Observer's Responsibilities

Particularly delicate and vulnerable pieces of instrumentation on the spectrograph are the CCD camera, acquisition TV, and gratings. The observer must take special care to observe the following:

1. NEVER tinker with the CCD dewar, CCD electronics box, or cabling. See Chapter 11 for explicit precautions.
2. NEVER blast the CCD or acquisition TV with excess light levels, as e.g. from comparison lamps, dome lights, bright stars, etc. An excessively bright image on the CCD may require days to decay. Overillumination of the acquisition TV may be fatal to the intensified Vidicon. See CCD Manual for information on illumination limits of the CCD and Chapter 5 of this manual for further information regarding the acquisition TV camera.
3. THUNDERSTORMS: When thunder can be heard from the Bok walk, or the antenna on the Bok walk is ticking, turn off the CCD interface power supply, CCD controller, the Sun computer and all of its peripherals. Do not depend on the mountain crew to do this -- they cannot be on site at all times.
4. NEVER touch or attempt to clean a grating in any way. Even air jets can be harmful, as shop-quality compressed air contains an oil mist and cans of ``Dust-Off'' occasionally squirt a stream of liquid propellant. Always close grating covers before removing them from the spectrograph and reopen covers only after locking them into the rotation mechanism.
5. Treat the instrumentation with respect and care. These are expensive pieces of facility hardware which are essential to the research programs of many scientists. No crank, knob, or lever should require excessive force for operation. If it does, something is wrong, and further damage will almost certainly result from additional elbow grease. Tell your telescope operator of the problem. If he/she cannot solve it, consult the appropriate calling list for that instrument.