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August 2005

Overview

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, August 2005
Night Imaging
Time (s)		 Exposure
Time (s)		 #
Targets		 #
Exposures		 Variable Star
Outbursts/Activity
08/01/05 23361 19200 45 160 TW Tri
08/03/05 23790 19560 43 163 IW And
08/15/05 24815 19920 47 166 IW And AR And FO And
08/16/05 26899 22080 52 184 TW Tri IW And FS And
08/17/05 26532 21960 47 183 TW Tri IW And
08/21/05 19827 16200 37 135 AY Lyr V503 Cyg
08/22/05 27385 22800 52 190 V516 Cyg V344 Lyr V503 Cyg FO And
08/24/05 29002 24120 56 201 V516 Cyg V630 Cyg TY Psc
08/25/05 28805 23880 55 199 PV Per V630 Cyg TY Psc PY Per
08/26/05 28798 23760 55 198 V1113
& V516 Cyg		 IW And TY Psc PY,MR,
& FO Per
08/28/05 21885 12720 17 106 V516 Cyg IW And PY,MR,
& FO Per
11 nights 281099
( 78.08 hr)		 226200
( 62.83 hr)		 506 1885 Activity in 16 stars.

Focuser Temperatures, August 2005
Temperature Chart

Session Notes

Tue/Wed August 2/3, 2005

I did bias & dark frames tonight (as usual), but when they were finished it was cloudy (despite what the clear sky clock said). So I went downstairs for a quick nap. Lying in bed, I saw a flash of lightning. So I ran upstairs and closed the dome (from the control room) just as some very loud raindrops were coming down. I went out to the observatory to make sure everything was OK, and it was. That was a very close call! The DigitalDomeWorks software had noted a trip of the weather interlock for wetness, but the software has a built-in 5 minute delay before it closes the dome! I'll have to look at the DDW code and fix that.

Wed/Thu August 3/4, 2005

Fortunately there was no forecast chance of storms tonight so that made me feel a little better. I've been having trouble getting cal frames done much before 10pm these days -- gotta start earlier!
The radio said power was reduced 5% late yesterday because of strain on the supply. Hopefully that won't affect the observatory equipment. I may have to buy another UPS or two.
The AAVSO website has been down for Aug 2 and 3 so far (they got hit by lightning!).

Fri/Sat August 26/27, 2005

After doing the photometry for tonight's images I noticed that I had forgotten to put #AUTOFOCUS directives in the pre-dawn part of the plan. I have added a few so that the focus should be a lot better now (and this will help nail down FS And which is rather faint at the moment).
I tweaked the coordinates for DX And because I noticed that the outburst detector was not finding the variable (could have saved another 4 minutes of exposure time!). I also tweaked PY Per by 2 arcsec in declination.
Finally, I went through my nightly "Quick Look" file and for variables with non-zero position errors I opened a stacked image, plate solved it, measured the coordinates, and finally tweaked the coordinates in wVariables.wsc (my variable star info lookup file). I have reduced or eliminated position errors in almost all of the detected variables! It's interesting that the positions of many variables haven't been exactly nailed down (say to <1 arcsec).

Sun/Mon August 28/29, 2005

I gave a tour of the observatory this afternoon to a couple of people.