Re: 1999 Mark III Data Collecting Season

[Nick Beser <beser@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu>]

On Sat, 20 Mar 1999, Tom Droege wrote:

> Three Cheers for Glenn!!!   It is great that you are still running the Mark
> III.  Anyone else?  It would still be nice to get all the data we have into
> the data base and start exercising it.  Sorry, I have been too busy
> building Mark IVs to cheer you all on.  

We have been running the JHU/APL system (typically 4 nights per month 
weather permiting). The system is now on automatic data collection (read 
that I start a script file on a solaris system that turns on the pump 
power, and enables the doors, and then starts data collection and then 
move the data to an archive in the morning. The doors to the telescope 
are automatic. I have a large backlog of data that needs to be processed. 

If you look on our club webpage (http://www.jhuapl.edu/APLastronomy), you 
will see our call for help for data crunching. Unfortunately since the 
TASS analysis software is all Windows 95/NT based, I can't setup an 
automatic starlists generation chain. 

The short version of the page is that in exchange for a CD of data, we 
will get 4 nights of star lists. (and volunteers will get another CD). I 
am in the process of setting up a how to analyze the data web page guide 
also on our club web page.

I am also spending some time working up a real time interface to the 
telescope so that anyone on the internet will be able to see compressed 
images of the CCD files within minutes of collection. Hopefully between 
the two efforts our data analysis will be caught up to our data collection.

My latest problem is that the FITS to jpeg software does not do a 
particularly impressive job of converting the image. Somehow the other 
FITS viewers transform the 16 bit binary image into a better looking star 
image. The code that I have does about the same job as the public domain 
fitstopgm utility (i.e. really poor).

We have a real time power/door/outside lighting monitor working (inside 
the lab web site for now). Chris also has a real time TASS monitor 
function working on the TASS Linux software, which we will also use. The 
image display is the last function that I need to prior to setting up the 
javascript on the web page.

Tom, Bernie Kluga told me that he sent some advice on the RA motor 
problem, but it did not make it to the list. I suggested that he 
contact you directly concerning the problem. Bernie has a well deserved 
reputation at APL for being able to create highly reliable hardware out 
of practically anything lying around (he did the design on our TASS III 
enclosure and he redesigned the alignment mechanism of the TASS III).

Nick Beser