Objects

Session Notes

IC 65 - Spiral Galaxy & Supernovae 2009mf Photometric Monitoring - Variables - RX And, U And, CI Cyg, SS Cyg, BL Lac, CN Ori, FO Ori, FU Ori, RU Peg, Per, GK Per, RR Tau W And, Z And, HR Aur, NV Ori, ER UMa attempts (failed due to excessive wind shake or cloud) Astrometric Monitoring - Nearby Stars - Luyten's Star

- Evening session (3.6 hr). Patchy conditions, clear at times, but intervals with cloud and increased wind.   Wind increasing again at end of session. Also lost connection with LX200R at end of session after AIS program crash. Visit to observatory showed that scope was not working using the Autostar II controller and could be neither Parked or Slewed to its normal closedown position. Elected to power down the scope and then restarted scope.  Unlike session S405 (when the Autostar II wouldn't come back at all), this time the scope restarted normally and was able to be slewed back to its rough park position.  (scope will needed to be aligned on a suitable bright star at the start of the next session) - Session operated under semi-automated control, with remote monitoring. - Ambient Temperature:  Initially falling to -2 deg C, then climbing back to -0.5 degC for one hour during period of cloud. On clearing temperature fell to -3.5 degC (minimum), before starting to climb again as conditions again deteriorated.   - CCD operation -30 degC (at 61% average cooling).   - main objectives of the session was to acquire images of key selected stars for ongoing photometric and astrometric analysis - opportunity taken to infill time during cloudy interval with some additional 45s, 60s, 90s Dark Frames  - - Attempted a follow up session on 2009-01-02, but aborted as it was not possible to start up the LX200R scope. Attempted to put scope into Safe Mode in order to upload a new copy of 4.2g firmware but couldn't get either Meade ASU or StarPatch to successfully connect to Autostar II. See notes.    - Notes from 2009-12-27