Re: No Escape

[<aah@nofs.navy.mil>]

I should also include another reason for accurate
timing.  If you are working on a variable star,
such as an eclipsing binary, the Time of Minimum
is determined from a fit to many observations
made during the eclipse.  So the central time
of a given exposure may not be very accurate since
you have the error due to the finite length of the
exposure, but the fit can be highly accurate.
That means that an offset in the PC clock generates
a systematic error in the ToM determination.
So the more accuracy in the clock timing, the
better.  Again, time is a parameter that is not related
to the sky or to the camera/telescope hardware,
and so can be set to very high accuracy.
Arne