TSU 2-m AUTOMATIC SPECTROSCOPIC TELESCOPE PROJECT


                          Monthly Report for February, 2001



     This monthly report for the TSU 2-m AST project, now liberated from the hubris 
of NASA Code S, covers the calendar month of February, 2001.  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) covers the status of various tasks in 
the schedule; and a third part (III) gives highlights for March.  During February, 
2001, we continued to have two part-time employees (Mike Williamson and Sean 
Williams) working at TSU on the telescope program, in computer programming, 
electronic instrumentation, and imaging,  in addition to M. Krebs and M. Wells, 
who provide machining work at their private shops.  Because the prospects for getting
the secondary mirror back from Torus Optics were so poor, we decided not to visit the 
observatory in February but, instead, to work on jobs that could be done in Nashville.
group to work on the CCD controller for the spectrograph.  We had intended to take 


                          I. HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE PAST MONTH

During February, 2001, 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 determine with the help engineers at of NASA Marshall SFC what 
further figuring is required for the secondary mirror and to establish a schedule with 
Torus Optics for finishing it.  [Roy Young and Tom Kester managed to get Torus to produce 
a graph of the errors in figure versus radial distance, presumably averaged azimuthally, 
but the thing did not have a scale on it and was thereby uninterpretable.] (2) to take 
delivery of the CCD controller for the spectrograph from SDSU, set it up in the lab, and 
start excercising its control program, [We received this CCD controller and dewar from 
SDSU in early February and have assembled it for testing in our lab, have set it up, and 
have a student -- Sean Williams -- exercising its functions.] (3) to run the computers at 
the observatory continuously for a month and use a program on the computer in the telescope 
to record the atmospheric sensors (temperature, pressure, and humidity) periodically, [We 
now have both computers running continuously under protected power (having left one of 
them running when we left in late January) and have been recording the atmospheric 
conditions for the past five weeks.  They have been performing reliably in this fashion, 
and we have accessed them regularly to retrieve weather data.] (4) to finish the design 
of the spectrograph and its camera (mainly done by Harland Epps), [Actually, Epps finished 
his design on the basis of the melt data from Ohara in late January.  During February, he 
had Optovac measure the density of the CaF2 blanks to determine if they might have abnormal 
properties seen in some finished lenses made for another large project, finding that the 
density of our blanks is normal.  Epps then had Optovac generate the rough surfaces of 
these blanks and ship them directly to the optician.] (5) to finish procuring the glass 
for the spectrograph camera and finilize the contract for polishing the lenses, [We now 
have all the special glasses from Ohara, the CaF2 from Optovac, and have ordered the 
fused silica for the final element of the camera (also the dewar window).  We packaged 
the glass from Ohara and shipped it to the optical shop and arranged.] (6) to finish the 
design of the housing for the spectrograph camera (Alan Schier),  [We have received 
Schier's report on the camera housing, and he is proceeding to bid its construction out 
for us.] (7) to finish designing the devices for leading the fibers into the telescope,  
[We have designed the two stages to position the fibers and the frame to orient the flat 
reimaging mirror.  Pictures of these devices are on our web page for the spectrograph.]
(8) to get drawings of these devices to the various machine shops for making them,  [We 
have given the drawings of these devices to Krebs and Wells for construction and have 
received most of these parts.  They should be finished by the end of March.  Also we 
took the stand for the echelle grating down to Wells Machine and had the attachment 
points for these parts machined into the side of it.  The attachments for the primary 
feed and the reimaging mirror are at a 1-degree angle to the axis of the echelle stand, 
so this was not a trivial procedure.]  (9) to finish gluing the pucks to the collimating/
reimaging mirrors and make the remaining modifications of their mounts, [We glued the pucks 
on the reimaging mirrors and decided the mounts do not need any more major machining.]
(10) to finish aligning the parts of the calibration bench for the spectrograph, [This task 
involved gluing a flat mirror in place, which we did in conjunction with finishing the 
calibration bench, and locating and tapping some screw holes for the mirror's mount, which 
we did not get around to doing in February.  We have all the materials now to finish this 
calibration bench in March. and (11) to procure material required for our next work trip 
to Arizona in March.  [We procured material to use in hooking up the air-sucking system, 
for mounting the optical sensor for detecting the telescope at home position, and such.]



                               II. CONTROL SYSTEM

     For the record, Williamson continued writing the control system for running the 
telescope.  


                          III. HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE NEXT MONTH

During March, 2001, we expect to continue working in Nashville on tasks related to our next 
trip to the observatory, probably during the second week in March.  These jobs have to do 
with improving the control system, designing parts for the spectrograph, advancing the 
procurement of the spectrograph camera, and preparing to put the secondary mirror into the 
telescope, if and when it ever arrives.  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 finish a number 
of small tasks at the observatory related to tying up loose ends, (4) to get the system for 
opening the roof of the enclosure to work in conjunction with the telescope controller,
(5) to get the major parts of the stands for the spectrograph anodized, (6) 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,  (7) to continue 
exercising the CCD controller for the spectrograph, and (8) to continue procuring the material 
and services for constructing the camera for the spectrograph with the aid of Harland Epps.