TSU 2-m AUTOMATIC SPECTROSCOPIC TELESCOPE PROJECT


                          Monthly Report for September, 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 September, 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 October.  During 
August, 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.  Kenneth McDavis assisted on several projects involved in 
perfecting the telescope.


                          I. HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE PAST MONTH

     During September, 2000, we said we expected to do the following thingsi, most 
of which had to do with resuming testing the telescope on site [with steps taken ion 
them in brackets]:  (1) to put the rebuilt axial hard point actuators in the telescope 
and recolimate the primary mirror accurately, i[We accomplished this task with no 
obvious problems, although we intend to recolimate the telescope by using comatic 
images of stars in october.], (2) to achieve first light at prime focus with the 
primary mirror, [We did this with both a wide angle eyepiece and a CCD camera on 
21 Sept 2000], (3) to obtain images of the North Star sufficient to begin testing 
the optical figure of the primary mirror and assess how well its supports work, [Images 
of the faint companion of Polaris show a spread of roughly 2 arcsec, even though that 
star was off-axis and comatic and even though we did not optimally focus the images.
Images of stars well out of focus showed roughly uniform illumination of the mirror 
at both high and low zenith distance.  There were no obvious problems with the support 
of the primary mirror.  Critical tests of the image quality must await our work session 
in October.],  (4) to find stars with the evolving control system and perform the 
first tracking tests with the telescope, [We found several hundred stars all over 
sky in tests over three nights, although the telescope failed to find ablut five stars.
The raw control system found stars to within 1 to 2 arc minutes without any mount 
model and at zenith distances ranging from about 8 degrees (the smallest our list of 
stars would give us) and nearly 85 degrees.  A mount model derived with TPOINT 
indicates the pointing of the telescope should be at least as good as 15 arcsec, 
possibly better.  The telescope apparently tracked well just following the calculated 
trajectory of a star through the sky as it passed the meridian and easily and 
reliably kept a star centered in the guide camera with Williamson's tracking 
algorithm.] (5) to begin constructing mathematical models of the secondary-mirror cell 
and the algorithms for moving the secondary with its drive motors and testing these 
models in the lab, [We talked to McDavis about working on this problem, but it is 
essentially deferred to October/November when the semester settles down.], (7) to 
construct corrections to the pointing for imperfections in the telescope mount and 
code them into the control system, [We did this as explained in no. 4 above.], 
(8) to continue perfecting the computer program to control the guide camera, 
[Williamson has this task well underway, as our success in finding and tracking stars 
with the evolving control system proves.], (9) to continue procuring the material and 
services for constructing the camera for the spectrograph with the aid of Harland Epps, 
[These tasks are moving ahead slowly but surely, with delivery of the first pieces of 
glass started in September.], and (8) to continue taking delivery of parts of the 
mounts for the spectrograph optics (mirrors and gratings) and integrating them 
mechanically. [Wells and Krebs have finished most of the parts of the optical mounts 
for the spectrograph.  We have the pickoff mirror for the guiding head finished 
(finally!) and expect to get most of the remaining parts of the mounts in October.
McDavis has been assembling the mounts so as to identify any necessary modifications i
of them.] 


                               II. ENCLOSURES

     Sierrita Mining has finished insulating the building for the spectrograph and 
control room, and Boyd has obtained furniture for use in the control room.  Boyd 
has also wired an ethernet (internet) connection to the AST observatory and 
obtained a computer to use in controlling the roof of the enclosure and the air 
conditioners for various parts of the enclosures.  Work remaining in this area 
involves working out the details of how to control all of this stuff reliably and 
safely (without running the roof into the telescope), which can proceed at Mr. Boyd's 
convenience as we perfect the telescope and its control system.  We also still have 
tasks remaining involving the environment of the control building such as designing 
the air-conditioning system for them and deciding whether and hoy to paint them. 


                               III. CONTROL SYSTEM

     Williamson has made great progress on writing the control system for running 
the telescope as our success in finding stars, tracking them, and constructing a 
realistic mount model shows.  All these functions were exercised over an Internet 
socket connecting two control computers--one on the telescope and one off in a 
corner of the telescope enclosure, as we expected to do, without any apparent 
problems.  Potential problems to correct before the next work session in Arizona 
are finishing integrating the mount model into the control program and changing 
PID constants for slewing to eliminate slight vibrations at certain positions of 
the drives.  He should also improve the routines for the guide camera.  



                          IV. HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE NEXT MONTH

During October, 2000, we expect to continue detailed testing of the telescope and its 
control system on site in Arizona, specifically  (1) to move the control console for 
our tests into the control building and use it for conducting further tests of the 
control system, (2) to recolimate the primary mirror by using the comatic shapes of 
off-axis star images, (3) to make more critical observations of stars to verify the 
mirror-support system and assess the image quality of the primary mirror, (4) to 
implement the mount model in the telescope control system and retest the pointing 
and tracking of the telescope, (5) to make a number of minor mechanical and electrical 
modifications of the telescope hardware designed to make the telescope more 
reliable, (6) possibly to put the secondary mirror into the telescope, along with 
the guiding head, and use it to run the first tests of the telescope as a Cassegrain 
system, (7) to finish assembling the mounts for the spectrograph optics and finish a 
preliminary design of the fiber feed for the spectrograph, (8) to take delivery of 
the CCD controller for the spectrograph from SDSU, and (9) to continue procuring the 
material and services for constructing the camera for the spectrograph with the aid 
of Harland Epps.