|
Walter's LogBook |
| April 2004 |
Overview
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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, April 2004 | ||||||
| Night | Imaging Time (s) |
Exposure Time (s) |
# Targets |
# Exposures |
Variable Star Outbursts/Activity |
|
| 4/5/04 | 30503 | 24510 | 28 | 205 | V1008 Her | |
| 4/7/04 | 31644 | 25440 | 40 | 212 | V1008 Her | |
| 4/9/04 | 31792 | 21600 | 21 | 180 | ER UMa | NY Ser |
| 4/11/04 | 30366 | 22950 | 43 | 192 | ||
| 4/14/04 | 29313 | 19320 | 26 | 161 | ||
| 4/15/04 | 29965 | 24960 | 27 | 208 | NY Ser | |
| 6 nights | 183583 (51.00 hr) |
138780 (38.55 hr) |
185 | 1158 | Activity in 3 stars. | |
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Session Notes
Mon/Tue, April 5/6, 2004
Session from 20:00 to 05:15 (ACP ran from 23:00 to 05:15). Due to moonlight, ACP had to skip the IR Com field (normally images that for one hour) and ran out of targets at 05:15, so about half an hour of twilight sky went unused. Good thing I had some extra stuff at the end of the script! I'll add even more in case this happens again. Several fields were affected by moonglow, but not enough to get skipped over.
Wed/Thu, April 7/8, 2004
Session from 20:00 to 06:15 (did flats at dawn). ACP ran the show from 22:55 to 03:45. At that point I took over the imaging and did a bunch of vars in Lyra, Hercules, and Cygnus (I couldn't sleep anyway!).
Fri/Sat, April 9/10, 2004
Session from 20:00 to 05:45. ACP ran the show from 23:05 to 05:40. I briefly imaged the supernova in NGC 3786 just before the ACP run (see image below). Something was causing a reflection in my images of LL Lyr which ruined things for that field, but it looks neat (see image below).
| Supernova 2004 BD | |
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| Scope: 10" f/6.3 LX200, camera: SXV-H916 binned 4x4. Supernova 2004 BD in NGC 3786 (exposure: 2x120s). |
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| Mystery Reflection | |
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| Scope: 10" f/6.3 LX200, camera: SXV-H916 binned 4x4. Some kind of reflection was in the LL Lyr field -- looks like an aurora! |
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Sun/Mon, Apr 11/12, 2004
Session from 20:15 to 05:30. ACP ran the show all night (3 runs). The reflection in my images of LL Lyr was fainter tonight, but still present (azimuth 100 degrees, altitude 70 degrees). I went out to the dome and it appears that the reflection is off my TV tower! I have adjusted my custom horizon in ECU to reflect this (pun intended).
I set the backlash in my LX-200 to 30 (= 2 sec) to help with pointing. It seemed to help a bit and it may be worth trying a 3 or 4 second setting. As well, I tweaked my ACP plan and have added three new variables (AL & GO Com, and VW CrB) which all landed on the chip tonight!
Wed/Thu, April 14/15, 2004 : Session from 20:05 to 05:20.
Thu/Fri, April 15/16, 2004 : Session from 20:00 to 05:25.
| Asteroid Dorffel (4076) | |
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| Scope: 10" f/6.3 LX200, camera: SXV-H916 binned 4x4. Asteroid Dorffel (4076) is trailed in this 1-hour exposure (30x120s). RZ Leo is the faint star (Mv = 18.67±0.11) just above the asteroid. |
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| Asteroid | 4076 Dorffel |
| Magnitude | 16.5 |
| Earth distance (AU/million km) | 2.083 (311.6) |
| Solar distance (AU/million km) | 2.980 (445.7) |
| Solar elongation | 147.7 |
| Phase angle | 10.4 |