Mark asked me to make this announcement since Bruce is leaving town today, we're unsure about Ed's availability, and Mark is having trouble accessing his email. Given the recent difficulties with the Princeton servers, I've also taken the precaution of copying this message to the institutional schedulers and the scheduled observers for Sunday through Tuesday nights. As Ed explained in his previous announcement, one of the telescope's two azimuth motors developed a serious problem in the middle of last week, causing severe tracking inaccuracies. As a stopgap measure, we've been running the telescope with only one azimuth motor since then. Last night, as was expected to happen sooner or later, that motor started showing problems as well. The telescope has been shut down and can't be moved right now without risking serious damage to the motor. The plan is to pull out both azimuth motors and rebuild them. Most of the necessary parts should be on hand, but this process will definitely keep the telescope closed at least past Thanksgiving. Observers scheduled for the first week or two of December should be aware that their programs are also in jeopardy. We will know more about the length of this shutdown when the engineering staff have had a chance to look closely at the state of the two motors. Russet McMillan. APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 631 in the apo35-general archive. You can find APO the archive on http://www.astro.princeton.edu/APO/apo35-general/INDEX.html APO To join/leave the list, send mail to apo35-request@astro.princeton.edu APO To post a message, mail it to apo35-general@astro.princeton.edu APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO