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ENR CTIO Blanco 4-m 2013-01-15

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Date: 
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Telescope: 
CTIO Blanco 4-m
Submitter: 
Bob Nichol
Submitter Email: 
bob.nichol@port.ac.uk
Observer Support: 
Hernan Tirado
Night Assistant: 
Claudio Aguilera
Also Present: 
David Gerdes, Lyndsey Old, Kai Hoffmann
Problems: 

First half: none.

Second half: the guider (and hexapod) stopped and, after restarting, the guider behaved erratically.  The "Centroids Evolution" plot showed huge oscillations in RA with a consistent timescale,  and the resulting science images were very elongated in RA.  This persisted for 7 200-second exposures and finally settled down on the 8th exposure.

The hexapod stopped again after a couple more exposures (HEXAPOD_APPSTATUS was red and everything came to a stop, even though Architect Console said "HEXAPOD: Running"). After restarting, the erratic guider behavior was repeated but stabilized after 1.5 exposures.

After a few more exposures, the guider stopped again.  More detailed description: an audible beep, Guider status in the Guider Tk window says error, and Architect Console shows no more centroid updates, but there are no red lights.  This time, after I restarted it, it was stable right away.

After a few more exposures, the hexapod stopped again.  Guider oscillations (+-1") after restart again after restart, but settled down within one 200-s exposure.

After 7 more exposures, guider failed again.  After a restart, it went only 2 more exposures before failing again.  After that, we never really recovered. I was on the phone with Andrea and we got a few unguided or partially guided exposures, but we eventually restarted SISPI just to take a few standard star exposures in morning twilight.

 

Comments: 

Good conditions. Seeing in r-band between 1.0 and 1.3 FWHM.

Conditions: 
General Conditions
Comment: 
None.
1st Quarter
Clouds: 
Clear
Seeing Value: 
0.00
Seeing Variability: 
0
Seeing Source: 
CTIO Seeing monitor
Sky : 
0
2nd Quarter
Clouds: 
Clear
Seeing Value: 
0.00
Seeing Variability: 
0
Seeing Source: 
CTIO Seeing monitor
Sky: 
0
3rd Quarter
Clouds: 
Clear
Seeing Value: 
1.40
Seeing Variability: 
0.2
Seeing Source: 
The Telescope I used
Sky: 
0
4th Quarter
Clouds: 
Clear
Seeing Value: 
1.35
Seeing Variability: 
0.2
Seeing Source: 
The Telescope I used
Sky: 
0
Program: 
Proposal: 
003
Target of Oportunity: 
No
Time Observed: 
3.5
Time Engineering: 
0.0
Time lost technical: 
0.0
Time lost weather: 
1.0
Time lost other: 
0.0
Description: 
DES
Primary Investigator: 
Frieman
Institution: 
Fermilab
Instrument: 
CTIO 4m DECam
Organization: 
NOAO
Total Program Time: 
4.5
Proposal: 
2012B-0448
Target of Oportunity: 
No
Time Observed: 
2.5
Time Engineering: 
0.0
Time lost technical: 
1.0
Time lost weather: 
0.0
Time lost other: 
0.0
Description: 
DLS u
Primary Investigator: 
Thorman (Wittman observing)
Email: 
dwittman@physics.ucdavis.edu
Institution: 
UC Davis
Instrument: 
CTIO 4m DECam
Total Program Time: 
3.5
Total Times Time Observed Time Engineering Time lost technical Time lost weather Time lost other Total Program Time
2013-01-15 6.0 0.0 1.0 1.0 0.0 8