(meteorobs) Arietid Prototype ready for mounting.

[stange34 at sbcglobal.net]

For any who might be interested in constructing similar,  The mirror system 
has tested well.

1) With or without Sun blocking disk, the automatic camera gain control(AGC) 
compensates for the brilliant sunlight and darkens the sky and surrounding 
trees etc. to where it looks like a sky at 9:30 or 10 PM on a summer night. 
The Sun itself remained quite brilliant in the software display without the 
disk, or a brilliant corona if the disk is used. I am confident Jupiter or 
Saturn would easily show up and likely Mag 1 stars too in the sky 
background.

2) The sliding Sun blocking disk is moveable on the coat hanger wire and is 
locked into position on the wire with a small T-head screw. The CW 24 hr. 
timer was used even tho' I wanted East and West correctly placed, but the 
sacrifice is East & West will be the same as a Sentinel all-sky camera with 
East to the left of center when North is up.The timer arc will not precisely 
match the Sun's travel through the entire day because it will curve 
downward.

3) Wind gusts do effect the Disk block because of the "springy" nature of 
the coat hanger curving wire. As mentioned... the disk is NOT necessary if a 
slightly larger Sun glare & artifacts can be accepted. A second reflection 
can be seen of the disk on the mirror surface by the camera. An unexpected 
flaw which will only null out at Noon time.

4) I did see several fairly large flashes in the sky just East of the Sun 
around 11 AM with the assy in the driveway. They were NOT streaks nor were 
they associated with my setup or the Sun tracking mechanism. Maybe satellite 
flashes?

Anyway it looks like I am good-to-go for tomorrows patio roof placement on 3 
blocks with brick weighting. I only need some Arietids to make this effort 
worthwhile. Photos at:
http://www.geocities.com/stange34@sbcglobal.net/ArietidDetector1.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/stange34@sbcglobal.net/ArietidDetector2.jpg

BTW -Nice mirror Drobnock, very nice indeed. We could do a lot with that! 
:-)

YCSentinel