Here are minutes of our meeting on Thursday -- please just reply with (or let me know) any corrections -- thanks!:
Attendees: Yorke Brown (Dartmouth), Arnold Gaertner (NRC), and Karun Thanjavur (UVic). Regrets from Cordell Grant (UTIAS-SFL).
Yorke has completed his flight control updates, and we've taken some initial sets of lab source calibration and standard star data here, so now the wait on flights is basically just for good weather. We still do have some updates to the flight procedure manual to do before our next flight (but nothing major). There might be an almost-decent weather opening on early Wednesday morning, however there will be thunderstorms the night before (i.e., tomorrow night), cloud cover will be around 30%, and the winds aloft will be rather high, so we'll likely pass on that opening. Tonight (Monday night) Karun and I will take some more standard star data (with dimmer standards and longer exposure times than Marlene's and my data from last week, in order to avoid saturation and reduce the shutter timing uncertainty), and we'll post that data once we're sure it is good. Karun's and Yorke's lab source calibrations have been hindered by electronic noise, which may be due to the fact that the polarity of the photodiode we are using is opposite that which the Hamamatsu C9239 amplifier expects, so we are using a coax-cable-polarity-reverser that Yorke jury-rigged which, obviously, negates the noise shielding provided by the coax. Peter Doherty is sending us a (correct-polarity) Hamamatsu S2281 photodiode (which is what the C9239 is really intended to be used with) up from Harvard which will hopefully ameliorate that problem. If we have a nice clear evening this week, but with unfavourable winds, we'll do another pre-flight, long-range check of radio transmission (to Gile Mtn. or Mt. Ascutney).
Cordell mentions that Houman will send the latest design for the baffle and LED mounting, and his master's thesis itself, as soon as he gets a chance. Houman, sending that would be very helpful to us.
Also, Susana and Nathan, it would be very helpful for us to get the JHU students' final writeup. Thus we need:
1) From Houman: Your most recent design for the baffle and LED mounting, and your master's thesis itself. 2) From Nathan and/or Susana: Your JHU students' final writeup (from the end of this past semester).
Thanks very much to Houman, Nathan, and Susana in advance!
We have some very initial tests of a motor and propeller setup for future gondola propulsion, a brief movie of which you can see here:
https://particle.phys.uvic.ca/~jalbert/MotorAndPropTests/IMG_2095.MOV
however those motors appear not to work very well with the larger propellers we now have that are more optimized for high-altitude propulsion, so a bit of further investigation of the optimal motors for us to use will be necessary. Also, the projectaltair.org website may be moving to a new physical computer host in a few weeks, in the process of fixing its issues such as file upload problems. However, at present that new computer host cannot support website editing from outside of UVic, so that issue will need to be fixed before the website itself can be moved.
That's all I remember, please send things that I forgot. Next telecon in 2 weeks, on Thursday, July 30 at 1:30 pm Eastern time.
cheers, thanks all! justin
On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 22:03:28 GMT, Justin Albert wrote:
> Hi! > > Telecon tomorrow (July 16) at our usual time: 1:30 pm Eastern (10:30 am > Pacific, 19.30 European). Discussion items include: flight planning, > recent calibration and observation tests, light sources and light source > modelling, goniometric and pre- and post-flight calibration, > communications tests, new nanosat bus and payload solid models, > computing/website, grant applications, and recap of schedules. A > reminder of the CSA project timeline is attached. > > Here's how to connect: > 1) Open Skype on your computer (note that of course, you should first install Skype, http://www.skype.com , on your machine if you haven't already). > 2) In the "Contacts" menu, add me ( jalbertuvic ) as a contact, if you haven't already. > 3) Just wait for me to Skype-call you at the usual time (1:30 pm Eastern, 10:30 am Pacific). > 4) If there is any trouble, or if you don't get a call for some reason and would like to join, just send me an e-mail (jalbert@uvic.ca). > Here's the tentative agenda: > > I) Flight plans > II) Recent calibration and observation tests in Hanover > III) Diffused light source and its modelling, pre- and post-flight calibration, and goniometric calibrations > IV) Nanosat solid models, and Houman's thesis > V) Computing/website > VI) Grant applications > VII) AOB > > Talk to you all tomorrow, thanks! > justin > > Attachments: > http://projectaltair.org/HyperNews/get/AUX/2012/11/12/18.02-43361-Schedule-20120702_hqp.pdf >