Team Higgs Bozos Run 1 (July 7 - July 11)

Post date: Jul 11, 2016 10:42:56 AM

6/07/16

Water: Initial water level was 15 in.

Weather: Cloudy with heavy rain all night and strong winds. The dome was never opened.

Issues: We left the camera running at 10:30pm after taking some biases and dome flats. When we returned at 3:30 am, the evora program had frozen. We rebooted Loki, and the camera responded fine the rest of the night.

6/08/16

Water: Initial water level was 12 in. We filled the water tank to 30 inches.

Weather: Mostly cloudy for most of the day, with rain on and off. There was a break in the clouds at 12:15 am, when we tried to open the dome. However, though the clouds left heavy fog followed so we closed the dome again. The sky cleared up (except for some very scattered clouds on the horizon) around 3:00 am, when we opened the dome and continued observations until sunrise.

Issues: At 4:42 am, in the middle of taking flat fields in the g filter the evora software froze up again. We tried to disconnect and reconnect the camera, but that didn't work so we restarted loki. After that the camera responded properly, but we closed up the dome and turned off the telescope for the night.

6/09/16

Water: Initial water level was 25 in.

Weather: Scattered clouds in the west and east, no rain. Clouded out from 10 pm to midnight, when it was partly cloudy but we were able to observe parts of the sky.

Issues: After taking the first couple of flats we realized the filter were misaligned. We homed the filter and rotated to g and that didn't work. We homed again and rotated to g and the filter was properly aligned and fully functioning. We rotated to r, took some flats, then rotated to i and experienced difficulty again. By clicking rotate to i again, the filter started to respond again. This error always appeared as "failing to move filter" on the log, but clicking rotate again usually worked.

6/10/16

Water: Initial water level was 23 in.

Weather: Windy and clear, we got a full night of observing!

Issues: The filters were misaligned again. We tried to home and rotate like we did on 6/9, but that didn't work. So we rebooted loki and homed the filter. A flat taken in H-alpha appeared fine, but when we rotated the filter to r and took a flat, it was misaligned again. Eventually we manually aligned the filter to r. After that we didn't home the filter for the rest of the night, but since manually aligning it rotating has worked fine. Note: If Evora says that it has failed to move filter, do a test exposure anyways as we have found that even when it gives us that error, a lot of the time it seems to have moved successfully to the right filter anyways; this is if unless we're dealing with the misaligned issue.

6/11/16

Water: 21 in.

Issues: Sink "faucet" falls over occasionally, may want to consider bringing something to fasten it to the wall.

Things to buy: Olive Oil, pancake mix, honey, bread, bagels, aluminum foil, tea if you'd like something other than chamomile or black tea

Things you don't need to buy: Cream cheese, butter, peanut butter, jam, cereal, coffee (unless you're picky), paper towels, paper plates/bowls, napkins, plastic utensils