Re: Rochester Mark IV news

[Tom Droege <tdroege2@earthlink.net>]

To repeat for newcomers, the Mark IV was designed as a cheap all sky survey 
tool.  Arne will be the first to point out that the mount is 
cheap.  ;^)  Still, if I had gone for a good solid all sky mount, then I 
could have afforded to build only one or two.  As it is, I am working on 
the eighth unit and can build 4 or 5 more.  It is a cheap mount, with cheap 
large format cameras.  One has to put up with the differences between a 
$1,700.00 and a $40,000.00 chip.  But the Mark IVs can cover a lot of 
sky.  One just has to calibrate out the cheap parts.  It is possible.

I think the Mark IV is an economical solution for searching a large area of 
the sky and finding the probable variable stars.  Measuring and classifying 
them is another matter.  This will best be done by amateurs like Michaek K. 
teamed up with others at different Longitudes.  There are a lot of amateurs 
out there with telescopes and CCD cameras that could do follow up 
observations to pin down the classification of a particular variable.  It 
is just a question, I think, of getting them interested in the work.

Tom Droege

At 07:23 PM 8/3/02 -0700, you wrote:
>Michael K. wrote:
> >I guess the core of my question is: are you guys planning on coordinating
> >activities or is each installation doing its own observing program?
>   Every person for themselves! :-)
>   Seriously, everyone with a Mark IV has their own idea of what
>science is best.  I am perfectly willing to do a coordinated campaign
>on some particular star if there is a good reason to do so.  I've done
>several such campaigns, and they are actually quite difficult to set up.
>Since the Mark IV only has ~2.5hr coverage, sites have to be fairly
>close together to have overlap, and then weather/other problems come
>into play.  If the mounts were capable of larger motion, then you could
>have some redundancy, which is how most coordinated campaigns survive.
>   Something like HD209458 works since only two sites have to coordinate,
>and the eclipses repeat with fair frequency so if you miss it tonight,
>there will be another chance.  When you want to observe 24hrs straight
>to remove aliasing on multiperiodic stars for example, or catch an
>occultation, you can't afford to miss much of the time series.
>Arne