seemed to be moving in and out. Not photometric.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

6.5

5

Humidity

WD photometry. Humidity very close to the limit at the beginning, and then smoothly going down. Observations with autoguiding (took a while to start it, several times the autoguide buttons were not responding). Empty filter, focus 98117, autoguide focus 1090. Dome vignetting at az 330 degrees. Dome az. restart did not improve it. Moved manually in the other direction in 90 degs steps, and it solved it.

Walter Van Hamme

Samec

1-m

5

5

Clouds

Continued observations of V1115 Cas and NS Cam. Cloud problems.

Walter Van Hamme

Samec

1-m

10

0

No problems to report

Observations of V1115 Cas and NS Cam.Observed near complete curve of V1115 Cas.

Walter Van Hamme

Samec

1-m

10

0

No problems to report

Observations of V1115 Cas and NS Cam. Got complete curve of V1115 Cas.

Thomas Rutherford

Gary Henson

ccd

0

8

Humidity

Monitoring M31 in H-alpha

roi alonso

none

ccd

0

11

Humidity

humidity 100% all night long

Stephen Gillam

Leila Alamos

Andor Camera

0

11

Humidity

Program: rOAp Stars. Did not open up due to high winds, rain, 100% relative humidity and sub-zero temperatures.

Ross Silver

Dieter Hartmann

ORM

11

0

No problems to report

Observing blazars to determine photometric redshifts

Judi Provencal

none

Andor Camera

8.50

0

No problems to report

Time series photometry of G29-38, photometry of UX Ori and BF Ori, images of comet Atlas and NGC1788 for student projects

Judi Provencal

none

Andor Camera

8

1

Clouds

Time series photometry of G29-38, UX Ori, and BF Ori. Plus some fun imaging of NGC772

Michaela Allen

Sarah Phillips, Zorayda Martinez, Joshua Fulton

Andor Ikon-L primary imager

6

3

Wind

WD photometry. Bad pixel column showed up again at beginning of night. Closed dome at 1:48 due to wind.

Michaela Allen

Joshua Fulton

Andor Ikon-L primary imager

9

0

No problems to report

WD photometry. Bad pixel column showed up again at the beginning of the night for a couple images and again at the end of the night. Tracking also stopped working at the end of the night-- did a hard reset and problem was fixed.

Michaela Allen

Joshua Fulton

Andor Ikon-L primary imager

9

0

No problems to report

Towards the end of the night, there was a bad pixel column that showed up temporarily. It was only on ~10 images, and then it disappeared.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

10

1

Clouds

Asteroid photometry, C/2020 M3, some pretty pictures for class not the best seeing and some intermittent clouds. Clouded completely over before sunrise switched CCD cooler off.

Todd Hillwig

None

Andor Ikon-L

10

1

Clouds

Scattered clouds for much of the night. Lost tracking once when approaching airmass 2 (at about airmass 1.9) in the west at an azimuth of about 280. Telescope would not move in RA at that point. Tried several things, but had to restart the system completely to get tracking and RA motion back.

Michael Fauerbach

NA

CCD

0

11

Humidity

Never opened 100% humidity all night long.

James Webb

none

CCD

0

10

Clouds

Blazar microvariability. Cloudy at sunset, high winds. No telescopes were open so I didn't open.

Tomomi Otani

Brian Herbster, Lorena Sanabria

CCD

0

8

Clouds

N/A

Otani

Herbster, Sanabria

CCD

0

8

Clouds

NA

Tomomi Otani

Brian Hebster, Lorena Sanabria

ccd

7

1

Connection Issues

We could not establish a connection with the ccd camera, and we had to do full restart. It worked very well after that.

Hissa Medeiros

Javier Licandro

JKT

10:00

1:00

Software/Control PC Issues

At the end of the night, the dome was not rotating. I set the Azimuth Recycle to ON and I did wait the two minutes, but it does not work. The dome continued not rotating and the error continued there.

Ken Watanabe

Nicolas RImbert

None

0

8

Humidity

Fog and rain.

Roi Alonso

none

ccd

0

10

Wind

wind first half, then humidity and rain.

XIANMING HAN

none

CCD

2

8

Wind

nova M31 DS9 was not displaying images. Brian Murphy fixed the problem. Then, telescope does not slew. Recycled power to ACE control cabinet and restarting ACE Node services. This fixed the telescope slewing problem. But after several tries, the CCD ACE connector client still does not show all of its normal functions. Clouds in the early evening, high winds later in the evening.

Tom Rutherford

Gary Henson

Andor CCD

8

2

Software/Control PC Issues

M31 in H-alpha, recurring nova M31N 2008-12a in bvr. Autoguider worked fine for numerous 10-minute exposures, although the tracking graph did not display. Everything went well for about the first 8 hours and then the telescope began to mistrack-- several recycles and a reboot of the computers failed to re-establish control. Logging in from a different computer did fix the problem.

