Although I cannot use the Altair finder as a guidescope as intended, I can still bolt it onto the top of the array with the video camera. I can then use this for the occasional polar alignment check, or to take the odd wide field video clip as/when required. Picture to follow.
Well although I was clouded out last night I still managed to image asteroid 2012 DA14 through the thinnest part of the cloud 🙂 A single solitary one-minute exposure as the asteroid was moving through Draco at 22:51. The planetarium screen shot shows the region of Draco with three stars arrowed – these are the corresponding three stars arrowed in the mini-WASP image. Nothing to shout about, but at least I got a record of the thing – and it was a huge bonus when I thought I’d got nothing.
Well as predicted – the only way I’m actually seeing the little blighter is via the live feeds. Sky clear while Meridian weather did their live piece from here, even got the mini-WASP array focused up and ready to go on Algieba. Then, just as the asteroid would have been getting into view – in came the cloud. Just a tad cheesed off at the moment.
An unexpectedly clear night last night – spent all the time working on the Hyperstar – managed to get about 90% of the way there in setting it up, next outing should see it imaging again 🙂
So what are the chances of two clear nights in a row?? Pretty remote according to my Diary. However, Meridian Weather are due to be here at the New Forest Observatory tonight for a live broadcast (watch Meridian TV from about 6:15 p.m. onwards to follow the action) talking about the near fly-by asteroid 2012 DA14 which will make an appearance a little later in the evening. I have the mini-WASP array primed and ready to go as well as a Canon 5D MkII which I might try out in video mode just to see what happens. In case of poor sky conditions I have the indoor control centre hooked up to 5 live broadcasts – so one way or another I should be able to see the little blighter during this evening.
How can we protect our whales and at the same time put destructive nuclear devices to good use? I propose strapping tactical nuclear devices to our larger whales that have an acoustic sensor to pick up the whale’s heartbeat. Heartbeat stops – off goes the nuclear warhead – simples. It is unlikely that the whale will die of natural causes in the middle of a populated harbour, but it is not beyond the wit of man to cover this unlikely event with an appropriate transponder.
There is a large circular emission nebula in the head of Orion centred on Meissa. This huge H-alpha region lies just above Betelgeuse and Bellatrix and actually spans the region between those two stars – so this is a huge emission nebula, although it is also very faint. This image is centred on the star Meissa and although it is composed of 8 x 20-minute subs using all 3 cameras on the mini-WASP array – the emission nebulosity is barely visible. I do remember the difficulty in dragging out faint nebulosity with the Sky 90/M25C combo so this was not unexpected. I need to move the H-alpha filter in place on the Sky 90 and see if I can pick up more of the nebula. This will be next outing if the skies ever clear.
This is the Carbon star 4-Omicron 1 Orionis which lies close to Aldebaran in the constellation Orion. SAO94176 has a magnitude of 4.71 and so is naked eye from a reasonably dark site.
This is a mini-WASP array image using 11 x 5-minute subs from all 3 cameras.
I fitted an Orion finder/guider scope to the top plate of the mini-WASP array today. Well it was raining and I had nothing better to do. However there is a purpose in the madness. I will simply swap the guide camera over from the Megrez guide scope (leaving the Megrez in place) and see if I can get decent guiding with the Orion guider – if I do get decent guiding then I can think about moving on to step 2. Before step 2 however, I should mention something about my Orion guide scope. If I turned the scope through 180 degrees in a vertical direction – something rattled – clearly not good! Tracked it down to the front lens actually moving in the cell as the tube did not push up against the lens to hold it in place!! Would not have made a very good guide scope with the lens moving as I panned across the sky. Easily sorted – I made a “washer” out of a short piece of thin electrical wire – this was sufficiently thick to hold the lens in place against the finder tube. O.K. so next step was to drill and tap a couple of holes in the top plate to take the dovetail holder for the Orion guider. This was not without incident and led to a broken tap and a broken screw 🙁 Never mind – carry on. Managed to fit the Orion guider firmly to the top plate and I’ll check to see if I can get it working next outing. However, if it does work, it cannot stay fixed on the top plate as the whole array is then too big to fit the dome aperture. I will need to “undersling” the guide scope from a cantilever fitted to the top plate so the guide scope sits between the top pair of mini-WASP imaging scopes. The Megrez 80 guide scope will be removed and replaced by a TS 80mm triplet APO imaging scope. The vacant TS 80 position will be taken up by my second (now fully collimated) Sky 90/filter-wheel/M26C/Robofocus. All I will be missing will be a 4th M26C and Robofocus for the TS 80 – all in good time. And at that point – that will be it – I won’t be able to add anything else to the mini-WASP framework so that will be its final incarnation. The configuration will be the 2 x Sky 90s in landscape mode, both imaging the same FOV. The 2 x TS 80s will be in portrait mode with their FOVs overlapping (mosaic) so that they cover the FOV of the Sky 90s. Hopefully that will then be the end of any further changes/modifications to this project which has driven me up the wall!!
All I wanted to do was drill and tap 4 holes in the top plate of the mini-WASP array to take a dovetail fitting that will hold an Orion finder/guider scope. 4 holes drilled, three tapped when the tap broke in the 4th hole – never managed to do that before. Got the tap out – no bother, it was most of the way through, so I’ll just put an M4 screw in and finish the job off. Turned the head completely off the screw with virtually no force – never done that before either. Just as well it will do fine with three screws, I’ll drill the broken screw out another year 🙁
