To all those star photographers out there. I wonder if I could set a challenge for you as I don't have the equipment to do this well myself.
Just a few weeks before christmas, some friends of a close friend of ours lost their beautiful, young, only daughter in a tragic road accident.
Their closest group of friends thought it might be nice to name a star after her as she was discovered to have a small star tattoo (which her parents didnt know about) and so they organised for this through the Sydney observatory. I have had a look on my beginners software but cannot find the star so I was wondering if anyone might be able to snap a shot of it so that we might be able to provide their parents with a picture. If anyone feels inclined to help out I offer the following information for the star. It is in the southern cross and is listed in the southern star Catalogue as 703772
RA 12hrs 19mins 20.92secs
dec (edit)-59degs 17 mins 28.68secs
mag 8.57
Or if someone may already have a catalogued image this would be great.
Last edited by Muddy Diver; 12-01-2007 at 11:56 AM.
What a lovely memorial. Can't help with an image, but here are the SSC details, and an image generated in Aladin.
_RAJ200012 19 20.93"h:m:s"Right ascension (FK5) Equinox=J2000.0 Epoch=J2000.000, proper motions taken into account (computed by VizieR, not part of the original data) _DEJ2000-59 17 28.7"d:m:s"Declination (FK5) Equinox=J2000.0 Epoch=J2000.000, proper motions taken into account (computed by VizieR, not part of the original data) _RAB195012 16 38.50"h:m:s"Right ascension (FK4) Equinox=B1950.0 Epoch=J1950.000, proper motions taken into account (computed by VizieR, not part of the original data) _DEB1950-59 00 48.9"d:m:s"Declination (FK4) Equinox=B1950.0 Epoch=J1950.000, proper motions taken into account (computed by VizieR, not part of the original data) _Glon298.838degGalactic longitude Epoch=J2000.000, proper motions taken into account (computed by VizieR, not part of the original data)_
Glat+03.325degGalactic latitude Epoch=J2000.000, proper motions taken into account (computed by VizieR, not part of the original data)recno 11576Record number within the original table (starting from 1)
num 703772 Number
Pmag 8.57mag Photographic magnitude
RA1950 12 16 38.458"h:m:s" Hours right ascension (1950)
DE1950 -59 00 49.12"d:m:s" Degrees declination (1950)
Ep-1900 70.6yr Epoch - 1900.000
Nobs 5 No. observations
pmRA -2.0ms/yr Proper motion in right ascen.
pmDE -11mas/yr Proper motion in declination
From this link, you can do a search of the Catalogue. Inverted colour image attached, with your star at centre. Might help IIS imagers to photograph field for you.
Cheers -
Last edited by Rob_K; 12-01-2007 at 05:30 PM.
Reason: Clarification
Thanks Rob, I found this site but not having seen anything like it before was unable to use it! I appreciate the help. Do you know how to cross reference to a SAO or other catalogue number?
Did a search through the SAO & Hip catalogues. No entry for SAO catalogue, searching with RAB1950 & DEB1950 co-ords. Success with Hip (Hipparcos Input Catalogue v2 1993). The Hip no. of your star is 60090.
Now it's up to Paul or someone with a decent camera.... I really hope someone grabs this thread and runs with it, because it's for a good cause. Good luck!
BTW, in answer to your question, to search you click box at left of relevant catalogue, then click 'Query Selected Catalogue' button below entry. This takes you to a new page. For your query, I clicked 'Adapt form to use a list of targets' link, next to 'Query by position in sky'. This opens a new page where you can input co-ords got from Southern Sky Catalogue. Then click 'Submit query' button at bottom.
Thanks guys for all the help. I'm fairly limited in terms of resource for this stuff. I appreciate any attempts at imaging once McNaught has passed. Its a bit of an attention grabber at the moment!
I dont want to make a nuisance of myself here but just in case you cant see this thread as there have been no new posts for a while, I am asking again......just in case!
I have just stumbled on this post and was so sorry to read of the sad loss of this young girl - my condolences to the family and loved ones. Thanks to Rob_K's investigation, I was able to plot the field in The Sky and SkyTools, as shown in the attached charts. SkyTools lists it as SAO 239845
We have been pretty much clouded out in Brissie since Oct 2006, and the next 6 days have rain/clouds forecast, but I will attempt to obtain an image the next clear night opportunity.
My preliminary attempt will be made using my B&W ST7E CCD camera, so the image will be in black and white only.
Well here's my effort. Also just happens to be first light with my new camera. I don't know how to add arrows to the pic, but yours is the brightest near the centre. If you message me with your email I can send you the full size version.
It may interest you that this is a binary star sytem, so she didn't get one star, she got two.
I used ponders image three to show the star in this crop. I used RegiStar to overlay the image with ponders map. The full hi res image can be obtained here.
Thank you,
Thank you,
Thank you,
Thank you,
Thank you, I have little time to absorb everything right now and apologise for the late response as have been spending some time oversease working. Have you seen the pollution in Shanghai Clear weather bvut not many clear skies!
But many thanks (again) for your generous help. I'll look at your responses in more detail later.
Muddy, I photographed the Southern Cross widefield the other night, and on the off-chance checked with Starry Night. Sure enough, the star was visible so I cropped and labelled the shot. Had to reduce quality a bit to post it here, and after all this time I hope it might be of use to your friends. The original is 412kb, and I could email it to you if you wanted to PM me.
Sorry about this delay - I had no idea before that I could image the star at all!
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