Michael A. Phillips Astronomy BeeLOG

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Titan Transit Teaser 20090224

Observation logs

I think there's a name for titles like that, but at 25*F and early in the AM my brain's not so straight.

Bad seeing too.. looked like the whole continental US had bad jetstream. I hope someone west of here got better as it was fairly low on the horizon here.

I forgot about the time delay in stellarium but that was OK as I overslept a bit anyway. Most of the frames are washed out by the trees but you can make out the shadow in the final 3 or so frames. I also caught Dione in a few frames riding the upper left ring, long before it's transit. So no quad transit, but I was able to get something and that still counts! Lucky me, the sky was clear.

Animation from 1018 to 1114UT:

Object: Saturn and Titan

Planet

Origin:

ObservationManager - SolarSystem Catalog 1.0

Observer	Michael A. Phillips Mr.
Site	Home
Begin	2009-02-24 um 04:00:00-05:00
End	2009-02-24 um 04:10:00-05:00
Optics	C8i on CGE
Eyepiece	PowerMate (V=812.8)
Filter	Astronomik LRGB Color
Camera	DMK21AF04
Sitzung	2009-02-24 um 04:00:00-05:00

Visual impression

Titan transit!

References

Sessions: 2009-02-24 um 04:00:00-05:00

Begin:	2009-02-24 um 04:00:00-05:00
End:	2009-02-24 um 06:20:00-05:00

Weather:	Poor seeing Great transparency FREEZING 25*F
Equipment:	I used: Ubuntu 8.04 Linux and custom coriander CGE mounted 8" Celestron C8i SCT Lymax Cat Cooler DMK 21AF04 2.5x PowerMate Astronomik LRGB filters True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag
Comments:	Didn't leave the scope out overnight and it may have impacted some but little of the conditions. I miss timed the Titan Transit becuase of the time delay / light propogation issues with Stellarium. I fixed that now1

Type:	SCT
Vendor:	Celestron
Aperture:	203.0 mm
Focal length:	2032.0 mm

Begin:	2008-07-17 um 21:20:00-05:00
End:	2008-07-17 um 23:40:00-05:00

Weather:	Forecast avg Actual: S:6-7/10 T:4/5
Equipment:	C8i, 2.5x Powermate, Manual focusing, DMK21AF04, TruTek CFW with visual wide, and custom Coriander under Ubuntu 8.04
Comments:	Started at 2120 with ISS observation through trees visually in front sidewalk. Cat cooler filter change and then 15min of cooling starting at 2140 Cat cooler for another 20 min before start of observing Setup near bird bath near front porch as there is a small opening in the trees in the SE of the sky Targets included Jupiter, Luna and Altair

Begin:	2008-11-01 um 20:29:00-05:00
End:	2008-11-01 um 22:51:00-05:00

Weather:	Forecast was S and T, both 4/5 Actual 5/10 and 5/5
Equipment:	I used: Ubuntu 8.04 Linux and custom coriander 8" Celestron C8i SCT Lymax Cat Cooler DMK 21AF04 2.5x PowerMate Astronomik LRGB filters True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag
Comments:	Bad timing on Jupiter. Waited till after an early bedtime for the kids only to find Jupiter fairly low. I was happy about the weather and decided to take one last parting shot on ol' Jove before the season's end. I found it hanging above the trees and thought I had time. That was until the dec slips again. It seems that the weight of the CFW and camera kill the dec motors at around 20-30* of alt and below. I managed to get things working by pulling the offening equipment out until I got a partial align. They then cooporated after that. Focusing was hard as I've got a longer 1394 cable now. Got that as good as I could on Jupiter itself and then started an RGB coriander sequence. About 20 sec into the Red (1st channel mind you!) It slipped behind the trees. Oh well, next time! On to a recooling session with the cat cooler and the outer ice giants!

Begin:	2008-10-15 um 18:45:00-05:00
End:	2008-10-15 um 23:30:00-05:00

Weather:	Forecast called for S 4/5 and T 3/5 Actual S: 4-6 T: 2-3/5
Equipment:	I used: Ubuntu 8.04 Linux and custom coriander 8" Celestron C8i SCT DMK 21AF04 2.5x PowerMate Astronomik LRGB filters True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag Since the 3 day stretch of good seeing in early Sept, I have used the T61 Also used WinXP and IC Capture with the TrueTek Hand Controller for > 1sec exposures
Comments:	To get Uranus and Neptune I had to move exposures beyond 1 second. Currently the custom coriander 1.0.0 does not support exposures beyond 1 second. Even at 1sec and 3.25fps I was unable to get usable data. As quickly as I could I switched to WinXP and IC Capture for camera control. A reboot and install of drivers burned some time, but a valuable lesson in prepareness. I did try to leverage previous whitebalance exercises on Jupiter for Uranus and Neptune. I found tracking and alignment horrible, but since finding 6-7mag planets isn't easy, I decided not to re-align. More and deeper exposures would have helped the moon shots.

Begin:	2008-10-07 um 19:50:00-05:00
End:	2008-10-07 um 20:40:00-05:00

Weather:	Haze and thin clouds S: 8/10 T: 1/5
Equipment:	I used: Ubuntu 8.04 Linux and custom coriander 8" Celestron C8i SCT DMK 21AF04 2.5x PowerMate Astronomik LRGB filters True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag
Comments:	Not a night I'd normally be going out as a slow moving cold front was moving in and brought a great amount of humidity and haze. Seeing forecast was good so I eyeballed the skies near Jupiter and decided to take a stab at it, especially with an attempt at an Io transit too. (Missed that)

Begin:	2008-09-30 um 20:22:00-05:00
End:	2008-09-30 um 22:00:00-05:00

Longitude:	35.682°
Latitude:	-78.743°
Timezone:	UT-300 min

Vendor:	The Image Source
Pixel:	640x480

Longitude:	35.682°
Latitude:	-78.743°
Timezone:	UT-300 min

Vendor:	The Image Source
Pixel:	640x480

Weather:	Forecast called for clouds. Surprisingly it cleared near dusk and stayed clear until a line of STRONG T-storms came in at 3am the same night. Seeing was avg or below 4-5/10 T: 3/5
Equipment:	I used: Ubuntu 8.04 Linux and custom coriander 8" Celestron C8i SCT DMK 21AF04 2.5x PowerMate Astronomik LRGB filters True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag

RA:	0h 42m 44s
Dec:	41° 16' 06"
Size:	178.0′ × 178.0′
m(vis):	4.5 mag
Origin:	ObservationManager - Messier Catalog 1.0

Begin:	2008-10-26 um 20:20:00-05:00
End:	2008-10-26 um 23:30:00-05:00

Weather:	Clear, good transparency and no moon. Seeing was below avg.
Equipment:	Canon XTi with Tamron zoom lens piggybacked on the C8i, MaxDSLR on WinXP T43 driven via RDP from inside the house
Comments:	1st attempt at full remote setup. I found a tracking was good after a 2 iter 2 star eq align: Az: 00' 21" Alt: 06' 03" Good for 4+ min piggybacked exposures! No network coverage in the garage forced me to setup a quick, ad-hoc x-over network between WinXP and Linux. Static addressing on both ends and FAST transfers! :P

Michael A. Phillips Astronomy BeeLOG

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

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