Tass Software Challenge

[Tom Droege <tdroege@veriomail.com>]

I am beginning to take what I hope will be good data.  Last night I got a 
flat run and three good fields.  Each field contains 56 V and I images 
taken over several hours.  Well, not perfect data.  Sometime through the 
night the V camera started sticking.  Since the telescope is following the 
sky, this results in streaks only from the readout.  The I data looks 
good.  I fixed the shutter, and may get more data this evening.

I am thinking of offering a prize to the person that produces software that 
allows me to reduce the data I have been taking to calibrated star 
lists.  The sort of prize I have been thinking of is a nice plaque for your 
wall and a very nice computer.  I think of this as in the $1000 to $1500 
range.  The winner would specify what I should buy.

Some thoughts on rules:

Rules would be minimal in keeping with tass.  The goal would be software 
that would allow *me* to reduce data to star lists and to plot data for 
stars.  If faced with two good programs that ran on different systems and 
which gave great results I would probably give two prizes.  If several of 
you work on this, I will give at least one prize.

*I* have to be able to run it.  This does not rule out a Linux 
system.  Anything I can load on one of my computers an run is OK.   You 
just have to provide enough CDs and instructions on how to load them.  OK, 
the computer that is is to run on will be a 500 or faster MHz PC, 256Meg of 
memory, CD R/W drive, Hard Drive, etc..  There should be some 
flexibility.  In general if it will process DS-19 to a well calibrated star 
list and make plots of the interesting stars, then it meets my 
requirement.   We will have to agree on a format for the final star list.
I would be happy with either a GUI or a command line interface.  For the 
command line interface, I would want to give the program an edited file of 
what it is to do.  This should allow reasonable selection of the modules 
that are to be run.  Note that this is not the complete problem.  No data 
base is involved.  That might come later, though Bohden Paczynski has said 
he will do it if I send him data.

Obviously there are lots of problems to be solved.  It should get the best 
possible calibration of the stars.  I don't know how to specify this 
(yet).  Part of the job is writing up the process used so that others can 
study it to understand the errors.

I have done OK in the stock market recently.  The event of Sept. 11 caught 
me holding puts on the expectation that the market would eventually figure 
out that the stocks were overvalued.  The expectation was resolved much 
faster than I thought it would be.  I have made enough money to offer a 
prize or two.

This is just a test to see if anyone is interested.  The data is piling 
up.  I want to start reducing it.  If enough people express interest, I 
will write this up in more detail.  Possibly I will have tass approved as a 
research foundation by the time this is completed, then the prize will come 
from tass.  Otherwise I will do it.

Send me a note if you think you might be interested in working on this.  No 
matter if you are doing it already for your own work.  The hard part may 
then be fixing it up so I can run it.

Tom Droege