errorlog
Table of Contents
TMO Error Log Tracking
Summer of 2024 / SSP
| Date | Time | Error | Reason? | Solution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 15th, 2024 | 11:00pm | Shutter Error - wire hanging from the shutters - it appears as if the wire came off the pulley system. | While fixing up the cabling system with F&S, we noticed that one of the 'clamps' on the bottom was very loose and not actually 'grabbing' the wire. We tightened this. | Zach called F&S, and we got their 20 foot ladder into the dome, they climbed up and re attached the cables to the pulley system. We checked the pulleys, tension of the wire, and tightness of the clamps that hold the wire to the dome. We should be good, but for the next week I have instructed the users to “use extreme caution” |
| July 10th, 2024 | Text from SSP TA at 9:45pm | Dome Shutter error | Unknown - TA reported the day after they think it was in the 'default' location. | They were able to close it without Zach's intervention and reopen it. The dome shutter was fine the rest of the night. |
| July 8th, 2024 | 1:00am - 1:10am | TA reported that they were not able to enter RA and Dec coords | TA and Students were in the wrong tab of SciTech | Directed them to the correct tab. |
| July 7th, 2024 | 11:00pm - 11:30pm | Webcam not showing live feed | Not sure why? Might need to check internet. | Reloaded page and relogged in to the webcam feed. |
| July 7th, 2024 | 9:00pm - 10:00pm | Telescope prompted “Below Horizon Limit” | One of the students entered a coordinate of “+- NUMBER” (both positive and negative) | Soft restart of software. But then the camera disconnected and had issues, unsure if related? Had to reboot the computer remotely and bring it back up. |
| July 3rd, 2024 | 9:20pm to ~10:30pm | Jesse called Zach to inform them that the camera wasn't connected (nor able to be connected) and SciTech informed “Telescope Not Initialized” | TMO Power 2 was inaccessible remotely (off) - thus the camera and telescope had no power. It was raining and thundering / lightening, which might have cause power issues up at the building. | Zach used TMO Power 1 to power cycle TMO Power 2, which restored remote access to TMO Power 2. Logging into TMO Power 2, Zach turned on all applicable outlets. The camera was still not connected (nor was “astroimaging equipment” registered in the Windows Device Manager. Once power was restored to TMO Power 2, Zach rebooted TMO's Desktop. Everything came up correctly and connected fine. |
| July 5th, 2024 | 4:20am | Zach found “Hardware error” / “Dome Error” present and the ACP Schedular prompted “Operator Intervention” | In the past, this error was caused by a faulty caster wheel that needed to be replaced. | Zach found an odd bit of meta (see email to Jon on July 5th, 2024 at 7:30am. Rotating the dome 360 degrees in both directions, there was some noise present. Zach put oil on the rotating wheels - needs to be monitored. |
Spring 2024
| Date | Time | Error | Reason? | Solution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 30th, 2024 | n/a | Cloud sensor reporting cloudy even though it is clear | There appears to be a green film of dirt / grim on the sensor | as per manual → “If you get cloudy or very cloudy readings when you know it is clear, inspect the sensor head top end for an obstruction such as a hollowed out snow cap, leaf, or bird droppings. Over a long period of time the window to the thermopile in the sensor head can accumulate dirt although the rain usually washes it clean. The window is a silicon wafer with coatings on it. Gently clean it as you would clean an optical surface. Blow off any grit with compressed air or a blower bulb first. Unlike an optical lens, the thermopile is hermetically sealed so you do not have to worry about an excess of fluid. Just don’t immerse the sensor head. Allowable cleaning agents are Kodak lens cleaning fluid (distilled water with a little alcohol and mild detergent) and 70% to 100% isopropyl alcohol. “ |
Summer of 2023 / SSP
