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Luckily, my journal arrived on the 29th, to be honest I wasn’t expecting it this side of 2022 as I live in Ireland and recently heard about a number of scheduled strike dates by Royal Mail staff in December. Hopefully, a compromise is forthcoming soon to end the strikes! In the meantime I can sit back and enjoy reading Decembers journal. Hopefully others will also receive their journal soon.
Thanks everyone for their help and advice, i have just uploaded my first observations to the BAAVSS. I have also sent you an email Andy.
With best regards and clear skies
Many thanks Jeremy for your help. Sure, I can send on those files Jeremy, cheers. There’s a bit of a story behind this because I was actually monitoring a minor planet at the time as requested by some friends in Italy as they were clouded out and it was clear skies here in Ireland (a rare situation I think you would agree!), but noticed two variable stars after some analysis within the FITS images the next day. I checked the AAVSO VS data base and no stars were listed for those locations that were designated as variable. I continued to take many images to gather enough data to cover as much of the lightcurves as possible. Just as I was happy with what I had and we were ready to submit data for one of those stars (ASASSN-V J034127.40+443255.9) we were just beaten to it by a few days, however the second star after additional observations and analyses by my friends in Italy we managed to bag that one (000-BMX-685).
Many thanks Andy for your help, I already have BAAVSS login which you setup for me in June 2019 but I am only getting around to actually compiling and submitting my data now. I am sure the more I practice and the more I learn from experienced VS observers then the easier I think I will manage to submit results that are of value. Cheers Andy.
Thank you Ronan. Really looking forward to this excellent event. Well done to everyone involved in organising Galway AstroFest, hope to see many of our colleagues and friends from the UK attending.
Hello John, that’s excellent data.I’m no Excel expert either but I had a play around with the data and tried a log scale to better represent the lower detection rate quantities, that is to say those events with longer duration’s in a clear manner. I am sure there is probably better ways of representing your data, but it was a bit of fun regardless!
I would just like to echo the positive sentiments of the NEMETODE workshop held at Dunsink Observatory Dublin. Not only was the workshop itself excellent and very informative but it was also great to meet-up with friends, colleagues and like minded people, especially those folks and speakers that travelled from various parts of the UK.
We are truly lucky to have Michael amongst us in the astronomy community to organise and get things done in a professional and timely manner, not only is he of great service to the BAA but also to the wider astronomy community. I would also like to thank Dunsink Observatory and its staff for not only hosting the event but also taking a proactive approach in ensuring things went as smoothly as they did.
Janice made very important points on our shared rich astronomical history and heritage, working in friendly collaboration and establishing new friendships. Events such as this are a wonderful way in ensuring we continue these traditions.
Thank you Roger for your reply and information regarding the HADS programme looks interesting indeed.
My main area of interest is minor planet astrometry and photometry (using either R or V Bessel filters) of which Cherryvalley Observatory submits results for publication to the Minor Planet Centre and the Minor Planet Bulletin.
The interesting thing about monitoring asteroids in this way is that on occasions a known variable star is within the field of view (sometimes for two or three hours) and that being the case there is four years of data on the observatory’s computer just waiting to be analysed for VS’s. I have to admit that I avoided such stars deliberately so as not to skew the photometry results of the asteroid under observation.
Now there is a realization of doing both VS’s and asteroid lightcurves, it’s an extra workload but could prove to be interesting. I look forward Roger to contacting you soon.Best wishes and clear skies
MikeHi Jeremy
Many thanks for your reply and for the link to your excellent work. Yes, it’s good starting out to see results from monitoring a known variable star over a short period of time as it gives one a chance to confirm results with published data. An added confidence to then explore more challenging objects.I won’t be able to make it to the meteor section meeting this time unfortunately but I hope everyone attending has a fantastic time indeed.
Best wishes and clear skies
Mike
Cherryvalley Observatory (I83)Thank you Nick for the excellent information and the heads-up on this, I just signed up. Looking forward to imaging comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Best wishes & clear skies
Mike
Hi Guys
Really excellent work and excellent images, thanks for posting. Clouded out here unfortunately at the time. Just wondering if there was a rotation period reported for 2004 BL86?
I checked the Minor Planet Ephemeris Service for this object and it reported that its apparent motion across the sky was in the order of 159 arcsec/min around closest flyby. A quick calculation for my own telescope system with a pixel scale of 2.17 arcsec/pixel indicates that a maximum exposure time of 0.8 seconds was allowable before trailing would occur of the asteroid target! I think this would indeed be a big challenge to obtain good SNR values and even more so for a rotation curve! I am guessing that those in possession of higher end tracking mounts can somehow program the mount to follow the asteroid instead of sidereal rate.Best wishes and clear skies
MikeThanks Nick for that interesting information and your impressive wide-angle image of comet Lovejoy. I did some visual observing tonight with 10×50 binoculars, although it had the appearance of just a fuzzy patch I do believe I seen an associated greenish colour but it was very subtle. Looking forward to more stunning images of comet Lovejoy!
Best wishes and clear skies
Mike
Really amazing and stunning images there guys, well done indeed. Excuse my ignorance but what causes a “Tail Disconnection” event to occur or is it well understood?
With best wishes and clear skies
Mike
Thanks Jeremy, yes a very interesting project indeed in not only learning how to image such objects but also learning more about Dr. Halton Arp’s life and work.
Cherryvalley Observatory hopes to continue imaging Arp objects across the coming seasons, just need those clear skies!Thanks Paul and Liz, you guys are doing amazing work. I have just ordered “The Arp Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies A Chronicle and Observer’s Guide” to get a grounding in understanding and imaging the Arp objects.
Best wishes
MikeNice Work Callum, an interesting image indeed, thanks for posting (thanks also for the latest Pluto image update on your blog too). Imaging Pluto is on my-to-do list sometime and with the “New Horizons” space probe on its way there presently I am sure Pluto will be more in the public domain, I wonder what new discoveries awaits!
Mike
