This medium rank event is tough. The altitude is 81 degrees, and the target is 13.0. The duration is 9 seconds though, so integration should help. The odds from home are about 50%, higher on the centerline but perhaps I'll just try from home.
with the Q70 eyepiece |
on the LCD screen, with no diagonal, if can tilt enough to get 81 degrees altitude |
on LCD screen, with diagonal. If instead you use the 2" diagonal then expect the square FOV to be smaller than shown here. In fact, the square FOV here is simply carried over from the straight through, so whether you use a 1.25" diagonal (better FOV) or the 2" with adapter, the FOV will likely be different than shown above. |
With a few other chords, it was worth it to drive and try to get a good outline for this one after all, so Kirk stayed home to allow more time to get on target using the diagonal at high altitude; we've had spotty results at high altitude targets, and none as high as this one. He succeeded. So did Ted Swift. Karl had trouble, and I drove up to find a place on Hwy 1, settling eventually on Laguna Rd and spending a good 10 extra minutes just shifting around to decide how to orient my car. Those minutes were precious, as I had to do a second 2-star alignment, still not a good go-to but better, and I had much trouble ID'ing the field stars given the FOV was much tighter than I expected. I finally ID'd the little "crab" asterism at lower right, twisted from chart orientation, and then to the bright star near the target, but rushing madly I got the recording started only 10 seconds before the event, and didn't notice until too late that the target star was just barely off the LCD. So, got nothing.
I learned: use the long nose, not the short nose for the 0.5x reducer. I don't know why Derek was telling me I needed the shorty nosepiece long ago. I never even tried with the long nose, but Kirk used it and it gives a wider FOV so easier to ID stars and get starlight on fewer pixels hence brighter stars. He got a nice positive!
A shot of the rising moon, from my site at Laguna Rd and Hwy 1 |
No camera flash, my site at Laguna Rd |
The high altitude was a real challenge, but Kirk succeeded, yet had an unfortunate bump of the scope exactly at the moment of the reappearance. Ruined? No - with help from Tony George in PyOTE, it was salvaged nicely |
Strong confidence in a real D/R and at the correct time |
The brighter comparison star is the top curve and the bump is very obvious. PyOTE now allows one to smoother over as little as 5 points, which was good enough to reduce noise but get the "bump", and use it as a constant comparison star for normalizing the target star below. It did a good job. |
