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Its the original focuser.
A Starlight H18 and a Starlight filter wheel.
It didnt happen after we put some tension of the focuser. Besides which, we were fast slewing an awful lot, so the scope would go from near zenith to near horizon in just a couple of minutes.
We just installed a C11 RASA instead. Can’t use filters but it has a much wider field of view.
I’ve used a 10″ Altair RC quite a bit and found that once I got the tension in the focuser sorted out, focus seems to say pretty tight for several hours. We had a couple of instances where it changed abruptly during the night, but that was some time ago now and seemed to occur only with a heavy CCD.
I thought it was operated by a private company and processed by the military. Pretty difficult to make a high powered radar being turned off a secret, they aint exactly covert 🙂
Happy New Year
Thats a fun system. I wasnt aware of them.
The GRAVES system may be 24/7 but you can imagine it might go down occasionally for cable maintenance or software updates.
Saw online a mention of an upgrade in 2015 but nothing more recent.
Also came across an email address for someone in the French Airforce noted as a contact. I doubt if anyone will complain if you ask them. Ignoring you won’t cost them anything. 🙂 What do you lose?
• French Air Force – Franck Schrottenloher spatial.cdaoa@air.defense.gouv.fr
When you are content that its working well, is there any chance you could give a talk on it to the Shropshire Astro Soc? They are always keen to hear what people in the county are up to!
The C11 RASA and C11 SCT come in at about 32kg, with CCD and filter wheel, call it 35kg. Allowing 50% margin, ~50kg. Thats less than half the system rating of 109kg. Am hoping we are okay, though I would like to be able to slew at 1 deg/sec to keep up with things like the ISS.
A Planewave L600 would be nice but without a Lottery win…..
Will post something here once I have it. Its going to be a stupidly large field of view compared to the f8 Altair RC.
From your picture you use a dome. Does that save you some of the dewing grief?
Have seen some C11 size heaters for £50 but it didnt quote the power…
Useful webpage! Followed a link on that site and have asked them for a quote on the co-mounting bars.
Apparently, the light curve (if a uniform albedo is assumed) implies a length to width ratio of 6:1 or more which is pretty phenomenal. Theres also a spectral response similar to a Jovian Trojan but dissimilar to a KBO. How does that form?
Its name is something or other in Hawaiian. Cannot understand how an interstellar interloper plunging through the solar system and boasting a large aspect ratio has not ended up being called Rama – as fans of AC Clarke would know.
Fascinating object. Shame it was at mag 23. But there are, allegedly, lots more around.
Love the fold in roof support.
How much does the roof weigh? Is it difficult to get back into place at the end of the night?
As i recall, the rainfall maps show Norfolk to be pretty dry and you’re a good way away from any big hills, so does anyone living out that way care to comment on the amount of fog and clear nights?
In Wiltshire, where I am, there do seem to be a few foggy days in the autumn and winter.
Thanks. Thought that might be the case.
As you say, you could do some smoothing but that reduces the temporal resolution. Alternatively, there is processing you could do to assess interline scaling factors, but you would need to do some calibration runs at exactly the same camera settings – perhaps using a non-tumbling satellite as a reference.
Meteors are not my area of study, but is this an interlaced camera?
The saw pattern on the light curves was interesting.
