Performance of the 1.2m telescope with its updated primary mirror.
Update 4/02/14

The quality of the new primary mirror M1 is clearly much better than its
predecessor's. Currently, typical FWHMs are below 2.5 arcsec and down
to about 1.4 arcsec, whereas typical FWHMs with the old mirror were
2.5-3 arcsec and higher. Now that we have good imaging, we are able
to investigate potential detrimental effects of thermal gradients in 
the mirror, and effects from the support system of M1 that prevent 
achievement of an optimal collimation. We are testing for these problems.
We'll present updates here. Testimonials follow.


From Wystan Benbow (1.2m project: Understanding Blazars)

For the same duration exposures on RGB J0710+591:
Last season:  Average r Magnitude = 16.069;  Average r-Mag error = 0.071
This season:  Average r Magnitude = 15.989;  Average r-Mag error = 0.041

So the magnitude didn't change (which isn't common), but the error
decreased by nearly a factor of 2.

The plot shows the difference between a reference star (about 
r=13 mag) and the blazar (about r=16 mag).


From Allyson Bieryla (1.2m projects: Exoplanet Transit Light Curves):

I can say that the FWHM as viewed from the logs seems to be 2-3x
better on average and the exposure time is about 10% shorter.