Crew 203 Astronomy Reports
CATEGORY: ASTRONOMY REPORT POSTED ONMARCH 1, 2019 Astronomy Report – March 1st Astronomy Report, Sol 5
Name: Aurélien Mure
Crew: 206 Date: 03/01/2019
MUSK OBSERVARORY
Features observed : None
Problem encountered : Can you tell me if it is normal that no feature can be focused these days ?
ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY
Object observed : M106
I did not attach the image I did from the observation because I did not succeed to stack the images the right way to give a good final image. I’ll continue to work on it.
Problems encountered : None
POSTED ONFEBRUARY 27, 2019 Astronomy Report – February 27th Astronomy Report, Sol 3 Name: Aurélien Mure Crew: 206 Date: 02/25/2019 ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY Object observed : Orion Nebula, M42. I attach the image I did from the observation. I’m a beginner in astrophotography, I hope my pictures will be improved during the mission. Problems encountered : I think I exposed to much the telecope, the center of the nebula is to bright.
POSTED ONFEBRUARY 18, 2019 Astronomy Report – February 18th Crew 205 Astronomy Report 18 Feb 2019
Crew Astronomer:Natalia Larrea
MDRS ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY
Robotic Telescope Requested: MDRS-WF
Objects Viewed:
No observations for MDRS Target 1 were captured using MDRS-14 last night due to cloudy weather. We are still waiting for the sky to clear to obtain further measurements.
This morning we submitted an additional observation request for Orion Nebula using MDRS-WF telescope. Observations were set at 3 sec exposure using RGB and Lum filters. Right Ascension correction for this object was set at -10 arcmin.
Problems Encountered: Bad weather conditions.
POSTED ONFEBRUARY 17, 2019 Astronomy Report – February 17th Crew Astronomer: Ghanim Alotaibi
MDRS ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY
Robotic Telescope Requested: MDRS-14
Objects Viewed: Last night 10 images were captured out of the requested 18 images for MDRS Target 1. The quality of the images is bad and one of the images looks shaky. Crew astronomer suggested to resubmit the observation and Observatory Director recommended the same due to some problems encountered, thus the observation was resubmitted.
New photometry measurement was performed for SY MON target. Based on the previous experience gained, the new measurement was found to be 14.132 with an error of 0.0185. The data point was submitted to the AAVSO website with the star 122 as a check star.
Problems Encountered: Mount Problems which caused shaky images. The moon was also bright, so bad images were captured. Observatory Director solved the problem.
POSTED ONFEBRUARY 15, 2019 Astronomy Report – February 15th Crew 205 Astronomy Report 15 Feb 2019
Crew Astronomer: Ghanim Alotaibi
MDRS ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY
Robotic Telescope Requested: No
Objects Viewed: No observational session was requested for tonight. I am waiting for a clear sky for the observations submitted in 13 Feb. We wanted to submit the SY MON photometry measurement to the AAVSO However, some errors were found. The CCD setting was not correct, and there are better options to select comparison stars.
As the new set up was inserted and new comparison stars were selected, the new measured value for the SY MON star was found to be 13.918. However, the magnitude value of the check star was unreasonable and was reported to observatory director.
The crew astronomer used another method to calculate the magnitude value for the target. He measured the instrumental magnitude directly from the software and performed the calculation manually. The magnitude value was found to be 14.118. The value was also reported to observatory director.
Problems Encountered: Nothing to mention
POSTED ONFEBRUARY 13, 2019 Astronomy Report – February 13th Crew 205 Astronomy Report 13 Feb 2019
Crew Astronomer: Ghanim Alotaibi
MDRS ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY
Robotic Telescope Requested: MDRS-14
Objects Viewed: Out of the 18 images requested last night, I found only 12 images were captured. However, all the captured images were found to be bad for photometry. The seeing condition was not good yesterday for astrophotography and it was decided to resubmit the observation session.
Problems Encountered: Bad weather conditions.
