ASTRO: Earth "Grazer" 2008 AF3

It was snowing when it passed by at its closest distance just inside the
moon's orbit on the 13th so I couldn't get a shot then. Finally it
cleared last night but with the power going on and off (does that every
well below zero F clear night of late -- the power company seems
powerless to fix it) I didn't know if I could get it or not. I rigged
up heat tape around a car battery and took the 1600 watt UPS from my
wife's commercial quilting and embroidery gear out to the observatory.
It only weighs about 80 lb so that was not much fun as I had to haul it
up from the basement to the observatory which is nearly 2 floors higher.
The car battery wasn't much lighter. It's gel cell batteries had
failed to provide power when I tried it before so tried the warmed car
battery. IT WORKED. Power was going off for 3 seconds every 17 minutes
just like clockwork but the UPS held Mr. Murphy at bay for a change. It
was -21C at the time this was taken per the temp sensor in the Paramount.

I'd loaded the latest elements from the Minor Planet Center that
afternoon but I spent some fruitless time looking for it. I checked the
MPC again and found new elements only 12 hours later. These moved it
from the west side of Bootes to the center. A change of 10 degrees!
These didn't work either. Or so I thought. Then I noticed it was
moving 0.6" per second of time and was nearly 18th magnitude. No wonder
I saw no streak. It was staying on a pixel only a couple seconds before
moving on to another one. So I set the mount to track the asteroid and
exposed for 1 minute. There it was! This is a stack of 10 of those one
minute images.

This guy is booking. It was in the middle of Bootes when I took it last
night. Tonight it will be well into Serpens Caput! Since it takes the
mount some time to change from sidereal to asteroid tracking rate (it
checks for the change only at some interval I've not determined but it
is several minutes between checks apparently.) I had to estimate where
it would be by the time the tracking kicked in. If I'd slew after it
kicked in that slew would kick it out so I had to hit it right. For
normal speed asteroids this isn't a problem. It took a couple tried but
I finally hit it. To make this guy bright enough to see I used 3x3
binning so this is at 1.5" per pixel.

14" LX200R @ F/10, 10x1', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Hi Rick
Nice grab. Great performance by your self and the mount to find it and
snap it. As you seem to like hitting the asteroids, have you seen this site

http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/

do you also keep an eye on this sight?

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/NEO/ToConfirm.html

Have you tried checking again for the asteroid you 'found' but couldn't find
in the MPC checker, just wondering if was picked up by someone else around
the same time, it's might have been entered into the database now. Just a
thought.

Regards

Azz




"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...
It was snowing when it passed by at its closest distance just inside the
moon's orbit on the 13th so I couldn't get a shot then. Finally it
cleared last night but with the power going on and off (does that every
well below zero F clear night of late -- the power company seems
powerless to fix it) I didn't know if I could get it or not. I rigged
up heat tape around a car battery and took the 1600 watt UPS from my
wife's commercial quilting and embroidery gear out to the observatory.
It only weighs about 80 lb so that was not much fun as I had to haul it
up from the basement to the observatory which is nearly 2 floors higher.
The car battery wasn't much lighter. It's gel cell batteries had
failed to provide power when I tried it before so tried the warmed car
battery. IT WORKED. Power was going off for 3 seconds every 17 minutes
just like clockwork but the UPS held Mr. Murphy at bay for a change. It
was -21C at the time this was taken per the temp sensor in the Paramount.

I'd loaded the latest elements from the Minor Planet Center that
afternoon but I spent some fruitless time looking for it. I checked the
MPC again and found new elements only 12 hours later. These moved it
from the west side of Bootes to the center. A change of 10 degrees!
These didn't work either. Or so I thought. Then I noticed it was
moving 0.6" per second of time and was nearly 18th magnitude. No wonder
I saw no streak. It was staying on a pixel only a couple seconds before
moving on to another one. So I set the mount to track the asteroid and
exposed for 1 minute. There it was! This is a stack of 10 of those one
minute images.

This guy is booking. It was in the middle of Bootes when I took it last
night. Tonight it will be well into Serpens Caput! Since it takes the
mount some time to change from sidereal to asteroid tracking rate (it
checks for the change only at some interval I've not determined but it
is several minutes between checks apparently.) I had to estimate where
it would be by the time the tracking kicked in. If I'd slew after it
kicked in that slew would kick it out so I had to hit it right. For
normal speed asteroids this isn't a problem. It took a couple tried but
I finally hit it. To make this guy bright enough to see I used 3x3
binning so this is at 1.5" per pixel.

14" LX200R @ F/10, 10x1', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

I hadn't seen the first one. Though I see it uses JPL data which was
even farther off than the MPC data on this one. It seems better today
however. I see they are estimating 19 meters for the size. I figured
less than 25 but hadn't seen any info on it.

Rick


Azz wrote:
Hi Rick
Nice grab. Great performance by your self and the mount to find it and
snap it. As you seem to like hitting the asteroids, have you seen this site

http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/

do you also keep an eye on this sight?

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/NEO/ToConfirm.html

Have you tried checking again for the asteroid you 'found' but couldn't find
in the MPC checker, just wondering if was picked up by someone else around
the same time, it's might have been entered into the database now. Just a
thought.

