NOTES
Scopes / Cameras / Images / Notations
Scopes / Cameras: I have pursued this program with the remote photographic option using photo services from Slooh. Slooh operates a number of telescopes around the world and I have used several of them for this project. The Slooh locations are in Santiago, Chile (Latitude: S33° 16′ 8.4″ S33.269 / Longitude: W070° 32′ 2.4″ W070.534) and the Canary Islands (Latitude: N28° 17′ 58.92″ N28.29970 / Longitude: W016° 30′ 29.736″ W016.50826). Each location has several scopes installed. I have used the following scopes for this program:
Chile 1: Scope: Celestron 14″ EdgeHD 1400 Schmidt-Cassegrain Catadioptric (SCT) at f/11
Camera: Diffraction Limited SBIG, Model STL-11000
Chile 2: Scope: PlaneWave Instruments 17″ CDK17 (Corrected Dall-Kirkham) at f/6.
Camera: Finger Lakes Instrument Proline PL16803 Monochrome CCD Camera
Canary 1: Scope: PlaneWave Instruments20″ CDK20 (Corrected Dall-Kirkham) at f/6.8
Camera: Finger Lake Instruments PL09000
Canary 2: Scope: PlaneWave Instruments 17″ CDK17 (Corrected Dall-Kirkham) at f/6.8
Camera: Finger Lake Instruments PL16803
Canary 3: Scope: Celestron 11″ Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph (RASA) at f/2.2
Camera: Celestron Nightscape 8300 One Shot Color (OSC)
Images: Slooh telescopes and cameras operate on fixed filter / exposure formulas based on the type of target in question. For this program, I have used Slooh L,R,G, and B photos. Typically, Slooh delivers Luminance shots of 50 second exposures and R, G, and B shots with 20 second exposures.
Plate Solving: In order to identify stars near the target carbon star in each frame, I plate solved the images using the online resource NovaAstrometry.net . This online solver identifies stars and annotates them — however, the annotations do not use constellation specific identifiers. Rather, the solver annotates stars using HD catalog designations. In the notations I provide for each photo, I note the AL designation followed by the designation (in parentheses) provided by NovaAstrometry.net . In a few cases (especially when the solver failed to denote the carbon star target) I added some notations to the solved photo to provide more context.
Some frustrating realties about this solver: 1.) It sometimes fails to annotate the target carbon star, even though it identifies other stars in the field; 2.) Sometimes it annotates the target star and another close by star, and then puts the annotations on top of one another making them really hard to read; 3.) Odd artifacts sometimes appear in the solved photos (like lines that run across the frame, but do not appear in the original photo. Notwithstanding these limitations, this solver works pretty well. I much prefer the solver in PixInsight, but often the photos Slooh returned for this program did not have sufficient time / date / location info in the FITS header to allow PixInsight to do its solver magic.
Notation: Above each photo I place the relevant data in the following format:
Object Name (in the order they appear in the program guide)
Object Name as it appears in the solved image
Date of Exposure
Time of Exposure (UTC)
Name of Slooh scope used
Comments where relevant
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