Day 118 Friday 18th July 2014 Dessicant baked for 4 hours.

No imaging today. I have "cooked" the dessicant cartridge for the ST9XE camera - 4 hours i the oven and replaced it in the camera - I hope it does its job and keeps the ccd chamber dry so no frosting occurs when I cool the camera. 

The SBIG manual explains:

Day 117 Thursday 17th July Galaxies in Virgo and Coma Berenices

Cloudy weather so no imaging or visual observing. I looked back to an image I took of galaxies in Coma berenices and Virgo cluster last year. I thought I would identify a few of the galaxies today - too many to do all of them.  North is to the right in this image.

Here is the annotated version

and this is the area included in the image - the small box in the centre

Day 116 Wednesday 16th July 2014 Misleading SN imposters and ESA image

Looking further at some of the galaxies imaged on last night another interesting one is NGC 6762

The appearance of this galaxy might imply the presence of a supernova but that is not the case.

 

There are some interesting videos from the European Southern Observatory. Here is one.

Details from ESO:

"Published on 14 Jul 2014

This richly detailed new pan video from the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile shows the star formation region Gum 15. This little-known object is located in the constellation of Vela (The Sails), some 3000 light-years from Earth. The glowing cloud is a stunning example of an HII region. It also has a similarity to a more famous HII region, the Trifid Nebula (Messier 20)."

For more information go to http://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1420b/

Tuesday 15th July 2014 I rediscover a Dwarf Nova - already discovered in 1998 - that was classified incorrectly as a supernova!

A much better night but still poor seing. I ran a 20 point T Point model and set up two galaxy runs between 18h and 19h RA and19h and 20h RA. Pointing is not bad but I found it necessary to synch the first galaxy in each run into the T Point model.  I have been unable to cool the chip too far because of condensation - the dessicant will be refreshed tomorrow. 

I was checking a galaxy I had imaged (PGC 63176) when I spotted a galaxy (not on my list) that seemed to have a SN possibility. This is the plate solved image that I used with the SkyX to identify the unknown galaxy.

This is the same image with annotation.

 

It turned out that this object had actually been listed as a supernova SN1998di and was later found to be a dwarf nova in outburst. Here are the details from Dave Bishop's excellent Supernova website. Courtesy of D. Bishop:

More details here

 This extract from IAU Circular 6983 explains it all.

So it is not a supernova but an object in our own Galaxy. A line of sight effect that led to an incorrect identification in 1998 - something to be wary of.

Another "might have been" discovery.

 I need to track down any observations since 1998 to check if it has remained at that brightness, My image was unfiltered - I need to reimage with B and V filters and check its magnitude at the AAVSO. 

Monday July 14th 2014 Just like being on Mars

Tonight, following the Polar Alignment Hints on page 40 of the T-Point Manual, I managed to map 20 stars on the West side of the Meridian, add terms as specified and extract the polar alignment data that is given by the software. I adjusted the mount following this information. I had used Mars which happened to be very close to the Home position to Synch the star chart to the mechanical position. Following the mount adjustment I deleted the T-Point model which was now no longer useful, homed the mount and Synched on Mars again. I tried to slew to Spica which is immediately below and very close to Mars tonight but could not find it. It was only when I went outside and realised that cloud had descended , no stars were visible and the corrector plate of the C14 was completely covered in moisture. I picked up the corrector plate cover which was soaking wet and put it on the scope and put on its cover and switched off.

Looking at the panorama below, it is hard to believe that this is another planet. I can go out and see Mars as a small red dot every night at the moment and here it is from a Martian's viewpoint. Amazing. Make sure you watch it full screen,

Mars Panorama - Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 673 in Out of this World

I like this "selfie" of Curiosity! Holding out its arm to take a photo!

 

The Curiosity story - 11 minutes long.

Day 113 Sunday 13th July 2014 T-Point Model, Galaxies in Lyra, M81,M82,M63 and Pluto.

