Troubleshooting: RC80

Problem: the dome does not rotate.

This can happen in rather unexpected situations (.e.g. at the start of the observing run, after the observing run, during the observing run, instead of the observing run, etc.), but most typically, after a mains outage, even a short one.

• Solution: manually turning the dome control off and on again in the dome usually helps.

Problem: the telescope does funny things.

These can include any or all of the following:

• The telescope does not track.
• The telescope does not slew.
• The telescope does slew, but to seemingly random locations.
• The dome and the telescope moves to different positions.

After manual power down or mains outage, it is necessary to reconnect the telescope in the ASA GUI nightmare thing. Since the whole GUI is a complete mess of seemingly random buttons, do the following steps together with the support astronomer.

• Solution: Follow the following steps:
  • From m51: ssh -X asascope@172.31.80.100 (for the password, consult the support astronomer, who is right next to you anyway).
  • Run ~/bin/ASA2.0/AStroAutoguide.sh to open up the GUI
  • In the upper left corner, clink on Mount, and then TcpConnect and Connect
  • click on Start Motors
  • pray to the deity or any higher being of your choosing
  • try to move the telescope with the buttons on the AZ/EL tab and check it on the dome webcam if you want to see whether your prayers have been listened to.
  • click on TcpDisconnect, close the GUI and logout.

Problem: the derotator does not derotate.

• Solution 1: try to stop and start the derotator from ccdsh: asa rotator stop; wait 3; asa rotator auto.
• Solution 2: do a manual power down/power up of everything. Exit ccdsh, and from m51 do:
  • Turn off power to the mount: rc80 powercontrol 1 off
  • Turn off power to the CAN devices: rc80 powercontrol 2 off
  • Turn off the PC: rc80 powercontrol 8 off
  • Wait a bit, then start to power it up again with
    • rc80 powercontrol 1 on
    • rc80 powercontrol 2 on
    • rc80 powercontrol 8 on
    • rc80 test (wait for everything to come back to green)

Problem: the scheduler does something unexpected

• Solution: run the scheduler in debug mode with TCS80_generate.sh --start now --sequential --debug and save the output. Contact R. Szakáts and/or L. Kriskovics