David's Astronomy Pages
Notes - Session 926 Attempt 3 (2021-10-19)

 
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 - Night Summary Plot
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Bullet TPoint Mapping Run
 

Session Aims & Highlights (2021-10-19)

Main aims

  1. Resync Scope. Resync scope position and perform short mapping run in attempt to update TPoint Model . Failing that perform a new full sky mapping run to create a new TPoint Model.
  2. Dec Motor. Make guiding runs to examine the performance of a new Dec Motor Unit that had been installed earlier in the day. 
  3. Targets.  Acquire images of a selection of variable stars, nearby stars, comets & deep sky targets as allowed by time & conditions.
  4. SkyQuality Chart.  Continue assessment of changes to appearance of new SkyQuality chart.
  5. AstroMain. Check on fixes and new features added to AstroMain 3.44.4

Equipment & Software

Highlights

Notes:

  Summary Plots & Logs

  
Dome & Scope Slewing Performance
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Sky Conditions (Locate Frames)
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Night Sky Summary Plot
Top axis: Sky Brightness at Zenith (in ADU/s)
Lefthand axis: Local Time (hh LT). Righthand axis: Sun Altitude (degs)
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Actual Weather vs Pre-Session Weather Forecast
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Session Event Log
 
 
Session Alerts
Time     Alert Detail
-- No Alerts                --                              

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Operational Issues (2021-10-19, S926 Attempt 3)

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Critical Issues

Major Issues

Minor Issues

Small Defects

Continuous Improvement

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TPoint Mapping Run (2021-10-19)

Following issues where Telescope ReSync & Short Mapping was unable to reduce pointing errors below 15-20 arc mins in sessions S926A, S926B and first part of S926C it was decided to forgoe any observing in the rest of the S926C session and instead run a  full sky mapping run in order to create a new TPoint Model.   Since the sky was very bright due to a nearly full moon it was as a good a time as any.

Mapping Run
With the old model deleted and a new TPoint model object added to TheSky6 an initial telescope sync & map was performed near the interesection of the Meridian and Dec 10. and was following by 3 clusters of Short Mapping runs, but the pointing error didn't seem to come down very quickly (being in range 20-45 arc mins) and a first attempt to make a full sky mapping was aborted after initial 6 points failed to map.    After a couple more short mapping points in the E & W part of sky and after reaching a total of 74 mapped points it was decided that the realtime TPoint Model wasn't pulling the mapped points into the centre of the 'circular' error chart and an intervention was necessary.  TPoint was opened and Fork Flexure & Tube Flexure terms added to the model.   This had a big effect in decreasing the model's error value. 

A full sky mapping run was then made with 123 points, following by an infill run that picked up 13 of 21 points that had failed the first attempt.

As per design change in AstroMain 3.44.5 map points within 15 arc deg of the moon were delibrately cancelled.

In total 179 points were successfully mapped during the night session.   An interim TPoint model was created using 11 terms (6 Equatorial Terms, Fork Flexure, Tube Flexure & 3 harmonic terms) which had a Sky RMS of 106 arc sec (1.8 arc min)  before the telescope was parked.

TPoint Model
Post session analysis (TPoint 1.00.511) showed that without any model terms the raw Sky RMS was 1536 arc sec (25.6 arc min).  
(one point, pt 120 ( at Star RA 02 20 48.77, Star Dec 43 19 54.5),  was a long way off all the others and was marked as an error)

[ The raw Sky RMS of 1536 arc sec  (25.6 arc min) compares with values of 1258 arc sec (21 arc mins) from previous 2020 TPoint run (2020-01-17) and 409 arc sec from 2018 TPoint run (2018-05-17).  It is has been suggested previously that that the larger RMS in 2020 might be due to a poorer polar alignment  compared to 2018 mapping run ?  ]

A model with 6 equatorial terms shows a Sky RMS of 879 arc sec (14.6 arc min).  This decreased to 601 arc sec after the addition of a Tube flexure term, and then decreased to 493 arc sec with the futher addition of the Fork flexure term.

[ Whilst the Tube Flexure(tan) term was used in the 2020 Model, the regular Tube Flexure term seems to give a better RMS reduction in the 2021 TPoint Run ]

Addition of ACES term (Azimuth centering error (Sin) ) brought  the Sky RMS down to 276 arc sec (4.6 arc min). Adding successive harmonic terms brought the Sky RMS further still

Best Model   The 'Best' TPoint Model generated from the mapping run incorporates 16 terms (6 equatorial terms, Fork Flexure, Tube Flexure, ECEC and 7 harmonic terms) and reduces the Sky RMS error down to 59 arc secs (0.98 arc mins). 

[ This is a worse result than the 2020 TPoint Run (39 arc secs (= 0.65 arc mins) ) and 2018 TPoint Run (47 arc secs  (= 0.8 arc mins)).  
It is conjectured that the concentration of 40% of the points into a series of clusters limits the ability to get a good all-sky model. ]

New Mapping Run - 179 data points (2021-10-19)
Scatter Plot.
No Terms Modelled
  New Mapping Run - 179 data points (2021-10-19)
Scatter Plot.
Best Determined TPoint Model  - 16 terms
  Image    Image
 
Orthographic Plot.
No Terms Modelled
Initial clusters of mapped points can be seen
(whilst initially useful, they probably overly-bias the
later TPoint model to the southern sky ?)
  Orthographic Plot.
Best Determined TPoint Model  - 16 terms
(Model fit is worst in the NW sky. However it is
 best in the SW, S & SE sky were the majority
of observing is conducted)
  Image    Image
 

Comparison of new TPoint model with the previous 2020 model

New Mapping Run - 179 data points (2021-10-19)
Scatter Plot with Best Determined TPoint Model  - 16 terms
(6 equatorial terms, Fork Flexure, Tube Flexure,
ACES & 7 harmonic terms)
  Earlier Mapping - 155 data points (2020-01-17)
Scatter Plot with Best Determined TPoint Model  - 16 terms
(6 equatorial terms, Fork Flexure, Tube Flexure(tan),
ACES, ECEC & 6 harmonic terms)
  Image    Image
 
  Image    Image
 
New Mapping Run - 179 data points (2021-10-19)
Scatter Plot. No Terms Modelled
  Earlier Mapping - 155 data points (2020-01-17)
Scatter Plot . No Terms Modelled
  Image    Image
 

Polar Alignment

Comparison of Polar Alignment Information from new mapping run (2021) with that from previous runs (2020) shows there has been no significant change in polar alignment between the two dates.   The moun's polar axis is fairly well aligned in azimuth (1.2 min error only), but has a misalignment in altitude of 19.5 mins.  

Polar Alignment Information from New Mapping Run (2021-10-19)
179 data points.
 Best TPoint Model 16 terms
 
 Image   
     
Polar Alignment Information from Earlier Mapping (2020-01-17)
155 data points.
 Best TPoint Model  - 16 terms
 Image   
     
Polar Alignment Information from Earlier Mapping  (2018-05-17)
121 data points.
 Alternate TPoint Model 8 terms
 
 Image   

 

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