Camera change on P3, Mount fix on P5

The camera on P3 is having shutter problems, so for the time being, we have moved the camera from P2 (which is awaiting a replacement computer) to the telescope P3.  The most important thing this means is that you should NOT USE old calibration images from P3 on new P3 data.

We think that the really bad mount issues on P5 are mostly resolved now.  PEC has been modeled and the correction implimented, and it seems pretty steady now.  Let us know if you see more double and smeared stars (it had a PEC drift of about 7 arcseconds over 2.5 minutes, so you will know the problem when you see it.)

We have been seeing some weird errors from the focusing system, so if you happen to get an image that is horribly out of focus, let us know.  This will help us track down when the problems are happening.

–Aaron

Important Status Update

Several team members have just gotten back from a maintainance trip to Chile, so there are some status changes.

The most important thing to note is that P3 has some pointing issues right now.  The control software seems to have lost track of the t-point model, so any images taken in the past several days may have very bad pointing.  We are working to correct the problem, so P4 may be offline for a night or two while we straighten it out.  If you had a job observe on P4 recently, you may want to have a look and re-submit jobs that have unacceptable pointing.  Sorry for this.

P4 currently has bad focus (happened about the same time as P3’s pointing issue) which is entirely due to human error.  We are going to try and fix this tonight, so again, check recent jobs and re-submit anything that went horribly wrong.  (I blame myself for this one, so feel free to curse my name if you lost anything critical.)

P5 is still encountering mount problems.  Stars tend to drift a lot over long exposures.  If you have short jobs on P5, they should look better than ever.  If you have long jobs, they will still look terrible.  We are aware of the problem and will correct it as soon as we can.  (We may have to swap out P5’s mount, and if this is the case, it won’t happen until early December.)  Again, we are very sorry for the inconvience.

P2 has had a critical computer failure, and is offline until we can get a replacement computer in place.

P1  now has a polarimeter installed, but we do not yet have control software in place for it to be controlled by Skynet.  If you are interested in doing any polarimetry in the short term, let us know and we will see what we can work out.  (No promises, but we will see what we can do.)

PROMPT is undergoing some growing pains right now, but if you can be patient a little while longer, we should have a better and more consistent operations in place soon.  We have had several hardware problems simultaneously and several key members of the group have had other issues that needed their attention, but things should hopefully go more smoothly from here on out.

–Aaron