Another hot clear day - will the clouds roll in tonight? It will be a bright Moon tonight.

I thought I would do some balancing experiments today to show how easily the telescope can be imbalanced - and hopefully how well it can be balanced. 

I start off with a video of the effect of putting the corrector plate cover on the telescope with the RA axis unclamped and loose.  Will it move when I add the cover?

Obviously the telescope is not quite balanced otherwise it would not move when I removed the cap.

A little more tweaking

 Not perfect but pretty close!

 No clouds but hard to see many stars with the very bright Moon. The seeing seemed pretty poor but nevertheless allowed me to map over 40 stars and carry out a Lyra galaxy imaging run. It seemed very humid and the images were mottled in some cases particularly when the temperature was reduced to 5 C or less. At ambient temperature of high 20's C a lot of heat generated dots - which were removed by dark frames but I tried to get a balance between the temperature and thermal "stars". I think it likely that I need to bake the camera dessicant plug in the oven again to improve its moisture capturing capability in the camera. The best compromise seemed at about 15 C. Bear in mind daytime temperatures go up to 35 degrees C here most days.

After the T-Point Model was established the following polar alignment adjustments were recommended

 

I think I will repeat the process to get another T Point model before making adjustments to the mount as I used stars on both sides of the meridian. T Point recommends only using a model built up on one side of the meridian for reliable polar alignment data.

I did a galaxy run of 39 Lyra galaxies to be able to use Grepnova with the previous run on the same galaxies a few weeks back. The images were all of poor quality.

PGC 62838

PGC 63165

NGC 6792

I took an image of M82 

M82 is the location of SN 2014J that I imaged in March with the 4 inch refractor

I also took images of M63 (left) and M81

I am still working on my "Pluto" project - following it for as long as I can

The above image is placed into the star chart below to show how small an area it actually covers compared to the constellation of Sagittarius

Day 112 Saturday 12th July 2014 iPhone Super Moon and more cloud..

A brilliant warm clear day - until the clouds rolled in as it became dark! I suppose that I have to accept that September, October and November will be the best months here.

Out on the terrace I could see Moonlight reflected from clouds with the (Super!) Moon behind the mountain to the south east. I used a long exposure app on my iphone (1 sec) to capture it. 

That faint dot could be Altair and Tarazed the even fainter one?

I could just see Mars and Spica - quite close together - and thought of using my long exposure app but I really need a tripod and remote release - which I have but the objects had gone behind cloud before I could do anything.Observing abandoned.

Day 111 Friday 11th July 2014 Lots of 11's, IC 2944, Murcia to Manchester via France and more cloud when it got dark!

Day 111 in Spain (total) so far this year. I opened my laptop this morning and it said that it was 11:11 am on the 11th - so I had my elevenses! (Columbian Coffee)

I used T13 in Siding Spring to take a 10 minute image of IC 2944.

IC 2944 is also known as Caldwell 100.  

After a late afternoon round trip of about 250km to drop my daughter off at San Javier Airport I set up the equipment for the evening. I kept an eye on her plane and watched (intermittently) the entire trip from Spain to Manchester online - its amazing that you can have the aircraft transponder data routed directly to your laptop!

Shortly after take off from Murcia San Javier Airport

LS 864 flew directly over our old French house (La Brosse) in the village of La Boissiere in La Mayenne Department! Small world! It was however at 38000 feet!

Sunset from LS 864 en route - is that plane flying South??

 La Brosse 10000 sq m farm and barns

Almost back to Manchester about to turn and fly over Stockport to the runway.

It was a poor night for astronomy - mist and cloud were all around - even below me looking down from my mountain top location Cabrera and Turre began to disappear. The last session involved an adjustment of the mount to refine polar alignment. Tonight I homed the mount and slewed to Mars - I centred it and mapped the point then slewed to Saturn and mapped that also. I had to give up at that point. Cloud descended!

