More Data

[Tom Droege <tdroege2@earthlink.net>]

The engineering run is grinding away taking data.  9 pretty clear CDs of 
data last night.  The first images were at 19 hours or so.  The last one 
last night was at 14h 58m.  So I am working my way around the sky.  It will 
take to near August before I get all the way around, I think.  The nights 
get shorter at the same time as the field advances so that instead of 
gaining 2 hours a month we gain more like 1 hour.  Sigh, with 5-6 hours to 
go this will take 5-6 months so that I will not be there until August.

OK, the reason that I want to make it all the way around is to be able to 
calibrate the stars measured a year apart.  This will help to detect long 
term drifts.  Comments from experts as to this strategy are welcome.   This 
is being done taking many images of each field.  The plan is to come back 
each year and try to take one or two each month that I can get at a 
field.  This will produce a good mix of measurement epochs.

As we get closer to August, I will put more and more pressure on the 
reduction of this data.  This seems to mean that I will have to work harder 
and harder to push it through some pipeline.

Looking at Andrew's latest effort, I would judge this good enough to 
process the engineering run.  While we might be able to do better in the 
future, the present accuracy would find lots of good stuff.

Tom Droege