September Monthly Report

["Thomas Droege" <tdroege2@earthlink.net>]

I seem not to have done a September monthly report and no one reminded me. 
Here it is.

September produced a record for the number of measurement pairs. The new
record is 17,599,663 measurement pairs.  Nearly everything worked well
during September.  Near the end of the month a couple of rain showers
caught TOM2 and TOM3.  The rain detector closed the dome, but not before
rain landed on the lenses.  It then got inside the lenses and produced
cloud chambers that were fed by the flocked paper.  The fix will properly
come in next month's report.

Dan produced a splendiferous box and the upgrades were sent out for Arne to
fix ARNE.

I wrote some code during the month that finds lots of variables.  I can now
output VizieR input lists and quickly check on candidate variables.  I can
produce lists that are anywhere from 80% TO 10% known variables.  With
looser restrictions one gets more junk but also more new probable
variables.  There is now enough data for you mathematically inclined
variable hunters to find lots of new variable stars.  If I can find them,
then some of you should have a great time.

Dan put together a bunch of new computers.  I now have four computers, two
of them dual processor, hooked up to one monitor/keeyboard/mouse.  I have
set up six pipelines so that I can split each camera into two computers for
processing.  This allows me to get through a good night of data taking by
early the next evening.  Writing all the CD's is still the most painful
part of the operations, though I now have that automated so it is as
painless as possible.  Still, I have to mostly just sit there writing 18 to
20 CD's for an evening's run.  Stuff has to be done just often enough that
there is little else one can do.  Well, I have an unbroken string of over
1000 Free Cell wins.  

September produced a record for the number of measurement pairs. The new
record is 17,599,663 measurement pairs.  I have recruited a local
mechanical engineer, Jim Fisher, who has a wonderful machine shop in his
garage.  I sent him of with the 10" LX200 that I bought several years ago
with the idea that I would use it to follow up on new variable discoveries.
$3K+ that I have never used.  The hope is that he will get interested
enough so that he will grab the Mark V drawings and start building.  We
shall see.  

Tom Droege