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Same in Wiltshire. Impressed by the Highlands having 4 clear nights in the last week when we cannot manage 1.
Nicely placed for observation from the UK then. I’m looking forward to imaging this.
How far apart will it be from the vehicle that launched it?
Lodestars are pretty good – 1st gen is probably good enough, as is the ZWO ASI120mm. I’m considering those for my camera to do a similar thing. Saw a second hand Lodestar today for £150 and the ASI is similarly priced. A significant part of the cost would be the lens on top… I will probably control mine via a Raspberry Pi.
I’m sure other have better ideas though.
Oh, SOLO. That has saved some cursing on my part….
Thank you!
EDIT: the 56MPH winds forecast for here at the time kind of dampen enthusiasm….
Apologies if my flippant cynicism inadvertently caused offence. It had not occurred to me I was making a political statement. I felt I was merely commenting on an aspect of modern day life familiar to many. Good products being tweaked to increase the profit margin and becoming less attractive to many. I would cite the frivolous example of a Mars Bar. The “New Improved” iterations have made them smaller, always less substantial and always containing less chocolate solids. Same name, different product.
The S&T magazine was originally really very good indeed – many serious UK astronomers read it and I avidly consumed it when I returned to amateur astronomy in the early 90s. I am proud to have had an article published in it. It was a great read. Something to look forward to. Then, someone else bought it.
The reviews became less in depth, material of interest to non-beginners became less common, several good writers left and it became much, much, thinner. I certainly gave up my subscription as it diminished. From my viewpoint it became not worth the money when it stopped serving the whole community.
I am delighted to hear S&T is thriving again and that de Cicco et al are still doing good work. If I ever come across a copy I shall give it a go.
But, for future reference: what would be an acceptable non-political phrase to refer to the people who, from my viewpoint, ruined a quality product?
The 4″ Unistellar you are currently using is quite capable of making useful observations. I am currently using a 4″ Skywatcher Newt to look at variable stars and started submitting results – after a 30 year gap. Working out the magnitudes of the stars is something fun to do on the numerous cloudy nights.
The instrumentation bar to participation in useful observing is very low. A pair of binoculars and a notebook can be a good starting point.
I would just note that the second paragraph of the website’s About Us webpage makes a big thing about the society encouraging useful observation:
“Since the beginning the BAA has encouraged amateurs to make scientifically valuable observations, often in collaboration with professional colleagues.”
I am a deep sky observer and so far from against taking the occasional “pretty pictures” as my personal Album testifies – IC342 for example. But, apart from as training exercises, what would astronomy gain from hundreds more images of the Messier Top Ten? What makes the BAA stand out from the vast majority of local societies is the degree to which it does encourage useful observation.
On the subject of instruments I suggested a RASA and a C11 as a wide field and narrow field/filtered co-mounted straw man option, but 2x C11 could also work nicely if a spectroscopic option was supported (and would not strain a Paramount or 10 Micron) – I just figured planetary observing would probably be more widely supported than spectral.
Will be interested to see what, if anything, transpires.
Grant (a humble ordinary member) 🙂
I think its more to do with the angle the solar panels are being maintained at.
I was impressed enough with them making naked-eye visibility. 🙂
Flares happen petty much every night (if the satellite isn’t eclipsed by the Earth). I have certainly recorded some as mag 5.
Worth noting that, depending on their stance, they may not flare when they are nearest the antisolar point, but up to 45 minutes earlier or later. I recorded one flare 3 hours later than antisolar – but that satellite was thrusting at the time.
Alternatively, how about setting up a scope at a hosted site and giving each section nights in turn so the VSS can go through dozens of VS a night, the comet section can do all comets visible from site and greater than mag 18, the Asteroid section could chase low phase angles and some compromise reached to allow good amounts of planetary observing at the most favourable point of the nights. You could cover a lot with a Paramount and co-mounted C11 and 11″ RASAs.
A simple criteria: data collected must lead to papers or it doesn’t get collected.
I use a 114mm Newtonian riding piggyback on the back of an 11″ RASA V1 mounted on a Paramount MEII. So, way within the mount weight limit. Seems to work very well (the 114mm is used as a autoguiding scope), but I could envisage trouble if it wasn’t being used in a roll off roof shed – as the slit of most domes would be too narrow.
While between OTAs, I have been using my 114mm guidescope and an unfiltered Lodestar to occasionally take some measurements of LL And. Because they were mainly taken on moonlit or partially cloudy nights (and I am a deep sky observer) I just let the camera run a series of 30s frames in the hope it might drive down the errors that would be present with such a small light grasp instrument. Its not the best way to do this sort of thing, but it was simple to do and fun.
To analyse the data, I wrote Python code to plate solve all the frames, locate all the stars, compare the catalogue stars to those on my frames, established the Zp for each frame and thus derive the mag of LL And. I then took the median result (mag1).
To make things more interesting, I also looked at 4 comparison stars from the AAVSO chart and derived mags (mag2) for those using the sums of the fluxes measured from all the frames. I may extend the number of comparison stars.
The results are these:
Date Mag1 Mag2 Magerr Frames
210917 13.15 13.32 0.15 122
210918 13.39 13.60 0.4 212
210921 13.71 13.90 0.25 307
210922 13.77 13.98 0.25 277
210929 14.58 14.71 0.35 156
211010 17.41 17.26 0.8 179
Usable results could have been obtained with far fewer frames, but I had hoped to see some evidence of superhump activity (yeah I know) so I just let it run.
What I am noticing from this – apart from how interesting LL And is – is that the Mag1 value seems consistently brighter than the Mag2 value. I won’t be submitting any observations formally until I figure out what causes that. Has anyone any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong?
EDIT: Andy worked out the problem and I am ashamed that I didn’t myself. One approach used the Gaia g catalogue mag values and the other used the AAVSO sequence mags ie V.
Thats really worth knowing. I shall try a copy the next time I see one….
The di Cicco reviews were always a high point for me. They could be trusted.
We did have an incredible run of clear skies though. I recall not using the 4th clear night in a row because I was so tired.
