Robin Leadbeater

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Viewing 20 posts - 461 through 480 (of 1,188 total)
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  • in reply to: AY Lac #583224
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    ALPY 600 ~12A resolution. A blue continuum with weak Balmer absorption

    in reply to: Filtering Spectra #583219
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    Sorry Andrew, I missed this

    Impressive.  I have just updated my copy of Visual Spec and I see Valerie has added a wavelets feature

    in reply to: Chocolate telescope #583175
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    It’s amazing how people go on finding creative ways to waste their time and resources”

    I have to say I’ve done my fair share of that in astronomy too 🙂

    in reply to: Filtering Spectra #583141
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    I like that the residuals follow the expected shape, noisy at the ends of the spectrum where the sensitivity is lower. It gives confidence that you are removing noise, not signal

    in reply to: call for spectrum of possible supernova AT2020scc #583093
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    Now classified as a type Ia supernova by Italian amateur Claudio Balcon using a home built spectrograph designed around the Star Analyser. Congratulations to Claudio and the XOSS team for their discovery !

     

    Robin

    in reply to: Darks #583062
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    An interesting example has just popped up showing the problems a rogue warm pixel can cause

    https://britastro.org/node/23983

    in reply to: V1396 Cyg #583057
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    Looks like it is flickering for a few minutes when it drops. Drifting over a hot/cold pixel perhaps ?

    Robin

    in reply to: Darks #583056
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    I don’t have any experience with CMOS (yet) but with my CCD cameras I redo them every few months. Bias frames take no time at all but getting enough  long exposure darks eg 1200 sec can take all night so I just leave the camera running  on a cloudy night. I then produce a defect map from these and scale the master darks depending on exposure. I find the only significant changes have been with hot and warm pixels (and with one camera a faint line defect appeared) These are not a disaster as a cosmics removal tool normally zaps them but it is better if they can be fixed at source using an up to date defect map

    With spectroscopic flats it is important to redo them if you move the wavelength range. I normally do them for each observation with the LHIRES and once a night with the ALPY. it takes little time with the built in calibration units though the results with the LHIRES at the blue end are very suspect due to light leaking past the slit.

    I aim to sum at least 20 exposures (30 for ALPY flats where the light level is very low at the blue end)

    Cheers

    Robin

    in reply to: possible supernova in nearby NGC 5002 #583030
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    Estimates from Stan Howerton last night give SN 2020rcq 12.5 V so still rising but SN 2020qxp at 14.5 so probably sub-luminous near maximum as suggested by the TNS classifiers

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/146026104@N07/50246735516

    in reply to: possible supernova in nearby NGC 5002 #583009
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    Magnitude estimates from Odd Trondal on ISN_chat last night  SN 2020qxp ~14.5     SN 2020rcq  ~13.4

    in reply to: possible supernova in nearby NGC 5002 #583007
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    SN 2020qxp is now also confirmed as a Ia and the classifiers suggest it should be near maximum light in which case it should in theory be  approaching  ~mag 11 excluding extinction in the parent galaxy.  They also compare it though with SN 2007on which was classed as “transitional” (ie with a luminosity lower than normal for a 1a but more luminous than sub luminous 91bg-types).  SN 2007on was considered a good candidate for a white dwarf merger supernova event eg

    https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.09469

    The light curve of SN 2020qxp could be interesting

    Cheers

    Robin

    in reply to: Batch processing spectra #583003
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    a quick example, red is the final profile from the individuals

    in reply to: Batch processing spectra #583002
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    Hi Andrew,

    If you untick the box that deletes the intermediate files, ISIS saves the individual profiles in a time series (as @pro_n.fit)

    Cheers

    Robin

    in reply to: Nova in Cas #583000
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    Hi John,

