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BTW I was present at the British Concorde’s (002) maiden flight from Filton, Bristol, which happens to be 54 years ago today!
I have been in the cabin of a Concorde. Sadly, it was travelling at Mach 0 in a hangar at Duxford, just down the road from here.
If anyone would like to replicate my experience, please let me know in good time and I will show you around the district and, in particular, introduce you to the excellent pub “The Plough” in Duxford.
Paul
Given that serious astronomers express stellar luminosities both in ergs/second and in a inverted logarithmic scale to a bizarre base, I am inclined to cut journalists some slack.
I will get in contact soon. From the GUI point of view, APT works rather well in setting the ellipse parameters.
I’ve just watched the BBC1 lunchtime news about this flyby. Under the name of each astronomer interviewed about this NEO, the BBC gave them the title ‘Astrologer’.
Argh!
Alex.
Reclaim the night!
With a concerted effort in the public media, astronomers could call themselves astrologers and hoi polloi would begin to think of astrologers as scientist rather than mystics, entertainers and/or charlatans.
Vocabulary has changed radically in the past. Consider the terms “nice”, “gay” and “hacker”.
Might be difficult though …
Richard: thank you for revealing the term “capsule aperture” to me. I may well contact Russ and suggest that he consider adding them to APT. He has been very welcoming of suggestions for enhancement in the past.
For only slightly trailed images (major/minor axis < 2, say) an elliptical aperture works very well – as measured by comparing the results for untrailed subs and circular apertures with their trailed counterparts of the same field and a carefully chosen elliptical aperture. If you examine some of my entries in the VSS database you will find some examples of elliptical aperture photometry.
Richard: thanks for revealing the term “capsule aperture” to me. I may well contact Russ and suggest that he consider adding them to APT.
For only slightly trailed images (major/minor axis < 2, say) an elliptical aperture works very well – as measured by comparing the results for untrailed subs and circular apertures with their trailed counterparts of the same field and a carefully chosen elliptical aperture. If you examine some of my entries in the VSS database you will find some examples of elliptical aperture photometry.
I can’t comment on ASTAP but can say that APT (A Photometry Tool by Russ Laher) considers circular apertures to be a special case of arbitrary elliptical apertures. This may be an appropriate way of enhancing ASTAP if the code is going to be uprated anyway…
Elliptical apertures are extremely useful for phometry of galaxies. Might they also be for cometary comae?
Thanks for the link to sourceforge. I will check out its contents.
To be a little more serious this time. I may be able to help to some extent, though not with Peranso (my “a frayed knot” comment) because I picked up a very low amplitude EA variable in my analysis of MAXI J1870+070 data. On that occasion I was lucky because an entire primary eclipse occurred in a single night’s data. Subsequent analysis of a few weeks data, not with Peranso, dug out the secondary minimum. The depths are about 25 and 10mmag respectively, well within the range of an exoplanetary transit. Until the secondary showed up I did wonder whether an exoplanet had been found.
All this took place almost five years ago and I will need to refresh my memory before more detail can be given. One of the projects still waiting for another delivery of round tuits is to see what else can be found in this data set and a few others waiting in storage.
Certainly sounds interesting to me!
I would love something that size and have somewhere to put it. I also have no idea how much it would cost to convert it into usable telescope – preferably a Cassegrain-style to keep the size of the housing to a sensible size.
If the BAA as an organization would like to have a robotic telescope in La Palma, please get in touch. I can provide site, power, internet, ancillary equipment like computers, etc at zero cost. Would a subscription model make sense? A significant contribution to construction costs would give you a guaranteed number of hours per annum for the remainder of your BAA membership.
Over the last few years I have been imaging asteroids named for people I follow Twitter and then tweeting the results.
I encourage others to join me in imaging asteroids named after (ex-)BAA members who have been likewise honoured. Over time we should be able to complete a comprehensive gallery.
If anyone is at least remotely interested I could add the ones already taken to my personal gallery.
Richard, I would love to send you a private email so cut and pasted your address directly from the back page of the latest Journal so as to avoid transcription errors. Unfortunately the mail bounced with a “Address not found” and “Your message wasn’t delivered to xxxxxxxxxx because the address couldn’t be found or is unable to receive email.” where I have made the obvious redaction.
Caveat lector!
Richard’s address has been hyp-henated [sic] in the journal and so rendered invalid. Perhaps future editors may wish to check such things before publication.
Richard, I would love to send you a private email so cut and pasted your address directly from the back page of the latest Journal so as to avoid transcription errors. Unfortunately the mail bounced with a “Address not found” and “Your message wasn’t delivered to xxxxxxxxxx because the address couldn’t be found or is unable to receive email.” where I have made the obvious redaction.
Good question, to which I do not have an answer but do have a suggestion: suck it and see.
Take images of a field rich in stars with accurately measured BVR magnitudes (a Landolt field would be ideal, otherwise find a VS at the AAVSO) and see whether your R-band measurements show a systematic dependency on the tabulated B-V and V-R values. If you have Johnson B and/or V filters, so much the better.
Regular flats should take out spatial variation.
