Keen to undertake project

[faaarwest2k]

Hi, I own an 8 inch Dobsonian and binoculars, and I am pretty familiar with the sky and science. I am keen to get involved in contributing research data from my backyard. Do you have any suggestions?

[madbadgalaxyman]

Hello Scott,

Measuring the magnitudes of variable stars is a possibility. The technique involves eyeball comparison of a variable star with other stars of known magnitude.

Some observers can get down to about 0.1 to 0.2 mag accuracy on a variable star, though others with more expertise may disagree with me on this estimate of accuracy.
I tried variable star observation for a while, and I found it an interesting excercize, especially trying to devise techniques to beat down the error levels of the observations. I found that it may be possible for eyeball techniques to measure the brightness of a star to an accuracy of about 0.1 magnitude (10 percent), though how to do this reliably, and with a standardized technique, may be a very challenging task.
It was fun to wonder what the variable star was going to do, and then to go and observe it and find out!

Also, there have been some scientifically important cases in which a dust cloud was found to be passing in front of a star, and causing the star to vary in brightness! (e.g. the central star of the planetary nebula NGC 2346)

Looking for bright supernovae in nearby galaxies is another possiblity. If you choose your galaxies correctly (nothing too faint or too far away), and select those galaxies with a high rate of formation (and destruction!) of massive stars, then you stand a good chance of being the first to spot a bright supernova in a nearby galaxy.

I personally have never done supernova patrol work, but I have extracted some techniques from the professional literature that can derive the rate of star formation in a galaxy (so as to select those galaxies with the largest numbers of very luminous stars), and I also can teach supernova searchers which specific galaxies NOT to search,
e.g. those in which the supernova-producing stars are very likely to be too dimmed by dust extinction.....and therefore non-detectable with specific equipment.

Smart people have done remarkable science with very modest equipment such as yours,
e.g. the late Erwin van der Velden produced images of Mercury with an 8 inch and a Webcam..... images which were useful to NASA!! Erwin seemed to do nothing but astronomy, and what he didn't know about planets could be written on the back of a postage stamp.
( http://www.erwinvandervelden.nl/index.htm )

I suspect, therefore, that the technique of making multiple very-short exposures of a planet in order to select those with the best seeing, and then combining these exposures in some way, is still yielding scientifically useful images of the planets. (I know little about the planets, as I focus exclusively on galaxies!)


cheers,
Robert

[AstralTraveller]

Minor planet occultations is an area where amateurs can make a real contribution. Professional observatories can't match the spatial coverage of amateurs, nor their mobility. These days the best work is done with video cameras but visual observers can still do very valuable work.

http://occultations.org/
http://www.occultations.org.nz/

[julianh72]

I've got an e-book called "Real Astronomy with Small Telescopes - Step-by-Step Activities for Discovery" by Michael K. Gainer. http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781846284786 (It's one of the excellent Patrick Moore's "Practical Astronomy" Series - probably available as a hard copy, if you know where to shop.)

While most of the exercises involve some form of astro-imaging (which may be tricky with a Dob), there are also several visual challenges. Examples of the projects include measuring the heights of lunar features, monitoring binary star orbits, variable stars, Colour vs Magnitude in star clusters, etc.

My personal favourite is estimating the speed of light (yes, really!), using Roemer's Method (measuring the different apparent orbital periods of Jupiter's satellites at opposition vs conjunction).

While none of these experiments are likely to shake the foundations of 21st-Century cosmology (or even win you a Nobel Prize), they are fascinating "beginner science", and will set you up well for when you might get interested in some more specific "original research / observation" work.

[faaarwest2k]

Thanks everyone. That gives me lots to think about.

[Ric]

Hi Scott

Another book which may be of help to you

"The sky is your Laboratory, Advanced Astronomy Projects for Amateurs"

By Robert K. Buchheim

It's a little technical but has a lot of good info and ideas.

Cheers

[Blue Skies]

You can still attach a video to the dob and learn how to let the target star drift through at the right time by pre-pointing, its a well tried-and-tested method. Video recording of occultations is preferred for greater accuracy of results, but it you really must go the visual route there is now some new gear for it from Dave Gault and a couple of apps, but go the video route if you can. But I reckon for the amount you pay out to get the visual timing gear you may as well go that little bit further and get some video gear. A simple integrating camera like a Gstar will get you going. You can download the manual from the link in my signature for further reading.

[kinetic]

Scott,

there are endless possibilities for projects if it is done also , just
for the cool factor, or to learn or demonstrate a concept to yourself.
Here's one I've been doing:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=108849
Here is one Rolf (SkyViking) did of the same object.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=75275
In fact, Rolf is a great example. His stuff is truly inspirational.
Look up some of the unbelievable stuff Rolf has achieved with a humble
webcam.
This, for example:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=83185
and this:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=68791
As Rolf has superbly demonstrated, within reach of a typical amateur like us.

Steve

[sil]

You could try to identify new impact craters on the moon, or spectroscopy seems to offer opportunities to study changes in stars (i'm still just learning spectroscopy.

