Re: Da Plan

["Tom Droege" <droege@snapmail.us>]

Michael,

It is my plan to call this the "Production Run" no matter what.  So far it
looks better than the last data.

Engineers aren't the only ones that "tweak" things if my experience at
Fermilab is any good.  There is always the question of when the data is
good enough to get some science.  I agree that it is time to be good
enough.

Tom


> Sounds great, Tom. After being at a meeting or two where TASS came up
> in casual conversation I think people are anxious for the engineering
> run to end so that "da plan" stays consistent so the data stays
> consistent. Engineers like to tweak things but something like a survey
> is better off consistently imperfect than consistently in flux.
>
> PS - this has been sitting unsent in my outbox for weeks. Thought I'd
> send it just for the fun of it.
>
> On Apr 18, 2005, at 7:38 PM, Tom Droege wrote:
>
>> In Chicago we have Da Bulls, Da Bears and Da Tass.  This is about Da
>> Tass
>> plan for the coming season.
>>
>> 1) Take tiles.
>>
>> We will take 4 x 4 degree tiles in the sky at the equator.  Above the
>> equator we will always take 4 degree in dec, but in ra they will
>> enlarge
>> as we go towards the pole.  We will label the tiles with their integer
>> ra,
>> dec.  We will produce .cal files representing an evenings run or part
>> thereof as we have done in the past, we will also generate a set of
>> tile
>> files which will have file names including ra, dec and time.  We note
>> that
>> the data looks much better, and really is better for the purpose of
>> finding variables when presented this way.
>>
>> Tiles will overlap 0.2 degrees at the equator, at some declinations a
>> lot
>> more.
>>
>> 2) Take 200 second exposures.
>>
>> This should produce a few more stars than the previous runs.  We shall
>> see.  Certainly the mag 12 stars will be measured slightly better.  We
>> think the real value of this survey will be from mag 10 to 12.
>>
>> 3) Scan -6 to the pole
>>
>> This requires 4 full time telescopes to get everything that croosses
>> the
>> meridian.
>>
>> 4) Report in near real time.
>>
>> We plan to take data in blocks of about 20 exposures.  This is enough
>> to
>> make a good sky flat.  We can thus produce a fresh flat with every
>> block
>> which might help to compensate for changing sky conditions.  We expect
>> to
>> be able to put the .cal files on matt as they are reduced.  An hour or
>> so
>> after the run ends.
>>
>> 5) One tom to track
>>
>> We will set one of the telescopes to track the sky.  We can track for
>> about 3 hours.  This will produce a string of 36 or so exposures.
>> Almost
>> every set will have a new variable.  At least that is my experience so
>> far.  We will put these as they are recuced on matt.  Fair hunting.
>>
>> 6) Stop down the I telescopes.
>>
>> I have not settled this for sure yet.  The I cameras see about twice
>> the
>> sky background as the V cameras.  Stopping down to a 3 inch aperture
>> makes
>> the sky background about equal.  I have tried this and the I focus is
>> clearly better.  Possibly I will cut masks at 3.5" and compromise.
>> Get a
>> little better focus and a reduced sky background.  Still testing.
>>
>> Comments will be appreciated. It will be a month or two before this is
>> cast in stone.  Change is possible.  With this set up, we find lots of
>> variables in the range of mag 11-12.  A lot of them will be new.
>>
>> tom1 is up and running.  tom2 should be running in a week.  We should
>> have
>> all 5 systems running by August when the good season starts here.
>>
>> Tom Droege
>>
>> This requires
>>
>>
>
>
>