POSTED ONFEBRUARY 12, 2019 Astronomy Report – February 12th Crew 205 Astronomy Report 12 Feb 2019
Crew Astronomer: Ghanim Alotaibi
MDRS ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY
Robotic Telescope Requested: MDRS-14
Objects Viewed: ASASSN-V J081823.00-111138.9. I called it MDRS Target 1 in Skynet (RA: 08 18 23.00 , DEC: -11 11 38.9). The observations are planned to be 120 s exposure time with the B filter and 60 s with the V filter. 9 exposures were requested for a period of about 3 hours. A photometry value was calculated for the target SY MON (that was observed in 11 Feb 2019), and the photometry value was found to be 14.147. This value will be submitted to the AAVSO.
Problems Encountered: Nothing to mention
POSTED ONFEBRUARY 11, 2019 Astronomy Report – February 11th Crew 205 Astronomy Report 11 Feb 2019
Crew Astronomer: Ghanim Alotaibi
MDRS ROBOTIC OBSERVATORY
Robotic Telescope Requested:MDRS-14
Objects Viewed: SY MON variable star was requested for observation in Skynet in 10 Feb 2019 night at about 9:15 Local Time. 60 seconds exposure time using V filter was requested for the purpose of photometry.
Problems Encountered: The crew was informed that Skynet is not working properly in the past days due to a software glitch. No Data was obtained the night of 10 Feb 2019. However, this morning we were informed Skynet was nominal working correctly. We expect the observation to have been conducted this evening. We will try to download the data later tonight, and continue conducting photometry tomorrow morning.
POSTED ONJANUARY 24, 2019 Astronomy Report – January 24th Crew Astronomer: Santiago Vargas Dominguez
Description:
Missing exposure for Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33) was completed and I processed the complete set of nearly 3 hours in LRGB+Halpha with multiple exposure times (50, 120 and 300 seconds). Please find final cropped image attached.
Objects Viewed: Barnard 33.
Problems Encountered: Dome was close due to the problems with the generator
POSTED ONJANUARY 23, 2019 Astronomy Report – January 23rd Crew 203 Astronomy Report 23-Jan-2019
Crew Astronomer: Santiago Vargas Dominguez
Description:
The weather improved after a few days under cloudy conditions. This allowed completing most of the active observations from previous runs (Heart Nebula, Barnard 33). Single exposures in LRGB + Halpha (300 s each) were acquired for M82. Images of the moon were acquired for testing with clear skies, but they saturated even with the shortest exposure time (0.03 s). In a previous run, the resulting image of the moon looked fine due to thin clouds blocking some of the light and acting as a neutral filter.
Objects Viewed: Messier 82 (image attached), Soul Nebula, Heart Nebula, Barnard 33.
Problems Encountered: none
JANUARY 20, 2019 Crew 203 Astronomy Report 19Jan2019 [title Astronomy Report – January 19th]
[category astronomy-report]
Hello Mission Support.
Crew 203 Astronomy Report 18-Jan-2019
Crew Astronomer: Santiago Vargas Dominguez
Description: Bad weather in the last couple of nights has given very few chances of pursuing astronomical observations. A set of 100 images of the moon was acquired early this morning (in preparation for the lunar eclipse next sunday) of which only a single frame had moderate quality (away from clouds) to be further preserved (image attached).
Objects Heart Nebula, Barnard 33 are active in the skynet observation list.
Objects Viewed: Moon
Problems Encountered: none
POSTED ONJANUARY 18, 2019 Astronomy Report Jan 18th Astronomy Report
Crew 203 Astronomy Report 18-Jan-2019
Crew Astronomer: Santiago Vargas Dominguez
Description: Bad weather in the last couple of nights has given very few chances of pursuing astronomical observations. A set of 100 images of the moon was acquired early this morning (in preparation for the lunar eclipse next sunday) of which only a single frame had moderate quality (away from clouds) to be further preserved (image attached).
Objects Heart Nebula, Barnard 33 are active in the skynet observation list.
Objects Viewed: Moon
Problems Encountered: none
POSTED ONJANUARY 14, 2019
Astronomy Report – January 14th
Crew Astronomer: Santiago Vargas Dominguez
Description: Observing run aimed to complement information in Halpha for M31 data (newly processed image attached).
Some data acquired but observation is yet to be completed.
Observation keep active in the skynet observation list.
Objects Viewed: M31, Heart Nebula
Problems Encountered: none
