... The first time you acquire an object you must include the overhead for the guide star acquisition. ... If it is larger, then the observer can choose to maintain pointing through the gyros (drop-to-gyro) or re-acquire the guide stars (3 minute overhead per re-acquisition-note that this is not the 6-minute orbit re-acquisition) every time the telescope goes back to the target; with the first option the pointing uncertainty is about 1 milliarcsec/second due to telescope drift. ... Exposure overheads: ....

... PISTON piston . ... this command is not used by the TCC The guide camera mechanical controller sets the filter, focus and other mechanical functions, but not the position of the guide camera in the focal plane. Positioning, if available, is handled by one or two guider position axes controllers , one per axis of motion. ... Notifies the controller that subsequent commands apply to the guider mechanical controller. ... Sets the piston of the guider to the specified value (in decimal microns). ...

An extra leap second has to be inserted at the end of 2008, so this is how you should count down on New Year's Eve to celebrate the start of the International Year of Astronomy according to Irish astronomers. The extra second is needed to bring the uniform measure of time used by physicists using atomic clocks back into nearly exact agreement with time as measured by the rotation of the Earth. ... There will be national and international events organized throughout the year to mark the occasion. ...

... Ranger 7 was designed to achieve a lunar impact trajectory and to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight. ... Velocity at impact was 2.62 km/sec (1.62 miles per second). ... The television system consisted of a six slow-scan vidicon TV cameras capable of transmitting high-resolution, close-up television pictures of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight before the spacecraft impacted the lunar surface. ...

... MY FIRST PUBLISHABLE DEEP SKY IMAGE!! Shot using my photography gear, Canon 5D mark ii, internal CLS filter, 7000K in camera white balance, 70-200mm f.2.8 lens + 1.4 extender, shot at 280mm focal length, ISO 1600, f/5.6, 50 seconds each x 114 images (95 minute total exposure). ... The only notable post processing was that I added 100% clarity to the stacked Nebulosity tiff image before doing my thing in Photoshop. ... Copyright (c) Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston, Inc. ...

STEP INTO THE BLUE - MEADE INSTRUMENTS PRODUCT GUIDE . ... Superb optical performance coupled with time proven computerized pointing and tracking has made the LX200 ACF series a best-seller in the high-performance telescope class. ... Meade's revolutionary LS LightSwitchтДв series of telescopes use advanced technologies to do what no other consumer telescopes have done before: take all the hassle out of using a telescope. ... Coronado Accessories . ... Meade Coronado Vixen-Style DoveTail (6" Length) . ...

Date: 2007-04-22 Time: 03:07:44 UT Object: M3 Instrument: Moore Observatory CDK20 Guiding: STV with 200 mm focal length wide field lens Camera: STL6303 Filter: R (RGB) Exposure: 300 seconds Processing: Dark subtraction and non-linear stretch Orientation: N up, W right Imagesize: 2048x3072 pixels Scale: 0.5375 seconds of arc or 0.0001493 degrees per pixel Field: 0.306x0.459 degree

... 2009 July 30 . 6 Minutes 42 Seconds . ... Explanation: The July 22nd total solar eclipse was the longest of the 21st century . From the point of maximum eclipse along the Moon's shadow track across the Pacific Ocean, the Moon completely blocked the Sun for a total of 6 minutes and 39 seconds. But from the deck of this cruise ship the duration of the total eclipse phase was extended to a whopping 6 minutes and 42 seconds by the ship's motion along the shadow track. ... About APOD | ...

... Exposure Time Calculator (ETC) . Survey processing . ... VISTA is a 4-m class wide field survey telescope for the southern hemisphere, equipped with a near infrared camera (1.65 degree diameter field of view at VISTA's nominal pixel size) containing 67 million pixels of mean size 0.34 arcsec and available broad band filters at Z,Y,J,H,K s and a narrow band filter at 1.18 micron. A wide field visible camera, if constructed, could also be used on VISTA. ... Tile . ... ESO VISTA Public Surveys . ...

plots: . The position and status bits of the system during the failure (40 seconds) (.ps) ( .pdf ). ... Gregorian motor torques during the failure (.ps) ( .pdf ) . Amplified 21 and 22 on the dome have failed with amplifier not ready. ... The status bits of the system during the failure (25 minutes) (.ps) ( .pdf ). page 1-4 Dome axis status. page 5-8 tracking status, Dome power supply status . ... Dome amplifier status. ... There have been 4 amplifier not ready failures on the dome. ...

