With the help of Prof. Jim Kern and students Mark Teseny and Matt Aggleton of the RIT Physics Department, I moved MICHAEL to the little garden shed at the RIT Observatory this afternoon. The Mark IV unit shares the shed with a control computer and a UPS. I was able to connect a monitor and a keyboard to the control computer to verify that the Mark IV responded to simple commands. However, the monitor and keyboard are only temporary conveniences --- the long-term plan is for the computer to run "naked", and communicate with the outside world only over the network.
Unfortunately, at the moment, the network connection out there seems to be down (I'm back in my office typing this message). There have been intermittent problems with the network out at the Observatory lately, so this probably isn't any big deal. I'll work on over the next week.
If I had a digital camera, I'd show pictures of the Mark IV inside the shed ... but I don't. Sigh. Maybe I can borrow my wife's camera.
It may be clear again in a week (stupid, stupid Rochester!), at which time I'll try to record some starlight and maybe even focus the cameras.