|
Walter's LogBook |
| May 2007 |
Overview
An amazing month with imaging on 18 nights -- my best May ever! The highlight of this month is definitely my first official supernova discovery! More info on this is found here.
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, May 2007 Night Imaging
Time (s)Exposure
Time (s)#
Targets#
Exposures2007-05-02 24896 20420 75 271 2007-05-03 25587 21980 56 214 2007-05-04 13876 12000 27 100 2007-05-05 22392 19200 43 160 2007-05-06 24786 21000 53 205 2007-05-07 9071 5040 12 42 2007-05-13 24046 15920 61 211 2007-05-14 7881 6840 14 57 2007-05-18 22215 18120 41 151 2007-05-19 22544 18000 41 150 2007-05-20 22026 19180 48 179 2007-05-21 1161 960 8 48 2007-05-22 22043 18200 73 255 2007-05-23 21525 18220 54 211 2007-05-24 18395 15960 36 133 2007-05-25 21544 18480 39 154 2007-05-29 3885 3480 8 29 2007-05-30 12157 10440 24 87 18 nights 320030
(88.90 hr)263440
(73.18 hr)713 2657
Session Notes
Sun/Mon, May 6/7, 2007
I had intended to go out for the moonless period tonight but was tired and slept through it. I did finally go out for a quick session with the 17½" from 01:25 to 02:20. There was no wind and no dew. It was quite pleasant temperature-wise (Ottawa airport reported a 2am temperature of +9C!).
I started out by observing T CrB which was not in outburst. Then I found Comet Lovejoy in the head of Draco (thanks for reminding me Kim!), right where it is supposed to be! It was rather diffuse and I could see some nuclear condensation with the 13mm Nagler (my favourite eyepiece!). All in all, a respectable comet for one of that magnitude (ECU reports it as mag 9.3). I could see a little glow from the moon by this time through some thin cloud hugging the horizon. Carrying on, I next observed DO Draconis at 14th mag -- not quite at its "bottom". I wonder if it is getting ready to do something? To end the session I decided to return to Comet Lovejoy. The sky was noticeably brighter by this time, and I could see the moon reflecting off the windows of the house. Alas, I was unable to find Lovejoy a second time, but such is the fate of diffuse comets!
Of course the dome was running all this time, on its 5th consecutive night of imaging! May is shaping up to be quite a nice month!
Fri/Sat, May 11/12, 2007
I managed to fix a serious problem with my computer today and was all set to start an imaging run when I discovered a problem with the camera (moisture in the circuitry, not the CCD). I tried heating it for a couple of hours but it was not enough. After heating the camera for most of Saturday, it was good to go. The weather has been quite warm and dry since the last session, so I thought I didn't need to do a "heat soak" but obviously I was wrong! So I'll do it every week now, just to be on the safe side.
Sat/Sun, May 12/13, 2007
This week I replaced the broken contact on the dome, and now it can find home properly. But now the dome has developed a problem where the azimuth value jumps by 140 CW (from 270º to 50º) it the dome goes to or passes through home while rotating CW (nothing bad happens if the dome is rotating to/through home while rotating CCW). The only way to restore the proper az value is to home the dome and turn the DDW power supply off and on. Unfortunately I was downstairs watching the hockey game (which went into overtime) and I did not check on the dome -- unbeknownst to me the run had ended around 22:45. I restarted it at midnight and it ran uneventfully until dawn.
Fri/Sat, May 11/12, 2007
Tonight turned out to be rather cloudy, but I did manage to get about two hours of imaging done before conditions deteriorated too much.
Sat/Sun, May 19/20, 2007
There was a nice 1½ degree conjunction of the Moon and Venus this evening. The photo below is by Kim Hay and Kevin Kell; the top of the RoboDome is visible at the bottom right.
