It's been a while since I published a report on progress in Cincinnati so here goes.
The main effort here in Cincinnati has been on four fronts:
The control program at this point fits my needs though there are several improvements that could be made. Most notably lacking is the ability to control the focus motors. I don't need that right now since the cameras are pretty well focused as it is.
The camera is better aligned now. I can still improve it though. The RA drift is about 0.27 degrees over two hours. It is linear so I should be able to adjust it by setting the VCO DAC value. The equatorial axis seems to be off 0.6 degrees (if my calculations are correct). I should be able to adjust this with some small shims. I have been able to eliminate ice crystals in the V camera by running dry air through the camera about an hour before taking images.
My first observation plan is to look at the celestial equator and follow in RA for 2 hours. I also plan to center the image (at least at first) on RA values which are multiples of 30 degrees. This way I can generate multiple nights worth of data on certain regions of the sky instead of starting at a random RA value each night. Concentrating on the celestial equator will allow me to use multiple Landolt standards for color calibration later. I still need a viable plan for generating flats. Right now I'm thinking of automatically generating twilight flats at the end of each observing session but I don't know if there will be enough time to generate a good set of flats. Right now I'm creating 2 minute exposures every 3 minutes.
I have been looking at the data I've generated so far and am also getting a base of about 0.01 magnitudes sigma for bright stars. I'm using my own pipeline based on the code used for the Mark III data analysis.