A complex night starts campaign 69 at the Kuiper Telescope on Mt.
Bigelow. The night was mostly clear and the first half saw only
moderate breezes. After midnight, the wind picked up and observations
could only continue because the observatory was sheltered from the
ferocious east wind by the summit of Mt. Bigelow and trees just to the
east of the dome. However, quick-forming small orographic clouds
made photometry hit and miss for several hours. The east wind also
brought very bad seeing. Most of the time the seeing was 2-5 arcsec and
there were brief periods when it was even worse. With just over an
hour to go in the night, there was a power outage. The emergency generator
could not be started. Power was restored after only 20 minutes, but it
was thought that it was best to get the telescope properly stowed and
the dome closed under these volatile conditions. Over a dozen blazars
were observed on this overly exciting first night of the campaign.
