PART 6: 1998-...
 

But it was necessary to pass through numerous steps in prototyping the Audine Camera.  In this picture you see the first version of the Audine’s upper electronics card.  Amuse yourself by finding the differences between this and the final version.  Notice the important zone of separation around the CCD chip, which was intended to isolate the chip in a shallow cavity. After vigorous discussion, it was decided not to adopt this idea in the final version.

.

The first operational prototype of the Audine.  Note the plastic housing on the right. Pierre Thierry, our specialist, molded a great number of them in his kitchen oven.  There was another problem, though: the plastic we used then was translucent, resulting in a camera housing striped with the metallic adhesive.  Although it was perfectly functional, this prototype was sent back to correct a few other errors of youth (such as insufficiently robust connector wiring, for example).  Another six months’ work was required to arrive at the definitive model.

On 5 April 1998, the new Audine camera made its first image (a prototype is on the table): it was a success!  The image was acquired with a special version of the program QMiPS32.

Meanwhile, we worked on the image acquisition program PISCO (Popular Image Software for CCD Observations).  In the picture you see a bottle of that excellent beverage which inspired the program’s name, photographed on the terrace of the 40” telescope at Pic du Midi.

…And at the same time others (Alain Klotz and Denis Marchais) worked on the AUDACE and AudeLA program, which operates the telescope by remote control.

The portable computer according to Alain Klotz, which he called the wheelbarrow computer (notice the wheel at lower left).  This was during the test phase of the AUDACE program in November 1998 at the Star Farm in the province of Gers.  At the other end of a 330 foot Ethernet cable, Denis Marchais verifies that the LX200 telescope which Alain Klotz is controlling is not tangled up in the electrical wires.

From left to right, Franck Vaissière, Alain Klotz and Robert Delmas at an editorial committee meeting of the AUDE Association’s CCD and Telescope newsletter.  Alain is holding the program of the Sky and Space Conference, which was organized by the French Astronomical Association (AFA) and held in Paris in June 1998. It was there that the Audine Project was first publicly presented.

On 28-29 November 1998, the Audine System was presented during the AUDE Association seminar in Toulouse.  And now, the story continue...

Now my main job in astronomy is the animation of AUDE association, the popularization of spectrography (ARAS), the construction of spectrograph, a survey of Be Stars , the study of some peculiars stars, writing Iris, an image processing software, test and use of Digital SLR, and a member of the "Pixel et Cassoulet" group !

Click here for a list of my publications.