    There was an excellent detailed commentary on the evolution of nova spectra by Prof Steve Shore during the Nova Del 2013 ARAS campaign here

    http://www.astrosurf.com/aras/novae/Nova2013Del.html

    He has also issued an ATel on the current nova based on amateur spectra

    http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=13939

    Cheers

    Robin

    in reply to: possible supernova in nearby NGC 5002 #582997
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    A bit closer still, same part of the sky (unfortunately).  Confirmed as a 1a.  Rising rapidly, heading for ~mag 11 ?

    https://wis-tns.weizmann.ac.il/object/2020rcq

    Robin

    in reply to: C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) #582979
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    Thanks David,

    I approached this not knowing much about it just to see what might be possible to measure but think there is other pro work like this around, though most of it seems to be concentrated on the coma rather than the tail. I’ve not seen anything like this by amateurs though. In fact I cannot recall seeing amateur tail spectra of any comet and it was quite a surprise when I recorded it as it looked so different to the coma spectra you usually see, with CO+  in place of C2.  The Sodium distribution looks similar to what the PSI team got  which is what I was mainly interested in trying to pick up.

    https://psi.edu/news/neowisesodiumtail

    How far the CN spreads surprised me. I suspect the distribution across the tail actually spreads much further even than my plot suggests. The measured distribution approaches zero steeply rather than gradually tailing off suggesting it is clipped. It likely extended beyond the ends of the slit so was clipped when I used the edges of the field to subtract the sky background. 

    It would be nice to measure further out along the tail but I already had to stitch 2 slit lengths together to cover the width of the tail even this close in. 

    Cheers

    Robin

    in reply to: C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) #582975
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    I have finally completed the analysis of my spectroscopic cross sections through coma and tail taken 2020-07-13 and added a poster to my members page

    https://britastro.org/node/23655

    It shows some interesting differences in the distribution of the various components which make up the cometary material.

    The CN and Sodium components are seen in both coma and tail but the C2 component which dominates the  coma emission spectrum  is absent in the tail, replaced by the CO+ component. 

    The spatial distributions are significantly different for the various components. In particular the sodium emission in the coma is confined to a narrow central region but the CN component is widespread in both the coma and tail. The Sodium distribution in the tail is skewed anticlockwise relative to the dust, consistent with the presence of a separate sodium tail.

    Cheers

    Robin

     

    in reply to: Nova in Cas #582954
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    Here is the region from H beta and redwards covering the “Fe curtain” region at R~1950 with the LHIRES and 600l/mm grating

    The H beta FWHM is ~360km/s after correcting for the spectrograph resolution but there may be some higher velocities redwards in the line profiles

    Cheers

    Robin

    in reply to: Nova in Cas #582945
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    Hi David,

    I would not bother attempting flat correction of slitless spectra. Normal flat correction techniques do not work because each point is a mix of spectral and spatial information. (The technique used on professional setups is complex and involves generating effectively a “flat cube”  for each wavelength at each point in the field.) My advice would be to take a conventional flat beforehand to check for any obvious dust donuts etc and place your target and reference star zero orders as near as possible on the same pixel avoiding any dust spots so any gross flat effects eg vignetting etc cancel.

    Cheers

    Robin

    in reply to: New Starlight Xpress spectrometer #582931
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    The mirror slit does have a couple of drawbacks too though. Bright stars are normally guided when on the slit using the overspill. (Typically the slit width is chosen to match the star FWHM so there is always some light which does not pass through the slit) The resulting image is “Hamburger” shaped though, split by the slit, which some guider programs struggle with. Also because unlike an air slit, the light has to pass through glass this can limit measurements at the UV end of the spectrum. (The beam spliiter has the same problem though.)  The original not for profit LHIRES kit had jaws lovingly hand polished by volunteers but that would be expensive to do commercially.  Christian Buil has been experimenting with reflective air slits (from the base ALPY module) for the UVEX, along with using all reflective telescope optics and a different glass for the camera window to reach a remarkable 3200 Angstroms. Beyond that atmospheric ozone absorption becomes an issue.

    http://www.spectro-aras.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=2277&start=10#p12459

    Cheers

    Robin

Viewing 20 posts - 461 through 480 (of 1,188 total)