The mirror support compressor’s pressure switch, which activates and deactivates the pump, burned out. It was replaced with a new switch, one with a bit more control on its activation pressure, which should reduce the wear on this part.
The problem with the mirror support compressor seems to be resolved, and the telescope should be working normally. I will check the focus and pointing again tonight, then resume the scheduler.
The new UPS has finally been fully installed, and is operating. After checkout tonight, the telescope is workable with two important exceptions.
The mirror compressor is not working, and the mirror appears to be resting on its supports. Brevin installed a new capacitor in the unit on saturday, so it is surprising that the compressor is failing again so soon.
The dewar is not cooling as it should, likely due to the lack of vacuum in the dewar. This is expected since the polycold unit has been off for some time.
I’ve sent requests to KPNO and to Bruce Cook to have evacuate the dewar and look at the compressor, which I hope one or the other can get to sometime this week. The telescope scheduler is off until these can be resolved.
Folks,
The new UPS was delivered on Saturday, 10/15. However, Brevin was unable to finish the installation due to other scheduling issues. Bruce tells me that they will go up again in the next few days, this saturday at the latest. The capacitor in the mirror support compressor has also failed and will be replaced when they return this week.
-Lou
The camera control computer is down due to the storm. It should be back up tomorrow.
A 30-second exposure of the HII region, M42 (the Orion Nebula) taken through the RCT’s Hα filter. The full-field image is nearly 10 arcminutes square with North up and East to the left. Major features such as the Dark Bay (upper left), the Bar and the Trapezium stars (center) are clearly visible. The zoomed image presents a more detailed view of the inner region of the nebula. Stars fainter than 16th magnitude are visible near the Trapezium. Emission features such as ionized knots and shock fronts are clearly visible.
The camera is hung in a state that requires a power cycling.
Problem:
Camera fails to execute a software reset
Symptoms:
The camera returns the error “failure in reset”
The leach controller window shows highly incorrect values in gain (e.g., -4095), amp, heat, etc.
Solution:
Cycle the power on the camera on site (cannot be done remotely). It is unclear where this problem stems from.
Cloud limit was raised to 70%. This should allow some backlogged requests to get through.
There was an unknown error with the leach controller daemon last night. The daemon was restarted, and now appears to be working.
Please ignore the nomets messages in last night’s queue. We were running a test. Weather was to poor to observe.
The MAWS is back and working fine. The serial port the MAWS was connected to showed signs of intermittent failure. A backup card was installed, and the port changed (ttyS0 -> ttyS4). The opportunity was taken to re-evacuate the dewar, which was not cooling completely. The telescope is on and functioning.