Hi Amar, Good to hear from you. Yes, I certainly remember you and it is good to hear that you are able to get back to observing comets. Many of us in the UK are suffering from cloudy weather too. It is one of the frustrations of doing astronomy but the results are certainly worth the effort. You may have similar levels of cloud to us but Bangalore is certainly a lot warmer! We would very much like to receive your photometry of 12P and C/2023 A3. For this to be useful it needs to be done in a standardised way as described on this page: https://britastro.org/section_news_item/12p-pons-brooks-observing-campaign That refers to 12P but we are using the same approach for C/2023 A3. You will need to properly calibrate your images and then make the measurements in a photometric aperture of approximately 9 arcsec radius. Contact me off list if you need any more details. Nick. On 01/05/2024 12:22, amar sharma - amar10sharmaa at yahoo.co.in (via baa-comet list) wrote: > Dear All, greetings from Bangalore, India. From your long-lost virtual member! > Completely been out of touch of comets for the last 10 years (observing, imaging, especially even history which some of you, esp. Mr. Buczynski, knew well). But they are well rooted deep within the thoughts, never to fade. > Seems like I have a chance this time (only for a short duration of a week or two until southern Indian monsoons arrive) to image comets with my 10" f/4.8 NEQ6Pro and SBIG ST8XME. To be noted, Bangalore's weather is closest to infamously heard 'British weather'; 250-300 clouded nights in a year, only 60-75 blue days. > I'm still a ccd imager down the line in terms of learning curve, although it started in 2012, but my imaging runs are extremely rare (a sacrifice worth saluting at losing 10 years with comets for various reasons). I've already had a go once past week at some comet images, but they may not suit your satisfaction due to them being basic of only 60 seconds without calibration. Nevertheless, I can share the links to have a look at them, if you really want to see some comets. > https://www.facebook.com/AstronomyJourneys > > https://www.instagram.com/astronomyjourneys/ > > Only last week, after 12 years of owning a SBIG ccd, I have finally been able to enable auto guiding (oh, the ST8XME has an internal guiding chip and it took me just over a decade until now to figure out how to get auto-guiding on only with CCDOps after a custom guiding cable was ordered, and the architecture does not allow you to connect to more than one software at a time, so I have settled on the basic CCDOps for imaging & guiding). > If you have any instructions I need to follow, please write them. I'll try to keep those settings while capturing images. I do not have filters coupled, so they will be un-filtered. > > The reason I got an impulse to write here (after close to a decade, after 2015) is at the mention of the word "southern hemisphere" after having had a short stint with imaging recently. At +12*, I feel I almost belong to the southern hemisphere, I mean I have access to southern skies. Declination -70* is possible from here. Some constellations which I would think are far southern do rise above the horizon here; as a hint, NGC 2997 in Antlia is fairly high, M 83 is higher up. I've only once glimpsed 47 Tucana grazing the horizon! And my current observing site (100 kms from home, after losing half a dozen to l.p.) is open & darker to the south (light polluted to the north). If transparent, I can get cleaner frames, and on best occasions it can touch ~5.75 NELM (guesstimate, not measured). > So pls type out any instructions you would have in terms of light, dark, flat, bias frames, guiding, un-filtered, at the comets from this hemisphere. I'll give them a shot; as it is, I'm tracking them when I'm out once-twice in a year. And from this year end onwards in the new clear sky season, I should be more active with you all. > Also, if you have any requests of any southern targets, non-cometary, please feel free to list them (email me personally). I can grab them for you (due to not being a fixed setup, with an imperfect go-to, I have to adjust & pan around star-hopping ccd). It would be my pleasure to catch them for you. > Looking forward -- to be back here (writing on the BAA mailing list)! Regards, Amar Sharma. > On Monday, 22 April, 2024 at 01:01:02 am IST, Nick James <ndj@nickdjames.com> wrote: > > Now that 12P has gone from our northern skies (although see below) I > would like to use the same techniques to monitor the near nucleus > brightness of C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) over the next few months. > I've set up a web page with details here: > > https://britastro.org/section_news_item/c-2023-a3-observing-campaign > > This uses exactly the same Astrometrica settings that were used for 12P > so setup should be reasonably straightforward. > > It would be really good to keep our 12P lightcurve going post-perihelion > so if you have access to telescopes in the southern hemisphere please > continue to image this comet and report your measurements to me. > > Nick. > To unsubscribe from this list please go to https://https://www.simplelists.com/subs/ > > To unsubscribe from this list please go to https://www.simplelists.com/confirm/?u=Aj4vCBHI6JSRpYRB2DWvMTYlWL2vuAnC >
