Re: lurkers

[aah@nofs.navy.mil]

I originally felt the way Tom did, in that any 'lurkers' should read the
technical notes and as much email as possible and try to follow what is
going on.  However, the more I think about it (plus Herb's comments), the
more I tend to agree that some summary information is about due.  For
example, I have seen three major projects over the last year or so:
  (1) the rush to get something ready with the mark III cameras before
      the June 1997 AAS meeting.  That used data from 3-4 sites over
      a very limited RA range, with Mike Gutzwiller's STAR program for
      extraction and my program suite for reduction.
  (2) the more extensive mark III survey currently underway, with up to
      8 (?) mark III sites using two acquisition programs (DOS or Linux),
      STAR for extraction, Postgres/Linux for database archiving, and
      yet-to-be-determined scripts for reduction.  Lots of data has been
      taken in the +-1.5 degree declination zone (with a southern
      extension by Glenn Gombert), but reduction is probably 2-3 months
      in the future.
  (3) the mark IV cameras, where the current interest is in the basic
      hardware (optical and electronic), and for which all acquisition,
      extraction, and reduction software is to be determined.  This
      camera system is probably 6 months to a year away from being able
      to take real data.  The mark IV's will be used for an all-sky
      survey, the details of which are TBD.

Each of these three topics is deserving of a Technical (?) Note, just to
explain the basics of what has been accomplished, and probably (except
for the first one, which is of more historical interest) updated every
few months.  There are lots of loose ends...for example, I think that there
are 8 sites with fully populated (3-camera) mark III systems, but I don't
know where they are or what their current status is.  Only one system has
VRI filters (I'd love to see others), but I'm not even sure where it is
these days!
  There are several areas where lurkers can contribute.  I don't think there
will be any more mark III systems given out (Tom can say yea or nay), so the
hardware for that equatorial survey is in place and the major contributions
can come from software testing and data analysis.  For example, I posted a
list of the known variable stars in the equatorial zone, but someone needs
to go through the literature and pull out all the available photometry for
those stars for comparison purposes.  The mark IV electronics seem to be
pretty much in hand, and Tom is definitely leaning towards an optics solution,
but he is redesigning the mount and container and might be interested in
some input from a mechanical person.  There are vague ideas of what to do
with the vast amount of data that is being collected (look for variable
stars [how?], look for moving objects like asteroids [how?], etc.), but it
might be helpful to get folks involved in a very specific project with the
goal of a publication in the near future.  The data will be freely available
over the Web, and you can use it by yourself for your own purposes, but you
might find it more useful to collaborate.
Arne