TSU 2-m AUTOMATIC SPECTROSCOPIC TELESCOPE PROJECT


                          Monthly Report for December, 2000



     This monthly report for the TSU 2-m AST project, now liberated from the 
hubris of NASA Code S, covers the calendar month of December, 2000.  The first part 
of the report (I) discusses what we did with the expected highlights identified 
in last month's report; the second section (II-III) covers the status of various tasks 
in the schedule; and a third part (IV) gives highlights for December.  During 
December, 2000, we continued to have one part-time employee (Mike Williamson) working 
at TSU on the telescope program, in computer programming and electronic 
instrumentation, in addition to M. Krebs and M. Wells, who provide machining work 
at their private shops.  Because we still do not have the secondary mirror back 
from refiguring, and because of the Thankgiving holidays, we decided not to go 
out to Arizona in November, but to wait until early December, and Eaton and 
Willaimson spent 4-10 December working at the observatory.  


                          I. HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE PAST MONTH

During December, 2000, we said we expect to do the following things, most of which 
have to do with testing the telescope in Arizona [with steps taken on them in brackets].
(1) to finish modifying the telescope's base skirt and evacuation system (air sucker) 
and to put these parts permanently onto the telescope, [We accomplished all these tasks 
with two trips to Arizona, first one-day trip in November by Eaton and a week-long 
trip in December by Eaton and Williamson.  We cut off the base, put an access hole in 
it for getting to the oil lines and limit switches, put the air sucker together and 
decided how to run the ducts from it to the walls, and finished fitting the shrouds 
for the azimuth tractors.] (2) to move the control console for tests into the control 
building, [We moved the computer into the control building, hooked up a camera to 
look at the telescope in operation, located a TV monitor for it and the wide-field 
camera on the telescope in the control building, and strung the necessary cables 
through the telescope and around the observatory.]  (3) to finishing the secondary 
oil-return system, rewire the primary pumps for 220V, and  put louvers into the pump 
house for the evacuation system,  [We did all these jobs except for rewiring the 
motors for 220 V, although we did redesign the control box for the motors for 
changing to 220V and put in a screw strip for the power line.] (4) to finish fitting 
together and testing the secondary mirror cell and instrument head as systems and 
decide how to get them out to the observatory, [We essentially did these tasks in 
Nashville in November and continued them in December. The cell is now ready for 
initial testing in the telescope.  (5) to take delivery of the secondary mirror, 
which has been at Torus Optics for refiguring, [TSU and NASA MSFC have contimued 
bugging Torus Optics to finish refiguring the secondary mirror, which has taken six 
months to this point.  In spite of the prediction of the Torus engineer that this
secondary mirror would be finished by Christmas, it was not.  At this point, we have 
no earthly idea when Torus will finish it.  (6) to continue assembling the mounts 
for the spectrograph optics by integrating the optical elements into them, [We have 
continued doing this as a background task.  It will take several more mohths to finish.
(7) to take delivery of the CCD controller for the spectrograph from SDSU, [We 
took delivery of the Sun computer to run the spectrograph and sent it to SDSU 
in early December.  We expect to get the controller shortly after the first of the year.]
and (8) to continue procuring the material and services for constructing the camera 
for the spectrograph with the aid of Harland Epps.  [This task moves ahead somewhat 
slowly because of the difficulty of producing some of the special glasses for the 
camera.  However, it's progressing satisfactorily as a result of HE's help.]



                               II. ENCLOSURES

     Boyd wired power into the enclosure for the spectrograph&control room and 
put lights into both of these enclosures.  We finished putting excess material 
into the storage enclosure that we mentioned in last month's report.  The 
observatory is now complete in terms of its enclosures and is proving to be a 
very practical facility for acceptance tests on the telescope.  Boyd and Sierrita 
Mining did an excellent job of designing doors and platforms for the observatory 
and building them.


                               III. CONTROL SYSTEM

     Williamson continues to make progress on writing the control system for 
running the telescope.  This month he worked on a number of details required 
to make telescope control more reliable in the long run.  He integrated into the 
control system programs to turn on/off the oil pump and monitor its status, 
routines to move the secondary mirror, and routines to chack whether the enclosure 
is open before a slew.  He also expanded the status information returned from the 
telescope-control computer to the executive computer each second to include 
information on completion of commands and status of the telescope system.  
During our work session (4-10 December) we ran extensive pointing tests on the 
telescope to refine the mount model.  These suggested a slight amount of slipping 
in the drives, especially during long slews in azimuth of which we had many 
toward the end of each night.  Slippage in tilt (zenith distance) was likely 
less than 2-3 arcsec for a series of slews to six stars.  Slippage in azimuth 
was of the order of 15 arcsec over the night for the same groups of six stars; 
actually more like 3-4 arcsec for slews of the order of 180 deg or less but 
more like 30 arcsec for slews of the order of 360 deg.  We have decided to 
reduce this problem by defining multiple home positions for azimuth in addition 
to the single home position near 0 deg.  They can be accessed by using the 
absolute encoder to decide which home position is nearest the current position.
Williamson has started integrating this procedure into the control system, and 
we will test it in January.
 


                          IV. HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE NEXT MONTH

During January, 2001, we expect to continue work at the observatory with tasks 
designed to put the secondary mirror into the telescope (if we miraculously 
get it back from Torus Optics in time), to finish most mechanical modification of 
the telescope and its buildings, and to further test the control system.  We also 
expect to continue progress on the spectrograph.  Specifically, we expect (1) to put 
the secondary mirror into the telescope and get it to focus, (2) to run extensive tests 
on the telescope with the secondary in place, (Some of these are pointing tests, 
focusing tests, imaging tests of the quality of the overall optical system, and tests 
to determine how difficult it will be to guide on light spilling over the sides of 
the optical fiber.),  (3) to integrate into the control system limit switches to monitor 
the position of the movable parts of the enclosure and to determine when the telescope 
is at its home position,  (4) to tie up some loose ends on the oil-pumping system such 
as rewiring the primary pumps for 220V and tidying up the secondary return system, 
(5) to continue assembling the mounts for the spectrograph optics, integrating the 
optical elements into them, and designing and building the system for getting light 
into the spectrograph,  (6) to take delivery of the CCD controller for the spectrograph 
from SDSU, and (7) to continue procuring the material and services for constructing 
the camera for the spectrograph with the aid of Harland Epps.