Roi Alonso

a pumpkin + some ghosts

ccd

10

1

Wind

WDs, no filter. Used the auto-guider successfully for the first time (focus 950). When setting it up, sometimes the guider camera did not allow to do another exposure, nor to abort (the only active button), returning “Unknown error on abort”. Also, when moving to a second target for the night, the Start / Stop buttons on the "connector" panel of the autoguider did not do anything. Both problems solved closing and restarting the ACE nodes.

Meena Rajagopal

D. Hartmann

CCD

12

0

No problems to report

BL Lacs

Xianming Han

none

CCD

4

4

Clouds

eclipsing binary

Martha A. Leake

none

Andor

11.5

0

No problems to report

Asteroid photometry for light curves. No problems. Pointing excellent, dome and all functions good. Weather good.

William Keel

AY203 class

Andor

2

10

Humidity

Class demo. Like 2 nights ago, only one window of lower humidity after sunset. Guider finally worked after 30 minutes on one target. Observatory computer reports full disk, which keeps Boltwood software from starting.

Tom Rutherford

Gary Henson

Andor CCD

7

1

Software/Control PC Issues

M31. Autoguider worked well. Had to restart several times.

William Keel

AY203 students

Andor CCD

3

9

Humidity

Class demonstration. High winds at start, humidity later on. Focus 97456, guider focus 850 (big change from September). Reset CCD readout from fastest to 1 Mhz. Guide camera froze after abort until full system restart (and didn't actually guide tonight). Brian Murphy points out helpful compact weather summary at ORM: http://catserver.ing.iac.es/weather/index.php?miniview=1

James Webb

none

CCD camera

0

10

Humidity

Blazar microvariability

Stephen Gillam

Savannah Caldwell, Leila Alamos

Andor Camera

9

4

Wind

Program: rOAp stars. We shut down for most of the last half of the night variously due to rain, wind gusts and humidity. The filter wheel GUI or filter wheel wasn't working at the beginning of the night. We selected a filter and the indication that it was working came up. But, the arrow did not move to the selected filter. We followed the procedure for restarting the clients and ACE node services, and cycling the ACE power. This got everything running again. We also had to recalibrate the dome azimutth. It was off by about 8 degrees.

Gillam

Alamos, Caldwell

Andor

9

4

Humidity

rOAp Stars, filter wheel was not changing filters and dome was not following telescope. Per the procedure, we did a stopped and restarted the ACE node services and recycled the power on the ACE power control. Humidity and a little rain ended the night at around 3 am.

Gillam,

Alamos, Caldwell

Andor

10

3

No problems to report

ROAp Stars. Focus = 98788, Seeing 1.4". Closed down for dust buildup above the 20 ug/m^3 limit.

Núria Torres-Albà

Yong, Dieter

ORM

6h30min

3h

Humidity

Blazar observations. Problems: -Filter wheel often changes filters on its own. We had the problem twice, and had to do a restart in order to fix it. We saw it happen in both Wheel 1 and Wheel 2, even though we were only using Wheel 2.

Roi Alonso

none

ccd

6

3.5

Wind

white dwarfs. Opened late only after wind gusts went below 45 km/h. Did a full restart before opening. Everything running smoothly, not even tracking problems when at low altitudes.

Ken Watanabe

Nicolas Rimbert

Andor CCD

1.5

6

Wind

Blazars. Winds limit reached; humidity at 72/100 and bright moon. Weather station last report was 45 hours ago, Used NOT weather data instead.

Martha A. Leake

none

Andor Camera

0

9

Clouds

Did not open. Dust was bad as well as weather. I had KPNO the same night, and it was closed. This is a late report.

Tom Rutherford

Gary Henson

Andor CCD

6

0

No problems to report

Primary target was M31. Received a message about the shutter being "ajar" as I was opening up, but retrying worked without issue. Used the autoguider and it worked well, although the second time I started it the plots would not update although the guider seemed to be working-- 10 minute exposures.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

0

10

Wind

Wind gusting above 45 km/h most of the night.

James Webb

none

CCD camera

0

10

Clouds

Blazar microvariability BL Lac

Todd Vaccaro

Melanie Isenbarger

Andor camera

8

1

Software/Control PC Issues

EB photometry. Had to do a full reset of tele/ccd Ace/nodes before we could do anything. Also had to do full reset 2 other times during the night as the ccd froze during sequences.

Todd Vaccaro

Robert Berrington, Melanie Isenbarger

Andor CCD

0

8

Clouds

Eclipsing binary photometry cancelled for RM due to overcast conditions.

Roi Alonso

none

ccd

0

10

Clouds

Cloudy and rainy night

Chris Karwin

Yong Sheng, Dieter Hartmann

RM

10

0

No problems to report

Fermi-LAT BL Lacs

Todd Vaccaro

Melanie Isenbarger

Andor Camera

6

2.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Eclipsing binary star; Lost 2.5 hrs due to software issues. First one was around 1:30am where we noticed tracking had trouble and then the dome was said to be Ajar and vignetting the scope and slewing said it failed. We had to do a full reset. Then at about 4:25am the CCD software crashed and we thought we started it back up alright, but we lost our field, which at first we thought were clouds, but after 30 mins we moved to M42 and the sky was not behaving, so we went through many restarts and after a couple full resets we were able to observe, but lost 2 hrs. It seemed that the tele was not aligning with the dome's slit and we must have been observing the dome. At 6:15am the telescope was stuck in the west and couldn't be parked. A few resets later and using the paddle to move tele freed it up and we closed.

