Re: New technical note

[Tom Droege <tdroege@veriomail.com>]

Mike,

I really like the idea of having a go at this.  Even if we don't find 
planets, the effort to do so should produce high quality data where we look.

The Mark IV actually has a tangent arm that covers close to 45 degrees.  It 
should be good well beyond that, and for short exposures could get to 5O-55 
degrees.  I could change a couple of parts and probably extend this to 
about 8O degrees.  Say 5 hours of tracking.

The read out takes 46 seconds, not the half minute you used, so there is a 
little more overhead.  Still, one could take about 3O frames an hour.  If 
we moved up 4 degrees in declination and covered 2O degrees then repeated, 
we could get 3O exposures spread out over 5 hours for each of 5 
fields.  This would cover 8O square degrees per 5 hour night.  Arne might 
cover his half of the sky in a year, the rest of us would take 3 or 4 years.

No, I am not proposing that we all do this.  But I am tempted to join up 
with Mike and have a go at it.  It will sure prod us to do the best 
possible photometry.

Tom Droege


At 10:58 PM 2/25/01 -0500, you wrote:
>I've created a new technical note outlining my ideas for searching for
>extrasolar planets with the Mark IV.  For now the technical note is at
>http://home.fuse.net/deepsky/tn74.htm until Michael moves it to the main
>TASS technical note area (thanks in advance Michael!)
>
>Please have a look and let me know what your reactions and comments are.
>The process won't be easy but some important contributions to current topics
>could be made by using the Mark IV.
>
>
>Thanks,
>
>Mike G.
>