21:58 – 01:52
Finally the clouds have parted and the stars have come out after what has been a very overcast day.
Focus position at 25592
Slewed to M96 again to gather some more data in focus this time.
Viewing Report 29th April 2022
Month: April 2022
Viewing Report 25th April 2022
22:01 – 04:23
M96 galaxy in LRGB on the 12″. Focus position 20691. Started at 22:29. Set up for 4 hours before it disappears behind the trees on the West side of the Meridian. Looking to take 24 x Lum and 8 x RGB all at 300s. Left the dome running and off to bed.
The next morning I reviewed the status of the dome and imaging run and it ran al night without a glitch which was great. However the focus drifted quite considerably so I will need to throw away some of the data. What I need to do is cool down the observatory and the mirror before hand which last night I did not due to the last minute decision to image. Also getting the temperature compensation working on the focuser would help, so maybe time to revisit.
I will do another run on M96 on the next clear night.
Exoplanet TOI-1789b (15/4/2022)
19:35 – 00:40
Tonight is a synchronous group observing campaign with Exoclock. We are going after an exoplanet around star Tycho 1962:0303 / HD 82139. I note that HD 82139 does not come up in TSX but the Tycho star in the right format does. I tried to install the 6GB USNO B database but it fails with an error that the files are not all in the directory. I will try to sort this out later.
Start of transit was 22:28 BST Mid transit 23:37 BST , End of Transit is 00:47 BST, 1 hour after transit is 01:47 BST
https://www.exoclock.space/database/planets/TOI-1789b/
I had an initial problem after starting the imaging run, the focuser went back to 14000 again which meant I was out of focus. I only noticed later and then restarted, fortunately before the start of the transit.
Reviewing the files the following evening I noted the dome closed around 00:40 so 7 mins before the end of Transit. I have no idea why the dome closed…….
Viewing Report 2nd April 2022
20:43 – 01:48
Esprit 120 in the observatory, imaging M37 open cluster with the QHY168C. The gain is 4 and offset 21, the temperature is -25℃ in the camera.
Next went for M67 and left running over night.
New flats, darks and dark flats taken
Viewing Report 27th March 2022
19:28 – 04:35
M36 with Esprit 120 from the dome until 23:45. I took 60 x 60s and 60 x 120s to try and reduce star satuaration.
To guide on the 12″ tonight I realised the camera was not in focus, so I connected the focuser and moved from pos 14000 to pos 21000 which allowed me to get a much higher than 25-30 star signal to noise ratio SNR than before when it was sub 10 and this guided perfectly with perfect star profiles too.
I then went to bed, awoke early at 1am and set the Esprit imaging M59 and took 36 x 300s before heading back to bed. The imaging stopped at 4:35am. Later in the morning when I awoke I took Flats as I had darks from the other night.
