Re: Time for Software

[Tom Droege <droege@wwa.com>]

At the moment, it looks like 8 sites with 20 cameras.  They are:

ARNE            2
TOM0            2
TOM1            2
TOM2            2
MICHAEL      2
MIKE             2
GLENN          2
NICK             2
CHRIS           2
SAREL          2

I get about 70 nights a year, so my three sets of cameras will just about 
keep up with Arne in quantity if not quality.  I will run at least one 
camera with an R filter.

Arne, Michael, would it do any good to try to run with a B filter?  Looks 
like it would be a factor of 3-4 down from the V filter.  Further there is 
the problem that the B response of the CCD is triangular.  i.e. all the 
response at the long wavelength end and almost zero at the short wavelength 
end.  Can this be calibrated out?  IF we can, then I would run with 
combinations that would allow 4 color data for the brighter stars.

There is also the chance that someone will find a B sensitive device in a 
safe somewhere.  If one is found, then I would build a RB or a VB camera 
for the observatory that furnished such a device.  It does need to be a 
CCD442A compatible device as I doubt that I have the energy left to design 
a new camera.

The result of all this is (using the low end of Arne's numbers) of order 
10M double detections a night.  These numbers match closely what I have 
been seeing with the prototype.

Tom Droege

At 08:43 AM 8/3/00 -0700, you wrote:
>I see no major problem in everyone writing their
>own software for processing the data, and as both
>Mike and Michael have stated, there may actually
>be an advantage in that cross-checking of reductions
>can be made.  However, I think the data acquisition
>code should stabilize into two driver camps (Linux and
>Windows) with just those two control programs used,
>and the output from all of the reduction programs should
>use a common file format.  How that output gets merged
>and put into a database is yet to be determined, however.
>Michael and Chris had lots of problems with Postgres
>and the Mark III, so I am hesitant on suggesting a
>similar exercise with 100x more data.  As I've said
>before, I intend to make a 'clean' database here with
>just those objects with both V&I detections, and will
>make it available on our ftp server on a weekly basis.
>The 'unclean' database will just be starlists, as I
>have no interest in detections in only V or I, and
>don't want to spend time merging the starlists into
>some additional database.  Those starlists will also
>be available on a weekly basis.
>   We've been through this exercise before.  I expect
>to have 500K-1M double detections per night, and
>200 usable nights/year for a yearly total in the few
>100M range, just from my site alone.  Multiply this
>by some factor for the additional sites and see if
>your database manager can keep up.
>Arne