Generating Light Curves With Minimal Equipment

I attended a small Orange County Astronomers seminar out here last night that was really fascinating. A member from the SAS and AAVSO did an experiment to see what kind of light curve data he could generate with the least equipment. What he ended up showing us was how to generate light curve data for Delta Cephei using ONLY an old Canon Rebel 300D (at least 4 generations ago) and a home-made barn door tracker.

 

He showed a very precise light curve over several periods. Additionally, he was able to separate out the Red, Green, and Blue curves and show that heir slight differences show that Delta Cephei changes color slightly from brightest to dimmest. The only software he used for this data acquisition and manipulation was Maxim DL. The observations were made under a Bortle Scale of 5

 

I was very impressed with the quality of what he generated with the minimal equipment he used. If anyone is interested in more info, let me know and I'll contact the speaker and see if I can at least get the Powerpoint presentation I saw. 

Tom Kucharski

Dialing in the Red Planet

Man, Mars is getting better. Or maybe its just the scope. This week I plugged in the colimator, I realized the 2 dots I thought I'd been seeing were actually 3, the third one way out in left field. I adjusted the mirror so the alignment was right, and as good as everything was looking now its so much better. Seeing sooo much more with Jupiter, and the last two drawings of Mars are a big improvement over the first few.


The one common point is in all observations since the 13th the dark area surrounding the ice cap has been as obvious as the ice cap itself. I've described the task of drawing beyond that as trying to remember a dream. Details seem to whisp in and out, necessitating repetitive visual study of the surface to confirm and re-confirm what you THINK you see. In one case I did three rough sketches, the final drawing only happened after I saw those 3 roughs were pretty similar. Sort of like the idea of recreating an event by consulting several witnesses! In the end though patterns start to emerge. Last night was the biggest exception, that was like remembering a dream you were still having when somebody woke you up! The details seemed far easier to visualize then over the past week.   Steve Gale

Focusing More on Mars

Last night was annoyingly wet, condensation all over my scope and the Telerad was too blurry to be useful. But through this the seeing was really very good. Mars was shrouded in a huge halo from all the condensation, but the planet in the middle of that was nicely defined. I did 3 sketches, the second because I thought I had overworked the first, the third was to test myself - make sure my results were all pretty similar. That worked out so I went inside to make the final sketch from those while it was all very fresh in my head. I was using the same paper as two days prior when I also did a drawing of Mars. To protect that from smudging I covered it, when I pulled the smudge-guard away I noticed how similar the two pictures looked. Mars should have been rotationally in nearly the same position as Monday Iit's day is only a little more than a half hour longer), I thought what I'd just done looked like a more detailed version of the previous one. Almost like the same image but the first a bit over-exposed. I really thought that after drawing Jupiter I'd be bored by Mars, but it turns out I like it more.
Steve Gale

More Planetary Illustration

Man, Mars is hard to draw. It's still so small, the only really obvious feature is the ice cap. I need to stare at it for like 10 minutes before I can see things that I'm pretty sure I'm seeing. After that Jupiter is pretty easy! Since Mars rotates at a slower pace, I figure 1 drawing a night is all that really makes sense (whereas Jupiter can be pretty different after a couple hours). So, a few Jupiter's and drawing of big red.

I'll try to get out there every night that seems to have observing potential. Mars is coming up from behind a house across the street, so Mars drawing makes it a later than usual night. But we'll keep plugging away...

Steve Gale

SAS-AAVSO Spring Meeting

The Society for Astronomical Sciences and the AAVSO have recently announced their second joint spring meeting May 22 - 24 at Big Bear Lake, California. They did a joint meeting for the first time two years ago and it was great for all levels of expertise. I know its a long way from NJ from but I think it may be worth while for interested parties. Another plus is that RTMC starts on the 25th at a dark site about 12 miles away. Its a great astronomical combination. Details are just starting to come out about the meeting on both the SAS and AAVSO web sites. Nice area for a short vacation too. My wife usually joins me just for the mountain air and climate. Big Bear Lake is about 2 hours by car from either LAX or John Wayne Airport at about 7500 feet. I hope I can see some of my old observing buddies there as well as make some new NJAA friends.
Tom Kucharski