kinetic
29-01-2018, 11:19 AM
I have been after this target for years.
Some background:
It is named in honour of the late Muriel Utting, author and honorary historian of the Perth Observatory.
In 1993 Muriel was given the honour of having a minor planet in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter named after her.
Minor Planet 4469 (Utting) was discovered between 1978 and 1980 by Perth Observatory astronomers.
the following is courtesy of the Kalamunda Local History website:
"Muriel was an active community member, and owner-editor of the Kalamunda Reporter from 1965 - 1973.
She worked at furthering her own education, receiving a Bachelor of Arts from Murdoch University in 1980, a Masters Degree in philosophy
in 1994 and a PhD in 1997 at age 83 for her three books researching the history of the Perth Observatory.
Muriel's books, The history of the Perth Observatory Volumes I, II and III together with other publications Windows to the Southern Skies
and Cooke's Perth Observatory are all held in the City of Kalamunda Local History Collection located at Kalamunda Library.
For more information on Muriel and the Perth Observatory go to www.kalamunda.wa.gov.au/LHC"
My own Mum was named after Muriel, who is her Aunt on her side of the family. Another Uncle of Mum's was
Norman Dyke, who was the former ASSA librarian and operator of the Mawson Lakes Levels Campus Planetarium.
It was a young exposure to these two relatives that first got me into astronomy, nearly 40 years ago! :)
I have a few of great-aunty Muriel's books.
Now to get this target was hard. It is currently hovering around -2° South declination but is always in my city glow
when I try for targets in my backyard. Years previous to this one it was too far north in declination to even try for.
Also, my DSI II mono camera needed to be modified a bit to even stand a chance. With home made peltier cooling
done years ago (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=52855) I could reach stars as low as mag16 and 17 but I don't think I ever reached 18.
Additionally, summer attempts sometimes had the ambient temp of the dome around 25-35°C and cooling might have
only dropped that to 10-15°C. Then I would have to watch the dew point. I had on board dew heater control (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=88572) but rarely used this in summer,
mainly winter.
So I recently modified it to 2-stage cooling by adding another 6A peltier module, improving the heatsink on the hot
side and adding a 2nd fan. Now I can reach below 5°C on a night with 35°C ambient.
On the night of 28th January 2018 I was successful and nabbed the very faint trail of Utting4469.
JPL small object database put it's magnitude at 18.74 and Cartes puts it at 18.7.
JPL Ephemeris co-ordinates and also Cartes show a match.
By mid February it should have brightened to around mag 18.3 and still be around -2° declination.
So there are many more chances to improve my image from this initial one!
Steve
Some background:
It is named in honour of the late Muriel Utting, author and honorary historian of the Perth Observatory.
In 1993 Muriel was given the honour of having a minor planet in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter named after her.
Minor Planet 4469 (Utting) was discovered between 1978 and 1980 by Perth Observatory astronomers.
the following is courtesy of the Kalamunda Local History website:
"Muriel was an active community member, and owner-editor of the Kalamunda Reporter from 1965 - 1973.
She worked at furthering her own education, receiving a Bachelor of Arts from Murdoch University in 1980, a Masters Degree in philosophy
in 1994 and a PhD in 1997 at age 83 for her three books researching the history of the Perth Observatory.
Muriel's books, The history of the Perth Observatory Volumes I, II and III together with other publications Windows to the Southern Skies
and Cooke's Perth Observatory are all held in the City of Kalamunda Local History Collection located at Kalamunda Library.
For more information on Muriel and the Perth Observatory go to www.kalamunda.wa.gov.au/LHC"
My own Mum was named after Muriel, who is her Aunt on her side of the family. Another Uncle of Mum's was
Norman Dyke, who was the former ASSA librarian and operator of the Mawson Lakes Levels Campus Planetarium.
It was a young exposure to these two relatives that first got me into astronomy, nearly 40 years ago! :)
I have a few of great-aunty Muriel's books.
Now to get this target was hard. It is currently hovering around -2° South declination but is always in my city glow
when I try for targets in my backyard. Years previous to this one it was too far north in declination to even try for.
Also, my DSI II mono camera needed to be modified a bit to even stand a chance. With home made peltier cooling
done years ago (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=52855) I could reach stars as low as mag16 and 17 but I don't think I ever reached 18.
Additionally, summer attempts sometimes had the ambient temp of the dome around 25-35°C and cooling might have
only dropped that to 10-15°C. Then I would have to watch the dew point. I had on board dew heater control (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=88572) but rarely used this in summer,
mainly winter.
So I recently modified it to 2-stage cooling by adding another 6A peltier module, improving the heatsink on the hot
side and adding a 2nd fan. Now I can reach below 5°C on a night with 35°C ambient.
On the night of 28th January 2018 I was successful and nabbed the very faint trail of Utting4469.
JPL small object database put it's magnitude at 18.74 and Cartes puts it at 18.7.
JPL Ephemeris co-ordinates and also Cartes show a match.
By mid February it should have brightened to around mag 18.3 and still be around -2° declination.
So there are many more chances to improve my image from this initial one!
Steve