Life Goes On

[Tom Droege <tdroege@veriomail.com>]

I might as well work and take data.

Last night was clear, the V camera did not fog up or show ice crystals, and 
everything seemed to work.  I took a Flat run and three object runs.

The Flat run consists of 4 dark and 21 object images where the field is 
moved after each image.  This gives enough (I hope) data to make a good 
dark and flat.   This is also data that can be used to monitor a larger 
area of the sky than is covered by the scans where one field is followed 
for hours.

The Object runs follow a field for 56 frames, about 2.4 hours.   Looks like 
I lose a corner of the first few V frames.  I hope the advantage of the 
longer tracking beats the problems associated with part of the V field 
being obstructed by the roof.

Tracking error is 40 pixels in RA and 55 pixels in Declination over the 56 
frame run.  Thus the frames have about 95% of their stars in common.  This 
seems to be about as well as I can do in Declination.  I should be able to 
improve the RA tracking somewhat.

Last nigh's run produced 386 2k x 2k images.  A good night but not the best 
possible.  I am writing V and I data out separately for each run.  So I put 
the Flat run on one disk, and the V and I data on separate disks for each 
run for a total of 6 more disks.  A reasonably efficient way to store, I 
think.

This gives me 4 different fields so far available for Data Set 19.

I will send out data to those that have asked for it when the Post Office 
looks like they have restarted air mail.

Tom Droege