RE: tait

["Creager, Robert S" <CreagRS@LOUISVILLE.STORTEK.COM>]

Hey Tom,

Thanks for the info.  I was looking for the number of steps to potentially
set up a hardware simulation of the ra/dec/focus motors.  This would allow
better testing of the observing software using TAIT.  I'd hate to give you
software that ends up grinding something up when a simple software
simulation will expose the bugs.  I can then run at "supertime" to get more
simulations done (big plans, we'll see). 

> -----Original Message-----
> 
> But you don't need to know it unless you plan to single step the RA 
> drive.  This can be done, but in general I don't know why you 
> would want to 
> do it.
>

Well, I was just poking around at XEphem, and his software has the ability
to match pictures to catalog entries very quickly.  I may take a look at
this and see if we could use his algorithms.  I currently do this in my
pipeline, but it's slower and requires star lists, not the raw image.
Otherwise, I'm not sure how to accomlish the RA adjustment without reducing
first.  For the focus, Chris has indicated that IRAF is capable of determing
focus from a set of images and their focus values.  I looked at this a while
ago and it seemed prettys slick.
 
>
> Note that this is one of 
> the things to 
> be built into the control program.  A way to take a few 
> images and make 
> adjustments to the RA drive trim to get it right.  I have 
> been patiently 
> waiting for this code.  Also needed to be built into the code 
> is a focus 
> scheme.
>