President's Message July 2013
by Ed Haskell
Regular readers of my monthly letters will recall that several times I have alluded to the Observatory Automation Project led by Steve Siok and Tom Thibault. This month it is particularly timely that I update you on the progress being made by this project.
In the interest of space and for the sake of my carpal tunnel syndrome I will not recap every detail that has been handled but will stick to some of the major tasks completed. You may recall that this project is subdivided into many tasks which various members or groups of members are handling.
One of these is security of the observatory buildings. Through the efforts of Tom Thibault the window into the Clark building has been secured by the donation of a professional security shutter at no cost to the Society.
Another requirement is the provision of a remotely controllable motorized drive to open and close the slide-off roof of the 16 inch Meade. This expensive facility has also been obtained at no cost to the Society and is nearing completion as I write this.
When the 16 inch scope was purchased it was configured to permit eventual remote access. That facility has been updated and additional equipment added such that it is now possible to control the telescope and display what it is seeing at a remote location, in this case the Meeting Hall. While the initial design was for a video transmission from the telescope the passage of nearly 13 years has made it technically feasible to handle control and imaging signals over Ethernet, the foundation for the INTERNET. Thus the connection between the 16 inch and the Meeting Hall will be by local area network (LAN) and in a future upgrade this will be extended to wide area networking (WAN) otherwise know as the INTERNET, for viewing in member homes.
I said above that this report is timely. This is because at the July meeting members of the Observatory Automation Project will give a live demonstration as part of the program. So if you were teetering on the edge of attending on the 13th I hope this will push you over the edge.
Thanks for all you do for Skyscrapers.