Regards

Azz




"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...

It was snowing when it passed by at its closest distance just inside the
moon's orbit on the 13th so I couldn't get a shot then. Finally it
cleared last night but with the power going on and off (does that every
well below zero F clear night of late -- the power company seems
powerless to fix it) I didn't know if I could get it or not. I rigged
up heat tape around a car battery and took the 1600 watt UPS from my
wife's commercial quilting and embroidery gear out to the observatory.
It only weighs about 80 lb so that was not much fun as I had to haul it
up from the basement to the observatory which is nearly 2 floors higher.
The car battery wasn't much lighter. It's gel cell batteries had
failed to provide power when I tried it before so tried the warmed car
battery. IT WORKED. Power was going off for 3 seconds every 17 minutes
just like clockwork but the UPS held Mr. Murphy at bay for a change. It
was -21C at the time this was taken per the temp sensor in the Paramount.

I'd loaded the latest elements from the Minor Planet Center that
afternoon but I spent some fruitless time looking for it. I checked the
MPC again and found new elements only 12 hours later. These moved it
from the west side of Bootes to the center. A change of 10 degrees!
These didn't work either. Or so I thought. Then I noticed it was
moving 0.6" per second of time and was nearly 18th magnitude. No wonder
I saw no streak. It was staying on a pixel only a couple seconds before
moving on to another one. So I set the mount to track the asteroid and
exposed for 1 minute. There it was! This is a stack of 10 of those one
minute images.

This guy is booking. It was in the middle of Bootes when I took it last
night. Tonight it will be well into Serpens Caput! Since it takes the
mount some time to change from sidereal to asteroid tracking rate (it
checks for the change only at some interval I've not determined but it
is several minutes between checks apparently.) I had to estimate where
it would be by the time the tracking kicked in. If I'd slew after it
kicked in that slew would kick it out so I had to hit it right. For
normal speed asteroids this isn't a problem. It took a couple tried but
I finally hit it. To make this guy bright enough to see I used 3x3
binning so this is at 1.5" per pixel.

14" LX200R @ F/10, 10x1', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

a tiny little thing, amazing you found it

Rick Johnson wrote:

--
John N. Gretchen III
N5JNG NCS304
http://www.tisd.net/~jng3

Great result Rick. It's a neat feature of the Paramount that it can track on
asteroids. My LX200 can do the same (at least so I think, I have never tried
it), but tracking quality would not be good enough for imaging without an
autoguider.

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
It was snowing when it passed by at its closest distance just inside the
moon's orbit on the 13th so I couldn't get a shot then. Finally it
cleared last night but with the power going on and off (does that every
well below zero F clear night of late -- the power company seems
powerless to fix it) I didn't know if I could get it or not. I rigged
up heat tape around a car battery and took the 1600 watt UPS from my
wife's commercial quilting and embroidery gear out to the observatory.
It only weighs about 80 lb so that was not much fun as I had to haul it
up from the basement to the observatory which is nearly 2 floors higher.
The car battery wasn't much lighter. It's gel cell batteries had
failed to provide power when I tried it before so tried the warmed car
battery. IT WORKED. Power was going off for 3 seconds every 17 minutes
just like clockwork but the UPS held Mr. Murphy at bay for a change. It
was -21C at the time this was taken per the temp sensor in the Paramount.

I'd loaded the latest elements from the Minor Planet Center that
afternoon but I spent some fruitless time looking for it. I checked the
MPC again and found new elements only 12 hours later. These moved it
from the west side of Bootes to the center. A change of 10 degrees!
These didn't work either. Or so I thought. Then I noticed it was
moving 0.6" per second of time and was nearly 18th magnitude. No wonder
I saw no streak. It was staying on a pixel only a couple seconds before
moving on to another one. So I set the mount to track the asteroid and
exposed for 1 minute. There it was! This is a stack of 10 of those one
minute images.

This guy is booking. It was in the middle of Bootes when I took it last
night. Tonight it will be well into Serpens Caput! Since it takes the
mount some time to change from sidereal to asteroid tracking rate (it
checks for the change only at some interval I've not determined but it
is several minutes between checks apparently.) I had to estimate where
it would be by the time the tracking kicked in. If I'd slew after it
kicked in that slew would kick it out so I had to hit it right. For
normal speed asteroids this isn't a problem. It took a couple tried but
I finally hit it. To make this guy bright enough to see I used 3x3
binning so this is at 1.5" per pixel.

14" LX200R @ F/10, 10x1', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...
It was snowing when it passed by at its closest distance just inside the
moon's orbit on the 13th so I couldn't get a shot then. Finally it
cleared last night but with the power going on and off (does that every
well below zero F clear night of late -- the power company seems
powerless to fix it) I didn't know if I could get it or not. I rigged
up heat tape around a car battery and took the 1600 watt UPS from my
wife's commercial quilting and embroidery gear out to the observatory.
It only weighs about 80 lb so that was not much fun as I had to haul it
up from the basement to the observatory which is nearly 2 floors higher.
The car battery wasn't much lighter. It's gel cell batteries had
failed to provide power when I tried it before so tried the warmed car
battery. IT WORKED. Power was going off for 3 seconds every 17 minutes
just like clockwork but the UPS held Mr. Murphy at bay for a change. It
was -21C at the time this was taken per the temp sensor in the Paramount.

