Love these long nights

[higginsdj]

Well call it 'observing' is a bit of a stretch with the automated observatory but I just love these long winter nights. 12 hours of imaging following up to 3 asteroids a night and resulting in 0.02mag precision data. Just love it.

This last month alone has seen 6 Minor Planet lightcurve targets covered including the uncovering of 2 suspected binaries. The observational throughput of this system is just unbelievable given that I only have, at best, 10 clear nights a month (this includes partial nights as well).

Last month I also added automated Variable star observations during the full moon period. 50 targets a night from the AAVSO bulletin 69 list of those in need of observations (note I take 3 images of each target 15s, 60s and 180s to bracket high SNR for brightness variations from mag 8 to mag 16).

It's never been easier for amateurs to get into the research side of Astronomy (and there are a few jealous Pro's out there as well)

Cheers

David Higgins
http://www.david-higgins.com

[iceman (Mike)]

I'd love an automated setup like that,so much can be achieved in much less time.

I know what you mean about the long nights, but for those of us who still need to go out in the cold, the mornings are so darn cold at the moment I just can't get enthusiastic enough to go and image Uranus when it's 2deg outside.

Are you going to image 2004 XP14? Would love to see what you can produce.

[matt]

-7 here at the moment Mike

[higginsdj]

Yep, we've been having -6 and -7 officially each morning (though only -2.5 and -3.2 at the observatory site).

Alarm goes off, into the wooly cloths then out for the 5 minute shutdown and close proceedure and on goes the observatory heater to thaw and dry everything out...... The scope and mount get a decent layer of fost/ice on the outside and the dew shields are totally frosted over but the dew heater keeps the 2 SCT's optics clear and dry.

2004 XP14 is a little too fast and faint for my photometry setup and given it is only visible to me from 18:30UT (4:30AM local), at best, I could get an hours run on it - not enough for a lightcurve. Its Astrometric uncertainty is well under 1" so it's unlikely to go on my observing list.

Cheers

David