Matt Wood

John Morales

CCD

0

All

Clouds

Clouds - didn't open.

Matt Wood

John Morales

Andor CCD

10

1

Equipment Failure

Telescope again shut down at 38 deg altitude (Z = 1.6) observing DQ Her. Did the RA/DEC reset trick, and that didn't work. Rebooted eveyrthing, and eventually got back to work. Clouds so probably not a big data loss, but the telescope should be able to track to more than 2 airmasses.

Matt Wood

John Morales

Andor

10

0.5

Equipment Failure

This was my first time observing in too long. Thanks to all who smoothed the path, particularly Kurtis for the rusty-observer training. We restarted everything at the beginning of the night. It ran well for hours, then at about 38 deg altitude (Z=1.6) tracking stopped. I'd forgotten the ra/dec reset trick - thanks Bill for reminding. Stowed telescope at HA=0h, DEC=-25 (per Bill).

Todd Hillwig

none

Andor camera

8

2

Software/Control PC Issues

Tried to use the autoguider for the first time. The camera seemed to work as expected, but no corrections were being made to the telescope's pointing. I attempted to adjust exposure time, focus, parameters, etc, but nothing made a difference. There are a number of other issues which I hope will be worked out over time. The primary one is that the guider images display over the science camera image on DS9. And I did not see a good way to redisplay the science image in another frame (no access to the D: drive?). Near the end of the night the RA tracking stopped. The telescope would not move in RA. I could move the telescope in Dec using the hand paddle and it would move some distance in Dec when trying to slew before canceling the move, but would not move in RA. Regained motion control once but lost tracking again almost immediately. With only 45 minutes left in the night at that point, I restarted the entire system again and got motion control, so just moved to stow position and closed for the night.

Xianming Han

no

CCD

0

8

Clouds

Just took bias and darks.

Keefe Kamp

Saida Caballero, Jordan Forman, Minh Le, Stephen Fowler

CCD

8

0

Software/Control PC Issues

Cyg X-1 Observations and a Few Moon pics for outreach. Weather Computer had Low Disk Space Warning on Start Up. Telescope stopped Tracking around an HA of 3 after a RA and Dec reset it would track again but after a little bit would stop again. There was also a dome azimuth problem where the dome would not go to the correct azimuth as the telescope this was solved by cycling power to the dome azimuth control.

Roi Alonso

none

CCD

8

0.5

Equipment Failure

WDs observations, no filter. Focus at 102069. Stopped tracking (RA) multiple times at the end of the night.

William Keel

3 cats, DragonCon Space Track folks

Andor CCD

8.5

1

Other

Public outreach for virtual edition of DragonCon Space Track - livestreamed 5.5 hours of observing. Lost first hour to dust. No operations problems.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

8

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Guider tests, nebulae. One drive-shutdown instance wiped out an hour-long exposure. Guider mostly functioned well; there are still instances when it takes a long time to engage (up to 30 minutes judging by the plots). Updated guider instructions and focal-plane map to come. For signing in to Dropbox with email address, it may help that a Spanish keyboard layout uses ctl-alt-2 for the @ symbol. Dome showed closed at night's end with no problems.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

6

1

Software/Control PC Issues

Guider testing. Telescope got so lost during a node server.connector client restart that it thought it was below the pole - called Peter to straighten that out. Guider worked well on 30- and 60-minute exposures for stars peaking above 1000 counts. X-stage for guide camera works now in positions 0-6; guider focus is near 1000. Dome shows closed at end of night, unlike previous night's problems.

Keefe Kamp

Saida Caballero

CCD

0

8

Other

Aerosol levels at too high to open. Smoke/dust.

William Keel

2 cats

Andor CCD

0

9

Other

Closed due to wildfire downslope. And 2020.

Keefe Kamp

Saida Caballero, Minh Le

CCD

4

6

Other

Photometric Observations of TZ Lyr. Problems Occurred: Telescope Stopped tracking at an HA of 2 after a restart the dome's azimuth was not aligning with the telescope. I recycled power to the azimuth controls; however, I then had to shut down due to fire and was not able to see if that corrected the issue.

Ross Silver

Dieter Hartmann, Yong Sheng

ORM

7

2.5

Software/Control PC Issues

Obsering blazars to calculate photometric redshifts. Multiple times throughout the night, the telescope lost tracking. Sometimes this happened 10 minutes into an exposure, sometimes 40 minutes in. When trying to fix this, the node service lagged shutting down for about 30 minutes but eventually fixed itself. This problem only occurred once during our 4 restarts.