LS/LL/Minor Planets

[Ain Soph Aur]

Hi folks. I am a member-at-large of the Astronomical League here in the US and after receiving my Lodestar's realized that there are many AL Observing Club awards that allow CCD logs and one of these is the "Asteroid Club", with a certificate and a pin for 100 asteroid logs. Over the past two nights I have found the LS X2-M and LL to be a very simple for capturing the data needed. The PNG image files work great for making animated GIF's (with Gimp) and the FTS files are readily accepted by Astrometrica for reduction and blinking to ID any other moving targets in the field.

I admit to being a bit [removed word] on my process. The Astronomical League appears to accept MPC data reduction observations for their award, but I am only counting data that results in accurate MPC reduction in Astrometrica plus a nice companion animated GIF. In two nights I have logged the following:

(1) Ceres

(2) Pallas

(48) Dorist

(57) Mnemosyne

(60) Echo

(79) Eurynome

(135) Hertha 

(175) Andromache

(178) Belisana

(199) Byblis

(287) Nephthys

(306) Unitas

(308) Polyxo

(338) Budrosa

(679) Pax

(849) Ara

LL makes this a very easy process. 30 second images spaced 60 minutes or more apart saving FITS and PNG files saved. Run the FITS through Astrometrica for reduction and blinking, run the PNG's through GIMP to align and export an animated GIF.

Here is an example of my results:

One minor (no pun intended) thing that would be helpful is that if LL added a image timestamp to the FITS file header

[Ain Soph Aur]

I am still not able to edit my posts here. Perhaps when I hit 100 posts or perhaps edits are simply not allowed?.

It seems SGL doesn't animate animated GIFs in posts, but if you click on the image it animates properly.

[f15p5]

Hi Ain,

Very cool! animation working fine for me when I clicked on image. Well done!

Richard

[laudropb]

Lovely animation. You are doing a great job and I wish you luck. I am sure you will reach your target.

[xtreemchaos]

great animation mate, its working for me ,  thanks for sharing.  charl.

[ronin]

I think you have sufficent posts to edit but I believe that you have to have been a member for a month.

I could be wrong, never really bothered to memorise it, but I think you need 10 posts and 1 month. Equally 10 posts in a month is easy so then the restriction is "a month".

Someone with better knowledge may come along or your account has a problem.

10 seems OK but the month seems wrong, you could make 10 posts by introducing yourself, and asking one or two questions, a few replies or correspondance in each and 10 is easy.

[aparker]

This is really cool.  Thanks for sharing it.

[Ain Soph Aur]

From what I have been reading on the AAVSO web site, I am pretty sure the Lodestar is good enough to do real astrophotometry. I have already proven Lodestar + LodestarLive it works a super convenient imaging treat for producing FITS files for astrometric reduction. I think I may have an Astrodon V filter on my short list for next month to try some real  minor planet and double star photometry work.

[Ain Soph Aur]

I think you have sufficent posts to edit but I believe that you have to have been a member for a month.

I could be wrong, never really bothered to memorise it, but I think you need 10 posts and 1 month. Equally 10 posts in a month is easy so then the restriction is "a month".

Thanks Ronin, I bet you are correct! I guess I will find out Aug 2.

Cheers!

[Ain Soph Aur]

It just occurred to me that this method would be perfect for a Pluto time lapse!

[Mrbloke]

Thanks Ronin, I bet you are correct! I guess I will find out Aug 2.

Cheers!

From what I have read, it's 250 posts, and even then you only get 30mins to edit.

Better check your spelling throughly!

[Martin Meredith]

It just occurred to me that this method would be perfect for a Pluto time lapse!

Indeed it is check out post 8. 

Martin

[Ain Soph Aur]

From what I have read, it's 250 posts, and even then you only get 30mins to edit.

Better check your spelling throughly!

Wow, yeah, crazy! One 'good' thing is that your post count goes up faster when you make a mistake and can't edit to correct it!

[Ain Soph Aur]

Here are some more

[orion25]

The animation works when I click on the image, too. Great work! Thanks for sharing 

Reggie

[Paul81]

Great work - I really like the animations and it brings the objects nicely to life! Looking forward to your future observations!

I don't think it will be too much of an issue to add a time stamp into the FITS header - will look into adding this in the next release!