CACAO Home | Calendar | History | Sitemap

Gallery: Tempel 1 (2004-2005)

Observation made by Elizabeth M. Warner

Image Parameter Details
Comments: Well, did a daring move and setup the telescope and camera to image Tempel 1 during the public Open House. Miraculously focused fairly quickly on the moons of Jupiter and even more amazing found Tempel 1 without too much trouble. Started taking exposures, but best ones were at 60 sec. Unfortunately, longer exposures need guiding. Also did several track and accumulate images. The first one, 20x30, was tracked on a star. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the stars seemd to be stacking nicely, but was momentarily shocked to notice that the comet had trailed. Of course!! The comet is now moving quickly enough so that through that 5 min exposure it had actually drifted. Cool! Did another one 20x30 sec but tracked on the comet. Unfortunately, the software lost it's lock in the last couple of exposures probably because the comet had drifted out of the track box. Redid the image but only 10x30 sec and it worked very nicely. I really need to remember to take zip disks with me out to the observatory!
Image Date/Time: 2005-06-06/~01:30 UT
Observing Site: UM Observatory
College Park, MD
Weather: hot, hazy, muggy
Telescope: Celestron 14" SCT
Camera: ST8
Exposure: 30 and 60 sec
Filters: red

Table 1: Data about observation.
 

Updated: 30-Jul-2013