Summary of Science Run: 3-16 Mar. 2003: Sam Ragland dated on 17 Mar. 2002

Hi All,

Over all, it was a fruitful run, although I had bad weather in the beginning and end of this run.


  • Star Acquisation Camera (SA): The settings of SA at Tel. B goes off frequently. Occationally, this happens to the camera at Tel. A as well. Essentially, the stellar images on these cameras become too faint to observer faint targets. I noticed that the AGC goes off automatically and turning it ON doesn't solve the problem either; one has to reselect the right parameter (32X FIX) for SENS UP (going one round through AUTO).

  • Changing the Filters: There is very little room to manually change the second filter wheel. I think, either IONIC/PICNIC or SMART should be moved apart. Althernatively, one could automize the filterwheel movement with some priority. Please turn the filter wheels only in clockwise as marked on the filterwheel dial.

  • Shutter problem: Occationally, Fixed beam shutter doesn't close fully. Also, D2 shutter doesn't open fully most of the time. As of now, this doesn't vignett the telescope beam (about 90% of the shutter window is clear).

  • Piezo scanning range: Given the fact that the fringe tracker also utilizes a postion of the dynamical range of the piezo scanner, I think, we need larger scanning range especially for narrowband measurements.

Sam