| Date | Time | Error | Reason? | Solution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 23rd, 2023 | 7:40pm | Zach found the telescope trapped in its limits! | During checks before SSP, Zach found the telesope pointed west and trapped in the limits. Motors were “in blinky mode!” When ACP connects to the telescope, tracking is started. It is likely that when Zach was doing morning checks, they forgot to park it. | Zach recovered it from the limit (This is something only Jon and Zach should do! As doing it incorrectly can cause damage). |
| June 26th, 2023 | Reported at ~6:30pm by Jon | Dome motor appeared to have stalled during a move last night, was showing as slewing (it wasn't) and when I clicked “stop motion”, ACP threw an error and crashed. | Dome moter appeared to stall at one point in the night. | From Jon, “When I restarted and parked it moved fine,” |
| June 26th, 2023 | ~9:30pm | Telescope pointed at dome | Occasionally the telescope and dome can get off centered from each other, such that the telescope is pointing at the inside of the dome, and the slit is no longer tracking the telescope. This can happen if multiple interfaces (MaximDL, ACP, etc) are used to slew the scope and dome. | Zach was able to recover by 'resetting' everything to the 'start' position. Park the scope, park the dome, etc. |
| July 1st, 2023 | ~10:00pm | Shutter Error | Occasionally the dome will lose connection to the sensors, if this happens a shutter error will prompt an Error. This will effectively stop the dome for safety | The on-duty SSP TA informed Adam of an error, who called Zach. Zach found the dome closed with “Shutter Error.” Despite the dome being closed, ACP thought it was opened. Zach queued the dome to close (ACP prompted a message asking if I really wanted to do this since there was an error being prompted.) Clicked “yes.” Once that was done and ACP realized the slit was closed. Zach parked the scope. I then opened it and then made sure it went back to it's home position. |
| July 8th, 2023 | ~11:00pm | “The remote server machine does not exists or is unaviabile” In ACP it was mentioning, “could not find remote server” when trying to run a .vbs script | Unknown as of right now… | CLosed all the programs and reopened them. |
| July 16th, 2023 | ~7:00pm | ACP prompted the error, “Run-time error '6': Overflow” | Unknown, cache overflow…? | Clicking “ok” closed out ACP. Relaunched ACP. Was able to connect telescope and camera. |
| July 18th, 2023 | ~1:30am | Joel reported that the dome was having issue (but they were able to get the dome to close). When Zach logged in and tried to move the dome, ACP prompted a dome error and “motor stalled”, which crashed ACP. Similar to June 26th. | Unknown? Related to issues with how dome is power (loses connection in certain spots?) | Close out all the applications and restart everything. Then 'home'd the dome then was able to get it back to it's parked position. |
| July 21st, 2023 | ~9:00pm | ACP Dome prompted a dome error (ACP crashed cause the dome couldn't be connected). The Weather Station also lost connection and cannot currently be connected. | Friday we had storms that seemed to have caused power issues up at TMO. | For the dome, we had to restart the computer. Upon doing so the dome could be connected again. However, of course, the camera could then no longer be connected and we had to physically go up to TMO to reconnect the camera. The weather station is still in operable - suggested solution from Jon to try power cycling the station. Might also be a potential issue with the USB serial converter |
| Sept 7th, 2023 | ~9:00pm | Auto focus script was failing. Was unable to manually auto-focus. Focuser wasn't connected | Seem to have lost connection after power outage / reboot | The name / info seemed to have been lost in the preferences / setup of FocusMax V5. Telescope: SiTechDii Telescope; System 1 → Camera control: Maxim DL; Number: 1; ASCOM; Filterwheel ASCOM; Focuser: Optec TCF-S |
On Going Issues / Persistent Issues
Splotch of Light Present in Images - SSP TAs and Adam have noted occasionally a splotch of light is apparent on the CCD images. This appears to be intermittent. We've gotten word from KWRG that the external lights on the tower are off. One of the SSP TAs indicated that when the IR lamp was off, the splotch was not present. Adam and TAs are going to do more testing to check to see if the IR Lamp does bleed into the SR band.
errorlog.txt · Last modified: 2024/07/15 20:15 by astroadmin