David's Astronomy Pages CCD Images - Session 38 (2003-01-11) Images (S37)   Images (Main)   Home Page   Images (S39)

Notes (S00038)

This imaging session was of approximately 5 hours duration and ran mainly unattended under script control.  A number of check visits were made to the observatory  to check progress.   These proved very necessary to correct a number of problems.  A total of 249 CCD Images were taken as part of the following set of tasks :

• Images of comet P/1992 Q1 (Brewington) 

• Images of 19 variables in constellations And, Peg & Lac

• Attempted images of comet P/1992 Q1 (Brewington) 

• Images of 16 variable stars in constellations Cam, Per & Tau

• Images of 10 variable stars in constellations Aur, Gem, Mon & Cnc 

• Attempted mosaic of UGC 2450 (Abell 407)

• Images of Quasar 3C175.0 (manual acqusition)

• Attempted Images of galaxies M77,  NGC 1087, NGC 1090  &  NGC 1219

With ambient temperatures were -2 to -5 deg C, the session was curtailed by heavy frost, including development of ice crystals on the front corrector lens of the scope .  

The specific problems encountered which required intervention to script operation 

• One of the targets (P/1992 Q1 (Brewington)) moved below a limit line during the course of imaging, as this corresponded to a roof line this lead to 'blank' images.  The script was aborted and restarted with next target. (It is probable that the script might have failed at this point as TheSky would have stopped the telescope being slewed to any other targets)

• Slew to GCVS X CAM caused the CCD Camera to just touch the base of the LX200, specifically the camera appeared to 'jam' itself on to the top of the RA knob.  Observing this the script was aborted. The Dec limit line was lowered and the script restarted. This time the  object was skipped by the script as it lay beyond the limits.

• A read format error associated with an incorrectly formatted Mosaic coordinates files

• Development of dew / ice crystals on the front lens of the scope rendered images of galaxies (M77, MGC 1087 etc) practically useless.

Back to Top

Variable Stars 

Variables in Pegasus, Andromeda, Lacerta were imaged using Automated Scripting (see Scripting).  New set of variables in constellations Auriga, Gemini, Cancer, Camelopardalis, Perseus and Taurus were commenced.

Back to Top

Quasar 3C175.0

Quasar 3C175.0  (Catalog Mag 16.6)

CCD frames,  6 x 2 minute exposures taken on 2003-01-11 21:59 to 22:13h UT (#38209-14) 11.4 x 7.6 arc mins

Back to Top