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(241731) 2000 VL58 Tonight

 

I'm trying this one tonight--finally have a clear night where I have
confidence in the weather prediction.? Not a high rank event, but I'll
take what I can get this year.

;GaiaDR3

Garrett--I think this one is also close to you.


Steve
 

I gave it a shot but looks like I struck out. This was my first time setting up two Astrid pre-point stations. My initial concern was someone tampering with the unmanned telescope but the concern was quickly overridden by wild life sounds (something was huffing and puffing at me) in some tall grass/brush at the station I manned. That'll do the trick for keeping you awake at 1:30 AM.
?
Used 8" SCTs with f/6.3 + 0.5x reducers and a 10 FPS recording. This was a fairly dim target with a predicted max duration of 0.6 seconds, so I felt 10 FPS was an OK choice for 8" aperture.
?
The nova.astrometry.net service was down for 1-2 days so my typical WCS astrometry calibration workflow was unavailable. I downloaded ASTAP and used that for plate solving to place my aperture in PyMovie. Later verified my ASTAP placement with WCS astrometry calibration via the nova.astrometry.net API when it came back online. Good to know I have an alternative tool (ASTAP), but it certainly isn't as automagical as the nova.astrometry.net API -- I had to use a significantly longer stacked exposure for the finder image for ASTAP compared to nova.astrometry.net.
?
I can pass along the light curves if you're interested, Steve, but I saw no indication of a significant mag drop either visually or through PyOTE.
?
Best,
Garrett
 

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FYI- in case you haven't heard.? As long as there are enough stars to plate solve in the video (not always the case unfortunately) you can open the video with the "Player" in the ASTRID, plate solve any frame and create a .PNG file (or maybe it's a .FIT file) with the target marked.? You can than use this in PyOTE as you "finder" image.

Paul

On 5/12/2025 5:53 PM, Garrett Tow via groups.io wrote:

I gave it a shot but looks like I struck out. This was my first time setting up two Astrid pre-point stations. My initial concern was someone tampering with the unmanned telescope but the concern was quickly overridden by wild life sounds (something was huffing and puffing at me) in some tall grass/brush at the station I manned. That'll do the trick for keeping you awake at 1:30 AM.
?
Used 8" SCTs with f/6.3 + 0.5x reducers and a 10 FPS recording. This was a fairly dim target with a predicted max duration of 0.6 seconds, so I felt 10 FPS was an OK choice for 8" aperture.
?
The nova.astrometry.net service was down for 1-2 days so my typical WCS astrometry calibration workflow was unavailable. I downloaded ASTAP and used that for plate solving to place my aperture in PyMovie. Later verified my ASTAP placement with WCS astrometry calibration via the nova.astrometry.net API when it came back online. Good to know I have an alternative tool (ASTAP), but it certainly isn't as automagical as the nova.astrometry.net API -- I had to use a significantly longer stacked exposure for the finder image for ASTAP compared to nova.astrometry.net.
?
I can pass along the light curves if you're interested, Steve, but I saw no indication of a significant mag drop either visually or through PyOTE.
?
Best,
Garrett
 

Last time I experienced an animal huffing and puffing near me at night, it was a deer.
Rick Bria?
 

Ah, noises in the night.
How about doing a mobile observation from a cemetery in the middle of nowhere at 2am, and having 3 packs of coyotes go into "song" altogether in a triangle all around you - and seemingly not too far away! Fun, fun....
??? -G
 

¿ªÔÆÌåÓý

We had a fisher in the front yard last night.? The cries from that thing were positively freaky.? My wife got a really good recording of the cry.


Steve

On 5/13/2025 9:55 AM, George Viscome via groups.io wrote:

Ah, noises in the night.
How about doing a mobile observation from a cemetery in the middle of nowhere at 2am, and having 3 packs of coyotes go into "song" altogether in a triangle all around you - and seemingly not too far away! Fun, fun....
??? -G

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