[AZ-Observing] Re: LBT Fun!
- From: "G.B." <geebee111@xxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2008 16:55:59 GMT
Dean -
Thank you for sharing your great photos and interpretation of same.
Cheers,
Geoff
-- ketelsen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Hi All-
Early this month I was able to arrange a trip to the LBT observatory on =
Mt
Graham with project scientist John Hill. His reason for going up was to=
give a tour to the docents from Safford's Discovery Park science center.=
=
Currently it looks like:
http://alice.as.arizona.edu/~ketelsen/LBT0508sm.jpg
You can see instrument scientist Ray Bertram working on the red prime
focus filter wheel at left. Access to the prime instruments means ridin=
g
up a swaying sissors lift up nearly 30 feet, which doesn't look like ver=
y
much fun from the floor. Scattered around are various tour takers. =
They've installed covers near the hydrostatic bearings in the 11 months
since I've been there - the floor was a LOT less oily than last time!
My reason for going up was to take a night-time animated GIF sequence fr=
om
inside the dome. I had already tried a year ago, but a fast-moving
snowstorm killed the attempt that night, though I picked what lens to u=
se
(Canon 10-22 zoom at 10mm and f/3.5) and I got a sequence of the scope
moving from zenith to horizon:
http://alice.as.arizona.edu/~ketelsen/LBTw10mm.gif
This time some thin clouds threatened, but it cleared after sunset and I=
got this:
http://alice.as.arizona.edu/~ketelsen/LBT.gif
It looks pretty confusing, but is really sort of neat. The individual
frames are 6 minutes, and I've not had time to do anything with them - n=
ot
even dark subtraction, but at nearly freezing, there really aren't any h=
ot
pixels that stand out. The frames that show the light pollution is from=
Fort Grant when the scope is pointed towards the south. Don't forget th=
at
the building tracks with the telescope, but is only accurate at the
elevation where the telescope is looking. That is why the stars trail i=
n
the sequence - the telescope isn't pointed in that direction... Also, t=
he
stars appear to trail in opposite directions when pointed north or south=
(don't forget I'm looking out the dome in the opposite direction of the
scope). The observer was doing REALLY short exposures of bright galaxie=
s
(like M81, M82, M65, etc) and resolving stars, looking for cepheid
variables. Just this morning I've asked for some subframes to post - th=
ey
were really looking great - but the longest they could expose on M81 was=
60 seconds!
Hope you enjoy!
-Dean
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