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Monthly Reports — 2007 May
 
Murison prepared for and attended the 38th annual AAS Division on Dynamical Astronomy meeting in Ann Arbor. He gave a talk on his work on the orbit-orbit distance problem, concentrating on the recent results obtained from the genetic algorithm calculations on the maximum number of stationary points and the relations between number of stationary points and type of orbit. This DDA meeting was especially useful with regard to keeping abreast of the most recent work in dynamical and solar system astronomy. Murison also performed his duties at the meeting as Secretary of the DDA.

Murison began looking into the issue of refraction through the Earth's atmosphere, which will be a new project with various applications within AA and elsewhere at USNO. He had already done some work on differential chromatic refraction and variations wrt TPH in his days at CfA, for the POINTS project. Sections of that work should be useful here as well.

Murison consulted with Hajian for the dFTS project. It appears we might have a substantial number of nights on the Steward Observatory 2.3-meter telescope, for which the adaptive optics guider that Murison designed will be needed.