Click image for 768x576 . ... BTA guide (15sm refractor telescope) TV-camera . USNO-A2 Catalogue Image Simulation . Camera's Description and last night images Archive . ... Presentation of the last observed FITS-image (with WCS-header). ... direct image streaming (for Mozilla / Firefox / Netscape / Galeon / Epiphany etc) . only direct image streaming (for new Konqueror and Opera) . ... Cambozola Java Applet (for any browser with Java) ...

... Астронет | ... 6 Minutes 42 Seconds . ... Credit: Babak Tafreshi ( TWAN ) Explanation: The July 22nd total solar eclipse was the longest of the 21st century . ... Публикации с ключевыми словами: total solar eclipse - полное солнечное затмение - полное затмение - Солнечное затмение - Солнечная корона . Публикации со словами: total solar eclipse - полное солнечное затмение - полное затмение - Солнечное затмение - Солнечная корона . ... Отчет о наблюдении полного солнечного затмения в Китае . ...

CCD Forum Message . Forums: . ... CCD Tips and Techniques | ... CCD And What's Needed?? ... Going beyond this, you need a method of keeping the scope pointing accurately at the stars (guiding), and avoiding field rotation (wedge or a derotator). ... Now there are a number of different methods of getting the light needed for guiding. ... www.astronomy.net . ... Forum posts are Copyright their authors as specified in the heading above the post. "dbHTML," "AstroGuide," "ASTRONOMY.NET" & "VA.NET" . ...

U sing Fibres to link Telescopes to Spectrographs. ... Detail of the Fibre Head. ... View of the head dismounted in its different components: At the left the fibre holder and at the right the interface to the telescope (1 14;" external ). ... The head still is opened showing the fibre holder inclined at 15 and the second mirror inclined at 35 . ... An inclined mirror at the telescope focal plane (bottom) reflects the light to a secondary mirror (left), which sends it to the guiding system. ...

Race to the Planets Family Event Sample Agendas Family ASTRO Leader Kits and Guides are designed to contain enough materials and activities for two full family events. ... What's Next: As families leave, make sure they know about the date and time for your second Race to the Planets session and that you'll want to know how they did playing the "Surfing the Solar System" game. ... If there are any planets visible in the night sky, a nice follow up to this family event is a planet observing session. ...

... Ciel Espace, le magazine qui vous guide toujours plus loin . ... Ciel Espace, nouvelle formule, c'est . des actualit†йs . ... des interviews, des portraits . les plus belles images de l'Univers d†йcrypt†йes pour vous . ... des pages consacr†йes †а la publication de vos photos Mais c'est aussi une vraie communaut†й avec laquelle partager votre passion et nourrir votre curiosit†й. Accueil †А la une Le nouveau portrait de la Voie lact†йe . ... Les nouvelles dimensions de la Voie lact†йe . ...

... PPTA timeline . ... PPTA_MEETINGS . ... List of projects . ... Data release 2 discussion . ... Ppta2 . Date: 12th-13th Dec 2007 . ... Aim: To highlight results from the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) project, to discuss astrophysical sources of gravitational waves and to discuss future issues . ... Data have been collected for the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) project over the past 3.5 years. The main goal of the PPTA project is to make the first direct detection of gravitational waves. ...

NIFS optics were installed in the NIFS cryostat in September 2002 in preparation for the second cool down. ... The following pictures show the first images of the reformatted "staircase" slit of the IFU on the field mirror array. ... Na I D doublet, J grating, II order warm with MUX. ... The second cool down of the NIFS cryostat began on Monday 28-OCT-02. ... The images below show spectra of an incandescent flat field lamp and a Xenon arc lamp obtained with the Z, J, H, and K gratings. ...

... Like the Lynxx and the ST-4, this camera has a preferred orientation with the telescope (see figure 4). ... Before taking images, the camera and the telescope have to be calibrated. ... This is the normal CCD camera image mode. The second method is the track and accumulate mode. In this mode, the camera takes several short images, and then adds them together to give an image that is comparable to the same total time image as taken by the grab function. ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Every few months, one of a series of questions comes up on the USENET group sci.astro involving tides, or the rotation of the Moon, or the recession of the Moon from the Earth. ... Why the Moon's rotation period is the same as the length of time it takes to orbit the Earth (same as number 1, but phrased differently). ... But when this happens, the time it takes for the Earth to rotate once will be slowed to exactly the same time it takes for the Moon to go around the Earth once! ...