Progress

[Thomas Droege <tdroege2@earthlink.net>]

Thanks to Rob Creager I have now fixed my network and am trying to bring up
all the pieces.

At the moment only TOM3 V channel seems to be sick.  I still hope to be
taking serious data by the March new moon.

The TOM2 late pipeline does not find stars.  Sigh!  The TOM2 early evening
pipeline finds stars.  There is no difference except the split in the data
frames.  These are the types of problems that one has after being turned
off for a couple of months.  

I have been cleaning out sick stuff.  Two monitors and two computers have
died.  I guess that is about right.  If one tries to run 10 - 12 computers
constantly then after a few years a couple will die a year.  I finally
bought a couple of flat panel displays to replace the dead CRT monitors. 
The ones I trashed must be 7 - 8 years old and have been on most of the
time. 

If anyone has opinions on operations let me know now.  I plan to do darks
and flats once a month.  The darks will be run in the evening or on cloudy
nights with the dome closed.  The flats will be made from the sky.  I plan
to continue the scheme of running two computers on each cameras data.  Thus
there will be an early evening sky flat and a late evening sky flat used on
the two computers.  With the temperature regulation, I see very little
change in the dark images.  When the night is good the images look flat. 
When there are clouds, then you take what you can get.  No known flat will
cure clouds.  

Tom Dreoge


Tom  Droege Jennifer Malpass
tdroege2@earthlink.net