I'd loaded the latest elements from the Minor Planet Center that
afternoon but I spent some fruitless time looking for it. I checked the
MPC again and found new elements only 12 hours later. These moved it
from the west side of Bootes to the center. A change of 10 degrees!
These didn't work either. Or so I thought. Then I noticed it was
moving 0.6" per second of time and was nearly 18th magnitude. No wonder
I saw no streak. It was staying on a pixel only a couple seconds before
moving on to another one. So I set the mount to track the asteroid and
exposed for 1 minute. There it was! This is a stack of 10 of those one
minute images.

This guy is booking. It was in the middle of Bootes when I took it last
night. Tonight it will be well into Serpens Caput! Since it takes the
mount some time to change from sidereal to asteroid tracking rate (it
checks for the change only at some interval I've not determined but it
is several minutes between checks apparently.) I had to estimate where
it would be by the time the tracking kicked in. If I'd slew after it
kicked in that slew would kick it out so I had to hit it right. For
normal speed asteroids this isn't a problem. It took a couple tried but
I finally hit it. To make this guy bright enough to see I used 3x3
binning so this is at 1.5" per pixel.

14" LX200R @ F/10, 10x1', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME



That's a heck of a neat image Rick. That asteroid is really zooming around.

I think finding and tracking one of those looks pretty difficult

I'd think any computerized mount would have the capability since they
can all track in alt azimuth mode meaning the drive rate to both axes is
variable. You do need pointing software that can calculate the values
needed for the axes. I'm not up on which ones do that. The Sky does
but only for the Paramount. Though I've heard there's a third party
patch or program that will allow The Sky to do this on the LX200 mounts.
Since The Sky supports this mount I don't understand why it takes
third party software to add this feature. Unless they are just trying
to protect their own products. Pretty cheap trick if that's the reason.

Being on a permanent mount I have honed polar alignment to high accuracy
which helps a lot.

I did forget to turn on PEC so there's a bit of a waver to the trails
but the Paramount with PEC off has less tracking error than most mounts
do with it on. For guided exposures I rarely turn it on as it doesn't
help guiding any to do so. Though for unguided (more common) I try to.
Usually I forget until I see the first frame and the slightly
elongated stars remind me. I pitch that one, reset the count back to
zero and start again after turning it on. Why I can't set "On" as a
default condition I don't know. Makes no sense to have to turn it on
every time you fire up the mount.

Did you get just an OTA or complete R model 10"?

Rick


Stefan Lilge wrote:

Great result Rick. It's a neat feature of the Paramount that it can
track on asteroids. My LX200 can do the same (at least so I think, I
have never tried it), but tracking quality would not be good enough for
imaging without an autoguider.

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...

It was snowing when it passed by at its closest distance just inside the
moon's orbit on the 13th so I couldn't get a shot then. Finally it
cleared last night but with the power going on and off (does that every
well below zero F clear night of late -- the power company seems
powerless to fix it) I didn't know if I could get it or not. I rigged
up heat tape around a car battery and took the 1600 watt UPS from my
wife's commercial quilting and embroidery gear out to the observatory.
It only weighs about 80 lb so that was not much fun as I had to haul it
up from the basement to the observatory which is nearly 2 floors higher.
The car battery wasn't much lighter. It's gel cell batteries had
failed to provide power when I tried it before so tried the warmed car
battery. IT WORKED. Power was going off for 3 seconds every 17 minutes
just like clockwork but the UPS held Mr. Murphy at bay for a change. It
was -21C at the time this was taken per the temp sensor in the Paramount.

I'd loaded the latest elements from the Minor Planet Center that
afternoon but I spent some fruitless time looking for it. I checked the
MPC again and found new elements only 12 hours later. These moved it
from the west side of Bootes to the center. A change of 10 degrees!
These didn't work either. Or so I thought. Then I noticed it was
moving 0.6" per second of time and was nearly 18th magnitude. No wonder
I saw no streak. It was staying on a pixel only a couple seconds before
moving on to another one. So I set the mount to track the asteroid and
exposed for 1 minute. There it was! This is a stack of 10 of those one
minute images.

This guy is booking. It was in the middle of Bootes when I took it last
night. Tonight it will be well into Serpens Caput! Since it takes the
mount some time to change from sidereal to asteroid tracking rate (it
checks for the change only at some interval I've not determined but it
is several minutes between checks apparently.) I had to estimate where
it would be by the time the tracking kicked in. If I'd slew after it
kicked in that slew would kick it out so I had to hit it right. For
normal speed asteroids this isn't a problem. It took a couple tried but
I finally hit it. To make this guy bright enough to see I used 3x3
binning so this is at 1.5" per pixel.

14" LX200R @ F/10, 10x1', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick


--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Rick, it's only the OTA.

Stefan


Did you get just an OTA or complete R model 10"?

Rick