Status Report for December 2001

[Tom Droege <tdroege@veriomail.com>]

Due to unexpected clear weather in December, the stack of CDs is now 300 or 
so high.  This is up from 230 last month.  Mostly TOM1 just runs when I 
want it to.

Heating tape applied to TOM2 solved the "ring around a bright star" 
problem.  It seems to be caused by plain old condensation on the (probably) 
objective lens.  This probably due to pointing straight up where the lens 
shield does not keep the dew off the lens.  I took a small amount of data 
with TOM2, none of it good enough to analyze.  It is refreshing to be 
looking at a new field of stars.  I am pretty sick of looking at 7.5 
North.  I think work on TOM2 is now over until spring.  There is a bunch of 
work that needs to be done and it is just too cold in the dome.

When Dan gets back from his Christmas vacation, we will start working 
seriously on ROB

Michael sent me a data reduction disk and I am working on learning enough 
Linux to figure out how to run it.  I finally gave up and signed up for a 
Unix course at the local community college.  I need to be led down the 
trail so that I learn basic skills.

Tom Droege