Re: My TASS Observatory

[Chris Albertson <chrisalbertson90278@yahoo.com>]

I've thought diskless PC's would a good idea too.
Once you remove the CRT, Keyboard, mouse, hard
drive, floppy and CD-ROM there is not to much left
to go wrong.

Once the ECP port replaces the RAM Buffer card you
won't need an ISA slot so options open up wide.
An old notebook computer would be perfect.  These
run on DC power and have a built in backup battery.
A notebook with a wireless Ethernet card in it
would be _really_ perfect.

I think an Apple Macintosh would work too as would
more esoteric stuff like a Sun SPARC or the 
Compaq/DEC Alpha. 




Robert Creager wrote:
> 
> I had a friend who knows hardware once suggest using a
> 100 watt lightbulb as a nice, nearly 100 watt heater
> for the hard drive.
> 
> If you feel adventerous, you could run a diskless
> linux station, provided you can setup a BOOTP server
> inside the house...
> 
> Rob
> 
> ---- Michael Gutzwiller <deepsky@fuse.net> wrote:
> > It's not easy to see in the pictures but the shelves
> don't go all the way to
> > the east and west sides of the enclosure but have a
> 1 1/2 inch gap between
> > the shelf and the panel.  The enclosure also sits up
> on leveling blocks that
> > give about a 1 inch gap at ground level all the way
> around.  This should
> > allow heat to be dissipated without causing too much
> adverse effect on the
> > seeing.  The 7.5 arc second pixels help avoid seeing
> problems anyway.  The
> > computer system also will be quite minimal with a
> 100 MHz Pentium so not
> > much heat is generated anyway.  In the winter the
> only component much
> > affected would be the disk drive and we can wait and
> see if just leaving it
> > always on is enough to keep it warm enough to avoid
> errors.  If these become
> > problems I can move the computer into the garage
> which would require about
> > 15 to 20 feet of cable to reach.
> >
> > >From my calculations the north and south horizons
> will not be limited by the
> > enclosure as much as they will be limited by the
> surrounding trees.  In that
> > case I can get to about 40 degrees above the
> horizon.  If my calculations
> > are off I can always raise the camera platform a
> bit.  In my suburban
> > location it's much more important to shield the
> system from the neighbor's
> > lights than get the greatest expanse of sky under
> view.
> >
> >
> > Mike G.
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-tass@listserv.wwa.com
> [mailto:owner-tass@listserv.wwa.com]On
> > Behalf Of aah@nofs.navy.mil
> > Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 10:57 PM
> > To: tass@listserv.wwa.com
> > Subject: Re: My TASS Observatory
> >
> >
> > Nice, Mike.  It is fun to see the different ways
> people
> > are enclosing these systems.  How are you going to
> ventillate
> > the computer, both keeping it warm in the winter and
> cool
> > in the summer without affecting the telescope just
> above it?
> > What sky limits does the slideoff roof place on the
> north
> > and south horizons?
> > Arne
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >

-- 

--
   Chris Albertson             
   chrisalbertson90278@yahoo.com
   Redondo Beach, California
   home: 310-376-1029
   cell: 310-990-7550