Night Reports 2004

Time used (Observing:Weather:Fault) 27.6 : 195.3 : 16.9
We entered routine automated observation this month. For a few nights, the telescope was supervised at night from the ARI in Birkenhead, but by mid-month it was being left completely on its own. We got several complete nights of data, including over the Christmas break, without leaving the comfort of home firesides! Weather has been terrible. The principle technical problems we had were with the enclosure locks. These have been worked around in software and a servicing visit to investigate further will take place in January.

We are still using a human arbiter to authorise the RCS to open the enclosure. A side effect of this is that if the enclosure is closed during the night due to a spell of bad weather, it will not re-open on its own. These procedures will be automated as we gain more confidence in system robustness.