Logbook Icon Walter's LogBook
October 2004

Overview

Lots of clear nights again this month! ACP runs the observatory all night long (still need a wake-up alarm for clouds, etc.). I had two sessions with the 17.5" and one with the C8 (in the Merry-Go-Round Observatory, which I re-organized inside this month). The highlight of October was the total lunar eclipse on the night of the 27/28th.

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, October 2004
Night Imaging
Time (s)		 Exposure
Time (s)		 #
Targets		 #
Exposures		 Variable Star
Outbursts/Activity
10/1/04 25956 21720 27 181 V344 Lyr
10/2/04 26330 23040 28 192
10/3/04 30077 25920 38 216
10/4/04 34396 29760 38 216
10/5/04 21555 18720 25 156
10/6/04 36806 32040 12 52 LX And AF Cam
10/7/04 34428 27720 41 267 LX And
10/12/04 37073 29640 35 247 LX And
10/13/04 37695 33120 38 276
10/18/04 39334 33960 38 283 LX And PV Per
10/19/04 6752 6000 8 50 FO Per
10/22/04 38970 33960 42 283 IW And KV And
10/23/04 35480 30960 36 258 IW And KV And
10/25/04 6757 6000 9 50 V516 Cyg
10/27/04 40352 28680 40 239 KV And NS Per
10/28/04 10287 8760 14 73
16 nights 462248
(128.40 hr)		 390000
(108.33 hr)		 471 3071 Activity in 9 stars.

Temperature Chart

Session Notes

Wed/Thu, October 7/8, 2004

All-night ACP session. I made another tweak to my "newnight" DOS batch file (which creates new folders for a session): it runs the NIS Time program. My "gatherfiles" DOS batch file (which gathers in files from ACP, DDW, and FocusMax) now runs NIS Time and then copies the time info into the log folder. This gives me info on how far out the clock was before and after a session (hopefully nothing funny is happening in between!).

Tue/Wed, October 19/20, 2004

MGRO C8 Session from 04:40 to 05:50. I observed visually with my C8 in the Merry-Go-Round Observatory pre-dawn (mostly variable stars).

Fri/Sat, October 22/23, 2004

Big Dob! Session from 03:00 to 06:15. I observed visually with the 17.5" pre-dawn (mostly variable stars).

Wed/Thu, October 27/28, 2004

Big Dob! All-night ACP session. I observed the total lunar eclipse visually with the 17.5" and took some film images with a 400mm f/6.6 lens piggybacked on the LX-200.
 Totality

Automation Update

My small collection of scripts now automates most of the imaging and even processing steps:

newnight.bat
-runs NIS Time
-creates folders for a session
acquireimages.vbs (modified with outburst detector)
-automates variable star imaging
gatherfiles.bat
-runs NIS Time
-moves NIS time file
-copies the DDW log file
-moves ACP plans
-moves ACP logs
-moves ACP pointing exposures
-moves ACP stars files
vstproc.vbs
-processes variable star images (calibrates,stacks,saves)