Progress Taking Data

[Thomas Droege <tdroege2@earthlink.net>]

August has been a good month.  All three systems are running relatively
well.  The only problem seems to be the TOM2 I lens which does not want to
find a sharp focus.  August has already doubled the July data and there is
prospect with the new moon coming of getting several more good days of data.

Tuesday night produced 1.2 million measurement pairs, I think a new record.
I have moved up the sigmas in stars.param in an effort to speed up the
computing a little.  I did not finish computing Tuesday night data until
Thursday noon.  The old values were 3 sigma for V and I.  The new values
are 3.8 for V and 4.2 for I.  This is an effort to get a little better
balance in the V and I stars found.  This increases somewhat the ratio of
star pairs found to single stars found.  Michael's original values were 5
and 5, so I am still sitting at a lower threshold.  That is I am finding
some excess stars from noise and counting on the V/I pairing to get only
real stars out of the noise.

My goal is to collect 100 million measurement pairs a year using TOM1, 2,
and 3.  It looks like I am roughly on track if I can keep everything
working.   

Tom Droege