1219-AstronomyReport

Astronomy Report

Barak Stoltz, Crew 159

12/19/2015

 Sky Conditions: Cloudy Skies, no visibility.

 Wind Conditions: Stable wind

 Observation Start Time: 1) 4:30 pm 2) 6:30 pm

 Observation End Time: 1) 5:00 pm 2) 7:15 pm

 Summary: I apologize for not responding last night. Once of the chromebooks drained all of our data via update. But tonight we should go through the troubleshooting. So I following your instructions Peter and we are hitting the same difficulties. I connected the telescope and the dome, then waited for the dome to go to its home position (the slight adjustment it makes). Now, when I checked ‘Slave Dome to Scope’ something fishy happens. The dome (in attempt to align with the telescope) keeps rotating about 30-45 degrees with intermediate 5 second stops in between. This does not stop. It keeps going until the dome gets stuck after going 360 degrees, and even then you can hear the switch being activated by the computer trying to make it move.

Now, when I follow the autoguider instructions it is the same deal. After appropriately connecting all the cables I get to step 5. Here when I choose ASOM (late) Camera and then ORION SSAG CAMERA the computer makes a disconnecting sound and the light on the autoguider turns off. I hope you have encountered this problem before and are aware of a fix!

Also, I noticed that the hand control I am currently using not the ‘new’ model. More specifically, the currently used hand control does not align with the Quick Guide instructions! I just thought I would point this out since both the broken and brand new hand controls are the up-to-date models.

 Objects Viewed: None, purely technical operation.

 Problems Encountered: State in the summary above. Issues with the dome rotation and autoguider.