Declination Drive

[Tom Droege <tdroege2@earthlink.net>]

I need some good sky to tell for sure, but the new declination drive looks 
like it is working very well.  It is also much stiffer than the old 
scheme.  Roughly as stiff as the old scheme with the clamp on.

Indications are that it repeats to a few minutes of arc.  I won't really 
know until I get a couple of nights of clear sky.  This might not be until 
February.  ;^)

I am slowly getting all the telescopes lined up and calibrated.

I got some furniture glides at the hardware store  and stuck them on the 
bottom of TOM1.  With a bolt in one corner and a steel ruler nailed down at 
another I can now rotate TOM1 to 0.1 degree or so.  This should fix the 
diagonal stars.

I am running a program that produces a 6 x 6 array of images.  This should 
produce some stars that appear in 36 different positions on an image.  When 
I get some data taken this way, I will send it out to all of you that are 
eager to work on the calibration.

Those of you with Mark IV systems that want to upgrade, write me 
privately.  I will make up a kit and send it out.  The big problem is going 
to be to figure out how to tell you to do it.  I think I will just take a 
couple of pictures and then let you all ask questions.  I think that this 
is really the "last" thing that prevents a good survey from being taken.

Tom Droege