Day 110 Thursday 10th July 2014 R.A. Axis Balancing, Polar Alignment and Lightning Strikes.

R.A. Axis Balancing

1.This may look familiar – i.e. as in Step A – but this time the idea is to balance the OTA precisely against the weights so that you can release the polar axis and the weights will balance the OTA in this position. (An off balance  OTA can cause  different weight position requirements on the counterweight shaft.)

2. This time lock the declination axis and release the RA axis – taking care to hold the counterweight shaft in case of imbalance .

 3. Slide the counterweights along the shaft until there is no rotational movement around the RA axis in either direction. Lock the counterweights in position. 

4. Now unlock the RA axis and rotate the counterweight shaft to be vertical with the telescope at the top pointing towards the pole.

5. Now try pushing the bottom of the counterweight shaft to either side  - it should move to where you push it and stay there.

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A bright Moon and misty night with intermittent clouds. I managed to get a few minutes in to roughly polar align the Paramount by homing it to its fixed mechanical position, slewing to where it thinks Saturn should be and then using the altitude and azimuth adjusters to centre Saturn. I opened a new T-Point model and synched on Saturn, slewed to a few nearby stars and mapped them into the model. I was clouded out at that point.

I can see why the new Paramounts have polar finderscopes. With my ME you are really working blind until you can find a bright star to synch on to get started.

I extracted this image from a video of the storm a few weeks back - no strikes near the telescopes - I hope the lightning conductor does its job if there is a nearby strike!

I didn't fancy being out on the balcony to film the storm so the extra images are caused by the double glazing!

 A rare occurrence here but the house was hit once!

 

I don't know if it is a good or a bad thing to have the lightning conductor so close to the telescopes!!

Day 109 Wednesday 9th July 2014 Declination Axis Balancing Step B.

Declination Axis Balancing Step B

1. The OTA is now rotated on the declination axis so that the telescope is pointing at the zenith – i.e. straight up. If it balances in that position you are lucky – but it will most likely  drop to one side or the other.

From the North(below)

From the East (Below)

2. Note that the line containing  points X and Y referred to in Step A  is now horizontal. If the centre of gravity is at point D the tube will remain vertical. If the centre of gravity  is on the point X side of D then the OTA will rotate clockwise as seen from the east. If the centre of gravity  is on the point Y side of D then the OTA will rotate anticlockwise as seen from the east.

3. In my case I found that the centre of gravity was on the X side of the OTA and it rotated clockwise.

 4. To counteract this I added a small weight to the  “Y” side of the OTA on the Versa Plate (saddle). This weight balanced the OTA in the vertical  position and was sufficiently small to not disturb the balance in the horizontal position.  Strictly speaking you should only add extra weight in line with the existing balance weight to avoid disturbing the balance achieved in Step A. (i.e. Don't put weights further up or down the tube in Step B). I did not have the necessary counterweight bar in Spain to be able to move the counterweight(lens) sideways so I had to improvise. You need some element of trial and error here to find the correct weight and location for the weight. 

On Day 25 I included a video from Robert Brown that related to the CGEM mount that illustrates an alternative way of doing this to mine. Here it is again.

A much smaller setup with Robert Brown's CGEM but it illustrates the need to move the weight sideways in Step B - this time by screwing the counterweight into the side of the counterweight bar to get the necessary movement of weight towards the right in his case.

The above image shows the small balancing weight I added to get Step B balance to the right of the balancing lens. The small weight is bolted to the Versa Plate on the Paramount ME. This is shown below.

5. HOWEVER I then realised that the camera was not in the correct angular position to have North/South at the top of the images. I had to rotate the  non-symmetrical camera 90 degrees to get the angle correct. When I did that the OTA was out of balance again. I had to add a small additional weight to the OTA to counteract this and ended up with the  declination axis in balance in horizontal and vertical  positions. 

The image below shows the final arrangement to get the declination axis balanced.

 To be continued..............