LBT OSU/RC Queue Observing: UTC 2008 May 2

Observers: Don Terndrup, Andrew Helton, Jose Prieto
TO: David Gonzalez 

Sunset: 19:11
Eve. twilight ends: 20:37
Mor. twilight begin: 4:09
Sunrise: 5:36


Summary: winds kept us closed for 3rd night in a row. 
We encountered several red rotator failures and ran several tests;
Ray had to go to the telescope a couple of times to get the rotator 
un-stuck and watch while we moved it to several positions to test it. 
See details below. 

** Wind gusts are still over the limit of 18 m/s

UT 01:37 
- Starting 25 bias OB
- Got a rotator failure in red channel .. had to stop the OB
- Got rotator failure two times .. rebooting CMU 

UT 02:42 
- We have rebooted the CMU 4 times and we get the same error in
the red side rotator, which doesn't move. 

UT 04:15
- John and Marco are on the phone
- Ray and Andrew went to the telescope and camera and played with the rotator (~1 hour)
- The rotator was out of position and it needed manual pushing and flipping of flipper switch
- We ran several tests rotator angles with "testrotator" from the CMU and after a few tests 
it moved fine to different positions and started to work. 

UT 04:24
 - We start the camera again and will try to run bias OB again to see if rotator angle works
- We get several errors in tracking, filters, and rotator in red and blue when turning off the camera
- Firefox window locks up; we kill it and try to connect to CMU from a terminal but 
it gives an ssh connection error: "ssh: connect to host lbccontrol port 22: No route to host"
- John says we have to reboot CMU at the telescope 

UT 04:52
- CMU was rebooted at the "tree house" with the telescope at zenith and we are 
turning on the camera again.
- Now we have two times and RPC client error in red. Trying to start camera for third time ..error again 

UT 05:14
- Rebooted CMU again 
- Had another failure in RPC client in red side after rebooting the CMU. John Hill is looking more 
closely at the logs. We try turning off/on again
- Now it gives a different error: "PCI board PCI-A300 not found (or driver not installed)" ..
"CCD Controller erro"; again the trackers in the red side

UT 05:35
- John Hill suggests rebooting the CMU again. 
- Now finally the camera turns on fine, no RPC error

UT 05:52 
- Started 25bias OB and gets the same error with red rotator. 
- Restart the OB .. again the warning in red rotator. While blue is getting images, 
red rotator is moving very slowly in the "right direction". We tried running the OB
two more times and gives the same error in red, rotator keeps drifting but doesn't
get to the right position. 
- Wind still close to the limit so closed, but we can't get red to behave. 

UT 06:24
- David turns on the tracking
- We run RV_fastextra OB to move the rotators with tracking, red is stuck. 
- We start it again the red rotator is stuck again 

UT 06:42
- David moves the telescope to horizon; Ray and Don go to see the red 
camera rotator 
- The rotator is stuck in the same position that it was before when they went the 
first time. Ray will try the same procedure.
- Maximum wind in the last 10 min is down to ~13 m/s, almost good to open 
- Finally the red rotator moves and its working

UT 07:15 
- Moved to zenith to start tracking again and test the rotator with a focus OB .. working fine
- Wind seems to be now within the limits .. no, David goes out to measure it and its going
back up again (~35 miles/h)

UT 07:29
- Turned off the lights and stopped the tracking to get some real bias frames (25 bias OB). Now 
the red rotator seems to be happy. The "good" biases start at image lbcr.20080502.072947
and lbcb.20080502.072955 

UT 07:53 
- Started 2 darks OB. Now red is working well.
- Wind gusts a bit past the limit of 18 m/s

* Didn't open due to winds

-- jose