TSU 2-m AUTOMATIC SPECTROSCOPIC TELESCOPE PROJECT


                          Monthly Report for March, 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 March, 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-III) covers the status of various tasks in 
the schedule; and a third part (IV) gives highlights for February.  During January, 
2001, 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.  Sean Willaims, a graduate student in electrical engineering, joined the 
group to work on the CCD controller for the spectrograph.  We had intended to take 
the secondary mirror to Arizona in January, but it was still not back from 
refiguring, so we spent our work session of 24-29 March working on the control 
system and fitting the telescope enclosure with interlocks to prevent damage to the 
telescope.


                          I. HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE PAST MONTH

During March, 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 put the secondary mirror into the telescope and get it to focus, [We could not 
do this because because Torus Optics still was unable to deliver the mirror after having 
back in their shop for testing and refiguring since May, 2000.] (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.),  [Deferred; no secondary mirror]  (3) to finish a number of small tasks 
at the observatory related to tying up loose ends, [We made progress on these, but there 
are still things to do over the next couple of months.]  (4) 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, [We did this on our trip to the 
observatory.]  (5) 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, [We finished 
these tasks.] (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, [We made some progress on these jobs.  The main 
tasks remaining are putting the echelle grating into its mount, gluing the pucks onto it, 
finishing the fiber feed into the spectrograph (which exists in a number of parts that 
require some modifications), and procuring the flat reimaging mirror and coating the 
various mirrors.]  (7) to continue exercising the CCD controller, [We did some of this, 
but it was a low priority in March.] and (7) to continue procuring the material and 
services for constructing the camera for the spectrograph with the aid of Harland Epps, 
[We didn't do very much in this area other than sending the lens blanks to the optical
shop.



                               II. ENCLOSURES

     We discussed with Lou Boyd the details of how to automatge the motions of the 
telescope enclosure and a schedule for doing it.  The building should be ready for 
tests of automatic operation of the telescope before the summer shutdown this year.


                               III. CONTROL SYSTEM

     Williamson continues to make progress on writing the control system for running 
the telescope.  This month he ran further tests to verify new routines for moving the 
secondary mirror and instrument head, for turning on the oil pump and reading its status, 
and for reading the status of the enclosure before a slew and responding to it.  We also
modified the executive program that decides what star to observe so as to run through a 
list of stars, acquire them automatically, and track them for five minutes while recording 
statistics about the quality of tracking. These tests, which we ran on three nights, 
worked flawlessly--for a span of about four hours on each night. They went so well that 
we should be able to start running the telescope remotely, if not automatically, once 
the controls for the roof of the enclosure are finished. 


                          IV. HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE NEXT MONTH

During April, 2001, we expect to take the instrument head, the secondary mirror and its 
cell, and many of the spare parts to the observatory.  Specifically, we expect (1) to 
make a decision on how to deal with Torus Optics and their seeming inability to finish 
refiguring our secondary mirror,  (2) if possible, to put the secondary mirror into the 
telescope and get it to focus, (3) 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.),  (4) to straighten 
up the wiring in the observatory and to get the computers for the AST switched over to 
the new Internet connection, (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 continue exercising the CCD 
controller for the spectrograph, and (7) to continue procuring the material and services 
for constructing the camera for the spectrograph with the aid of Harland Epps.