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Asteroid Close approach Tonight (Mag 9)

Started by Whitters, Aug 17, 2002, 18:25:00

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0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

Mike

Those pictures are truly fantastic - Of course you have to take into account he is using an LX90 and a Takahashi !! They are some of the best I have seen yet for the Vesta or Toucam.

(I must fix mine... I must fix mine... I must.....)
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. Carl Sagan

Ian

Hello Gene, welcome to OAS.

sorry, I should have refreshed my memory about your kit. Your mount is a alot more robust than mine so I guess weight is a less of a concern.

You've got me thinking now, is -22 significantly better than -10 or is it a case of diminishing returns?

Anonymous

Hi Ian,
Thanks for the welcome!
With the particular CCD in the cam, at about -10C and less absolute(not from ambient) the number of hot/warm pixels just about goes to 0. The use of a fan took it to -10C from ambient, so a 20C day only gave me a 10C cam. With water, 20C ambient and 10C water gives me -12C inside the chamber. If it is 25C ambient it starts to struggle a little , but I still get -10C absolute inside the chamber, for a -35C differential from ambient. The difference between -5C and -10C absolute is amazing and for the way I use it only requires a flat frame correction and no dark subtraction is necessary.

Gene

Ian

well that explains the trouble you've gone to! Here, we're lucky to get ambients over 20 at night in summer, it's usually in a region of 15. What we do have plenty of at the moment is dew. Do you get condensation on the outside of the window?

p.s. feel free to register :wink:

Greg

Nice to hear from the State of the People in the US.

Drop in again

Anonymous

Greg, thanks, I will!

Ian, I did have quite a dew prob on the window, even with a bag of dessicant in the Tadapter tube between the window and focal reducer.
I did two things about it, the first was position the window farther up the Tadapter tube and second was built a nichrome wire heater for the Tadapter tube of about 2.5 watts. Moving the window forward about 18mm seems to have fixed it and until now I have not needed the heater, but it has not been exceptionaly bad dew wise, even though the humidity has been high.

I got so frustrated with the dewing on the window that I would just give up when I cleared it with a hair dryer (and also dry'ed the bag of dessicant) more than twice, because the clearing only lasted for <10 minutes.

lynol1000

I registered as lynol1000, thanks for the invite Ian.

BTW: Added a little more science to my web page on the flyby. Photometry and positional info from GSC2.2 that for stars that had a Vmag. This was added to a new version of the composite made from the frames from the gif animation.
http://www.geocities.com/lynol1000/2002_ny40_08172002/index.html

Gene

Rick


Whitters

Gene those are superb images. I must get my Toucam modified.

lynol1000

I am so plagued with light pollution that I lose a lot of dynmaic range trying to get 'pretty' pictures, but as a platform for digging thru the light pollution I can get some pretty deep things.

Now, for the full capabilites of the cam thru its full dynamic range, check the site Ian pointed at Etienne site:
http://www.astrosurf.com/astrobond/ebcipr.htm

He has just posted a new M57 image to yahoo egroup QCUIAG that is amazing (along with his Veil neb shots) !

Gene

Rick

Did anyone else see the images from the William Herschel Telescope of the encounter?

http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/press/2002NY40.jpg

http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/press/2002NY40.gif

They're from the September 4th PR on http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/