AAVSOnet status, July 27, 2011

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Wed, 07/27/2011 - 12:47

The APASS-south camera has been repaired by Apogee and should start its long trip to Chile this week.  I expect APASS-south to be back on the air about mid-August.  In the meantime, we are cleaning up the photometry taken through April in preparation for Data Release 3.  APASS-north is down, both for the summer monsoon as well as getting a replacement mirror for one of the OTAs.  I expect it to be operational in September.

BSM-Argentina is now up and running; thanks, Jaime!  It will take a couple of weeks to set up the system, and then we will start the southern survey.  If you have any bright (V<11) stars for which you want all-night time series in the southern hemisphere, let me know and I might be able to schedule them in at this commissioning time.  Such opportunities will also be available during each full moon period.

BSM-California will be configured soon and shipped to Bob Stine in early August.  The enclosure is ready to go for the system, so it may be operational during August.

NMSU61 now runs under computer control.  We need to buy a permanent computer for the facility and get software up and running.  Initially, we'll use an existing ST-7 camera, but that will be upgraded during the Fall.  This site is also in the monsoonal flow, so we don't expect much imaging until September.

BSM-Australia is having its mount serviced by a local distributor.  I don't have a timeline for when it will be functional.

I'm planning on revamping the observing queue for BSM before it starts up again, removing stars that have been well-covered and pruning down the survey list as other BSM systems come on-line.

Matt and Doc have completed the pipeline automation, so each telescope gets processed around noon eastern time automatically.  We still expect a staff member or volunteer to examine the jpeg diagnostic images and make comments about their quality; this will probably be an afternoon exercise.  However, the actual images will be available on a consistent schedule this Fall.

Enjoy!  More updates when things start waking up in a few weeks.

Arne