[Merlin66]

Spectroscopy with a grating is a good place to start scientific exploration.
Unfortunately most if not all the areas of research involve the use of cameras rather than solely visual.
( I did visual SN searching for MANY years with a 12" f5 scope.....)

[madbadgalaxyman]

Scott,

I would invest in a good drive to go with the tube assembly, as this expands the realm of your possibilities into Photometry and Faint-object Imaging and making spectrograms. But I don't know if the existing drive solutions for Dobsonians track accurately enough to enable you to make longer exposures without too much trouble.
( In principle, at least, alt-az mounts can be driven accurately, albeit with some field rotation.)

I note that there is some accurate CCD surface photometry of NGC 253 in the professional literature, which was done with only a 12 inch telescope......very small compared to a professional instrument. This was serious extragalactic science that was done with a small aperture, but of course it required the use of a motor drive.

The difficulty with a lot of visual observation is that quantitative science requires that the observation be reproducible. For instance, it is one thing to visually observe a new and strange glow on the moon (some people have seen these anomalous glows!!), but this would never be accepted as a reliable observation unless several reliable observers made images of it.

There are a lot of oversimplified and watered-down books available for amateurs on how to make astronomical measurements..... but these "even dummies can do it" project books are of questionable usefulness if you really want to do accurate ::
- photometry
and/or
- spectroscopy
and/or
- repeatable faint-object imaging which is accepted as being NOT full of artefacts and pseudo-features.

( They tend to be full of "real simple" fun projects, in order to get the amateur interested, but they don't get you to the goal of being a Serious scientific astronomical observer)

A well-written and detailed General Textbook, at the introductory level, about making physically meaningful measurements in astronomy, is "To Measure The Sky", by Frederick Chromey (published by Cambridge Press in 2010), which is at about the 2nd year university level
(or, equivalently, it is accessible to the mathematically/physically savvy Advanced Amateur Astronomer )

This link takes you to a a really nice and detailed course on doing astronomical photometry with CCDs. At the least, it will give you some idea of what is involved and whether "this sort of thing is for you" ::
http://www.phys.vt.edu/~jhs/phys3154/CCDPhotometryBook.pdf

cheers,
madbadgalaxyman

There are a LOT of IIS people who are doing, if not always actual quantitative science, at least Serious Activities that could potentially turn up a discovery; I hope that some of them contribute to this thread!!

[PeterM]

Hi Scott,
Supernova hunting the LMC & SMC, naked eye and with binoculars.
You would need to familiarise yourself with the LMC & SMC, get to know them really, really well. Conduct as many clear night patrols of them as you possibly can and with a bit of luck you may turn up the next big Supernova in one of our companions. A good starting point is Mati Morrel's Atlases of the LMC & SMC (there have been postings about these here on IIS) or Gregg Thompson's Supernova Search Charts that have excellent naked eye/binocular charts included.

[madbadgalaxyman]

Gday there, Pete,

"Long time no see" in the virtual sense, as I have mainly been doing geology and other sciences , for the last year. (and committing astro-heresy by looking mainly through the microscope!)

I think that we would both rate the odds of finding an SN as being much much better in a large and massive spiral galaxy with many giant HII regions and large numbers of OB stars, such as M101 and M61.

However, I do take your point:
surveying the LMC night after night, while it will result - nearly always - in non-detection of Supernova, is the sort of thing that amateurs can easily do;
the odds of success are very small, but.......
if you do succeed, then you get a halo of eternal glory!!

Instead of spending my time looking at dwarf or low-mass galaxies, if I wanted to maximise my chance of discovering supernovae, I would probably look at galaxies like M83, night after night;
M83 has a globally-elevated rate of star formation, and a rich population of massive stars. It even has young globular-like star clusters of over 100,000 solar masses each, ready to produce multiple SNe.

Also, there are a few nearby Small Galaxies which do genuinely host such a vigorous burst of star formation that they match big galaxies for their theoretical rate of core-collapse supernovae. One thinks of IC 10, M82, and NGC 1313.
(NGC1313 has a population of massive stars that is as large as that of big spiral, despite being a noticeably smaller galaxy)

If I can ever "get a round tuit", I can probably come up with a list of those galaxies within 50 million light years that have the highest star formation rates, and therefore the highest chances of hosting core-collapse supernovae.

Best regards,

Robert Cosmo Lang

(did you know that there was an archbishop of Canterbury who was actually called Cosmo Lang !!)
___________________

P.S.

I am given to understand that the Current total Star Formation Rate of the LMC is only 0.4 (or thereabouts) solar masses per annum. ((see:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0908.1422v1.pdf
))
This compares with 2 solar masses per annum for our own Milky Way Galaxy.

This does suggest to me that the rate of core-collapse supernovae is going to be modest in the LMC.
______________________

[PeterM]

Hey Robert we must catch up again, still go Leyburn each month and you are always welcome.
Indeed with 6 supernova in the last 100 years M83 would be a great target. There will be many regularly patrolling this and other large galaxies so the odds of success will be spread amongst a lot. I suspect the LMC and SMC dont get as much detailed attention naked eye or through binoculars as most are viewing the myriad of gems in them. It at least gives Scott a project to work on now and at the very worst he gets to know them really well.