Building and deploying a new astrometric instrument is a costly and time consuming effort. In addition to computer systems, software, and hardware interfacing this included several subsystems:
1) a new tailpiece (photos on this page), a means of centering the target and
guiding the telescope during data acquisition;
2) a pair of new CCD guide cameras;
3) a pair of main CCD data acquisition cameras (to allow continuous year
round operation);
4) a TV finder (1.5 degree field);
5) a remote focusing system for the Thaw refractor;
6) a photometric CCD camera with U,B,V,R,and I band capability, and
7) an ND filter system allowing observations of stars over a magnitude range
of 3 to 18 magnitudes in red (the band pass of the 30-inch Thaw refractor).
Most of the funding for this effort has come from two sources:
1) NSF grant number 0138222,
Increasing the Range and Accuracy of Current Bright Object High precision Astrometry.
2) From funding provided in support of the
NASA/Stanford relativity gyroscope experiment, Gravity Probe B
(http://einstein.stanford.edu/)
(GP-B; see, e.g., Turneaure, Everitt, and Parkinson 1986 in Proc. Fourth Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativity, ed. R. Ruffini (Amsterdam: Elsevier), 411).