Last Night's Data

[Tom Droege <tdroege@veriomail.com>]

Last night I ran in a mode where I took a 100 second exposure, cogged back 
to the limit in RA and took another for the evening.  Every eighth frame is 
a dark frame.

This took about 3.2 minutes per exposure or roughly 19 images an hour.  I 
got about 60 images per filter before the clouds rolled in.

The data looks pretty good compared to how the sky looked.  Thin 
clouds.  The stars are pretty round but have a NE-SW tilt to them.  No 
doubt because I am not properly aligned.

The fits header is good to about 2 minutes of time in RA and 1 degree in 
declination.  I am actually pointing right at zero.  I found it very easy 
to locate star fields just holding up Uranometria 2000 to the screen.  The 
fits header now says "dark" when it is a dark, and "object" when it is a 
picture of the sky.

I think that this is the first data that might be automatically processed 
to a star list.  Is anyone interested in trying?  This would be disk 
17.  Ask for it in the usual fashion.  (a message with your name and 
address)  If anyone produces a script to process these disks to star lists, 
I would be most interested in getting it.  I would like to start practicing 
the generation of lists.  This helps to learn what to fix.  I can now work 
either a Windows or a Linux script, provide the Linux script is a no brainer.

I tried some flats with 7 and 14 frames in them.  There was not much 
obvious difference between the 7 and the 14 median frame flats.  A good 
sign, I think.

Tom Droege