Friendly Ghosts vs. Angry Ghosts `~

"Cousin Ricky" says in
ups.com:

wrote:
Isn't Post #1 just ever so slightly off-topic???????

Dang, i fell for it!

Don't know which of the crossposted newsgroups you posted from,
but we in sci.astro.amateur do deal with "ghosts" (i.e.,
spurious images), so the subject line is quite plausible.

I didn't know that spurious images could be friendly or unfreindly.
Maybe you are spending to much time on those high altitude
observatories. Try taking an oxygen tank with you next time.

So, I was doing some engineering tests on a 1.8 meter telescope one
night last year. Checking the tracking, checking the auto guider and
field de-rotator. You go all over the sky taking exposures looking for
elongation of the images. Seeing was good and it was nice and clear and
dark, all was good, I had the Jazz station on and the music was good.

Around midnight I noticed an Object that looked like a small bar a few
arc seconds long maybe 8 by 1 wide, the seeing diameter wide , with one
5 or so arc second bars on each side.

What the Hell is that ?

I decided to stay on the field and take one minute exposures.

The stars in the field where nice and round...about 1 arc second in
diameter and the Object had moved mostly in right ascension and a little
in dec. I continued to watch as the object slowly changed in form
sometimes looking to have an extended cloud form for a few exposures and
then back to the central bar with the smaller bar on each side.
It also grew in complexity with many features visible from time to time.

Now I started to measure the position and tabulate the data for a
submission to the center for minor planets to see what the orbit was.

The night became accelerated, normally time passes slowly and I am just
going through the drill of telescope engineering but now I was glued to
each and every image. I continued to collect images and positions and
wondered what it was that I was watching.

I have done this kind of thing for a few decades, testing and aligning
telescopes that is, and once in a while run across a "fast walker" that
has always been a known object. No fame here.

But his was unlike any thing I had ever watched before.

The night ended and the data was submitted after conferring with a
college who I sent the images to.

The minor planet sent back a message of concern to watch this object and
so I propagated the position to the next night.

I then did a grid around the position predicted for several hours the
next night and did not see the object.

Precisely 24 hours later I went back to the original position and there
it was, moving across the field and changing its shape.

It turns out that It was the Ghost (optical that is) of Zeta Ophiuchus.
This 1.8 meter has an F ratio of 9.5 and consists of a F1 primary
and F0.9 IIRC secondary and it seems that you get such beasts with this
system. (Its a Gregiorian)

I needed no coffee that night Z.O. crossed my CCD and some how felt
relieved that it was not real.

Friendly?, Angry ? maybe not but I did need to remember to pee before
exploding and found it difficult to sleep until the following night.

d.











Philip Deitiker wrote:
"Cousin Ricky" says in
ups.com:


wrote:

Isn't Post #1 just ever so slightly off-topic???????

Dang, i fell for it!

Don't know which of the crossposted newsgroups you posted from,
but we in sci.astro.amateur do deal with "ghosts" (i.e.,
spurious images), so the subject line is quite plausible.


I didn't know that spurious images could be friendly or unfreindly.
Maybe you are spending to much time on those high altitude
observatories. Try taking an oxygen tank with you next time.

Dan Mckenna wrote:

Around midnight I noticed an Object [snip]

The night ended and the data was submitted after conferring with a
college who I sent the images to.

The minor planet sent back a message of concern to watch this object and
so I propagated the position to the next night.

I then did a grid around the position predicted for several hours the
next night and did not see the object.

Precisely 24 hours later I went back to the original position and there
it was, moving across the field and changing its shape.

It turns out that It was the Ghost (optical that is) of Zeta Ophiuchus.
[snip]

That reminds me... I don't believe i've ever observed NGC 3242 (Ghost
of Jupiter) on my own. Never really got going on the Herschel 400
list.

Friendly?, Angry ? maybe not but I did need to remember to pee before
exploding and found it difficult to sleep until the following night.

Well, at least you didn't do like Chuck Shramek and make a Gamma Cancri
of yourself. :-) (See http://www.sipe.com/halebopp/slo1a.htm for
background.) At last word, ol' Chuckie was still angry at all the
friendly astronomers who had this conspiratorial fixation with reality.


Clear skies!

--
------------------- Richard Callwood III --------------------
~ U.S. Virgin Islands ~ USDA zone 11 ~ 18.3N, 64.9W ~
~ eastern Massachusetts ~ USDA zone 6 (1992-95) ~
--------------- http://cac.uvi.edu/staff/rc3/ ---------------

Dan Mckenna wrote in news:gMqVe.33563$sw6.20909
@fed1read05:

I was doing some engineering tests on a 1.8 meter telescope one
night last year.

Newtonian or Schmidt-Cassegrain?

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 23:22:15 GMT, John Schutkeker
wrote:

Newtonian or Schmidt-Cassegrain?

Answered in the original post (hint: neither). You didn't do well on
those tests where you had to read a passage and then answer questions
about it, did you g.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

It's a Georgian Cass. Both primary and secondary are concave.
d.

John Schutkeker wrote:
Dan Mckenna wrote in news:gMqVe.33563$sw6.20909
@fed1read05:


I was doing some engineering tests on a 1.8 meter telescope one
night last year.


Newtonian or Schmidt-Cassegrain?