Re: lurkers

[Tom Droege <droege@FNAL.GOV>]

OK, both Herb and Arne make good points.

OK, I have written the below, and have thought about it some more.  I 
think the June 1997 press release is the key document to give people 
what they are seeking.  I have re-read it several times, and would not
change much.  They just don't find it the way the home page is 
organized. 

I will take on (3) below.  I plan to write a short introduction and then
just reference TN-29, 39, and 39. 

This would be for a special introductory section of the home page.  Probably
with a title like "Future Hardware Plans".  I will leave it for someone
else to write "Future Software Plans"(Chris/Michael?), and "Future Science 
Program" (Arne, Michael, David?).  How about one more "Current Program".  

I think the press release written for the AAS meeting is a nice answer to
(1) below.  Hmmm!  This seems to have disappeared from the home page.

OK, here is my proposal:

1) A new section for the home page that is entered by the "New Visitors 
to the Tass home page enter here".

2) This to contain:

a) The June 1997 Press Release - a good over all view.  I spent a lot of 
time writing this, and it seemed to work because many newspapers picked
it up.  It is also fairly "timeless" in that it is not strongly pointed to
the 1997 meeting.  Add the section at the end of the present introduction 
on "How to Join Tass"  with correction to the present registered www address
and a section on how to join the mail list.
  
b) The present "Philosophy of The Amateur Sky Survey"

c) The present "How to Play the TASS Game".

d) "Current Program"  To be written by someone.  I would reference a number
of Michael's technical notes here if I were writing it to show how analysis
is done on this kind of data.

e) "Future Hardware Plans"  I will write this section as outlined above. 

f) "Future Software Plans"  Need a volunteer.

g) "Future Science Program"  Need a volunteer.

h) "Further Reading Section" Tie to S&T article, Various meeting presentations,
Bohdan's paper, etc..

OK, what say everyone?  Michael, has the press release been lost, or did I just
not find it?  I have copy, but not the graph, I think.

Tom Droege



At 11:37 AM 4/15/98 -0700, you wrote:
>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.
>