|
Walter's LogBook |
| February 2004 |
Overview
Telescope pointing in declination is still a problem (lots of backlash), but with careful selection of targets, I have ACP running the show now from (typically) around midnight to dawn. Even this is a great help! I refined the FocusMax curves this month, and the slopes agree to 4 decimal places.
I did some time series photometry on BZ UMa on three nights (106 observations). These became part of an IBVS paper in May 2004: Flickering and Periodic Activity in the 2004 Outburst of BZ UMa
The SXV-H9 is the imaging camera, with exposures for variable stars of 120 seconds at 4x4 binning (unguided). This month's session notes are below the overview section.
| Monthly Statistics, February 2004 | ||||||
| Night | Imaging Time (s) |
Exposure Time (s) |
# Targets |
# Exposures |
Variable Star Outbursts/Activity |
|
| 2/4/04 | 720 | 706 | 2 | 6 | ||
| 2/14/04 | 39839 | 27960 | 35 | 233 | ||
| 2/15/04 | 37485 | 27840 | 32 | 229 | NY Ser | |
| 2/16/04 | 34992 | 27120 | 31 | 226 | ||
| 2/22/04 | 37674 | 27120 | 39 | 226 | UV Gem | |
| 2/23/04 | 34203 | 24000 | 35 | 200 | UV Gem | PY Per |
| 2/24/04 | 40637 | 32910 | 34 | 275 | BZ UMa | PY Per |
| 2/25/04 | 39632 | 39240 | 34 | 327 | BZ UMa | |
| 2/26/04 | 40281 | 31320 | 35 | 321 | BZ UMa | AK Cnc |
| 2/27/04 | 29466 | 20040 | 25 | 167 | ||
| 2/28/04 | 4777 | 3360 | 8 | 28 | ||
| 11 nights | 339706 (94.36 hr) |
261616 (72.67 hr) |
310 | 2238 | Activity in 5 stars. | |
 |
Session Notes
Sat/Sun, Feb 14/15, 2004 : Session from 18:00 to 06:50.
Sun/Mon, Feb 15/16, 2004 : Session from 18:00 to 05:30.
Mon/Tue, Feb 16/17, 2004 : Session from 18:00 to 00:45 (ACP imaged until dawn).
Sun/Mon, Feb 22/23, 2004 : Session from 18:00 to 05:30 (ACP imaged from 00:30 until dawn in two plans).
Mon/Tue, Feb 23/24, 2004
Session from 18:00 to 04:30 (ACP imaged from 00:30 until 04:30). When I woke up in the morning there was thin cloud over the whole sky but I was able to do flats by placing a plastic diffuser over the corrector plate. Looking through the images taken while I was asleep, I could see evidence of some cloud activity, but fortunately it wasn't enough to stop the ACP script from running. The scope missed NY Ser (again, it was just off the top of the frame). I discovered by looking at the two AAVSO charts I have that there are two sets of coordinates for this star which differ by 8 arcmin in declination. I am now using the 2nd set of coordinates (which appear to be the correct ones)!
UV Gem has dropped 1½ magnitudes since last night. PY Per is up just over one magnitude since last night.
Tue/Wed, Feb 24/25, 2004
Session from 18:00 to 06:00 (ACP imaged 00:45 until dawn). BC UMa drifted 32 pixels in RA over 80 minutes, so that's not too bad. PY Per is up two magnitudes since last night, and BZ UMa is up 4 magnitudes since last night, so they are in outburst!
Wed/Thu, Feb 25/26, 2004
Session from 18:00 to 06:00 (ACP imaged 01:15 until dawn). Aside from the usual bunch of variables, I took some time series images of BZ UMa in outburst tonight (30 sec exposures).
Thu/Fri, Feb 26/27, 2004
Session from 18:00 to 06:00 (ACP imaged 01:30 until dawn). I took some images of BZ UMa in outburst again tonight (60 sec exposures). BZ is gradually fading. AK Cnc is in outburst tonight!
Fri/Sat, Feb 27/28, 2004
Session from 18:00 to 00:45 (ACP imaged 00:55 until clouds came at 03:25). We had some cloud mid-evening but then it cleared again until 03:25.
The sky is moving along, so I had to drop PU,PY,PV Per and PQ And (they are getting too low in the west at dusk now).
Sat/Sun, Feb 28/29, 2004
Session from 18:00 to 21:30. Cloud started moving in just before 20:30. I had enough time to learn FocusMax and get a some decent VCurves before the cloud cover became too thick to continue.