Announcement J62

So, over the last few months the number of Irish Obervatories has doubled! Can we keep up this great rate of growth I wonder!?

Bart.

It's just brilliant lads. Well done again.

Just a thought!

Instead of trying to do this as individuals, maybe the clubs should be getting more involved in trying to run programs that lead to getting observatory status for group inputs. If each club had an observatory number with data being contributed and confirmed by individual members, I'm sure the number of 'official' observatories could increase rapidly. Also there's nothing like a dedicated focus like this to galvanise club members and increase membership. I will certainly raise this at the next IAS comittee meeting.

John - why wait 'years'? If you can image three asteroids of mag 12 or dimmer, you can do it now! No need to wait at all if you know your kit can do this... The measurement of the data is easy enough - its all automatically done by software. That's pretty much it.

The club program idea is a good one - unfortunately, measurements need to be taken from the proposed observatory.

The 'observatory' is effectively a defined point on the earth. For example, if I move, I can't take J65 with me Also, you need to provide geographical co-ordinates for the observatory - I provided GPS co-ordinates to 5m accuracy - that seemed to be accurate enough for the MPC. So, J65 is a defined point on the Earth - and alwyas will be - the MPC never re-use codes. I guess its a unique selling point!

There's nothing stopping a club having a defined location and different observers using it (the MPC differentiate observers - eg Armagh Observatory might have more than 10 different observers - but the observatory itself is geographically fixed). Additionally, an observatory can have more than one instrument setup. Oh, and different measurers (as opposed to observers ). Hope I'm not confusing you!

For example, I could go over to J62 and image and measure targets. I could submit the results to the MPC but they'd be assigned to J62, not J65. Likewise, Eamonn could come to J65.... etc.

There is a special observatory code you can use - its a roving observatory code - I forget the code. But of course, you need to submit lat/long with each set of observations. But that's a route that an be taken.

Phew!

I'd say a do-able goal could be for a club/society to set up an observatory at a specific location (could be anyone's back yard) and allow members to shoot targets and submit results in order to get a code. In fact, you could even set it up so members could remotely access the observatory.

And by the way, J65 was coded on the basis of 18 individual measurements of just 4 asteroids over a period of 5 days - that's all. And each one of those measurements consisted of an image of 60 seconds exposure. So, you can get a code in less than 20 minutes

Dave

There is a special observatory code you can use - its a roving observatory code - I forget the code. But of course, you need to submit lat/long with each set of observations. But that's a route that an be taken.

That roving observatory code sounds the ticket, lat and long could be provided by each submitter. I'll check it out more. As for Mag 12 I can't get there with my current kit. I will be getting something bigger, by this time next year I was thinking of a CPC925. Given the light pollution from Dublin I would hate to waste a J number on my backyard. Do you have to have ownership of the J location or could it be a public car park in say a dark sky location? - you get where I'm going with this?

John - the roving observatory code (there is only one) is the same for all roving observers. Anyone can use it - no-one 'owns' it as such...

If club members wanted to submitt reports, they'd have to do so individually - each report has to have a fixed lat/long - only one roving location per report. But I'm not sure what e.g. 4 members of a club submitting asteroid reports would actually achieve. The MPC would not issue an observatory code - they's just use the roving one... I guess the MPC would benefit in that have data to log and store, but that's really it.

As far as a location goes, there's no requirement for it to be anything - a backyard, a car park, a field. But once a code is issued for that location, all future reports for that observatory have to be submitted from those geographical co-ordinates. And the telescope must only be used at those co-ordinates - you can't move it a hundred yards down the road... Given that my co-ordinates were accepted at a 5m accuracy, that's the footprint of the observatory - a 5m by 5m square with the scope at the center. I can't move the scope beyond that.

As for wasting a number, you'd be surprised (with a CCD) how deep you can go. In Celbridge, I can get down to mag 18 with an 8" SCT - that's pretty much at the limit of the optics - irrespective of light pollution. Of course, Dublin City Center would probably be a different matter.

If I get your drift, using a car park and staying withn a 5*5 metre square would be OK...

Dunno if I'm explaining this very well - sorry if I'm confusing you!

Dave

Thanks for all the info Dave. Plenty there to think about.
My current scope is just a 4" achromat GOTO, so I'm not getting down to mag 12 with that, at least not from Dublin. The limiting magnitude of the scope is 12.5 but thats with excellent seeing from a dark sky. I'd be more comfortable around mag 10.

Dunno if I'm explaining this very well - sorry if I'm confusing you!

All is clear Dave.

Apart from Asteroid telemetry etc. what other measurements are you currently making? And apart from MPC do you submit reports to any other body?