News Archive Jan-Jun 2004

Rants, raves, ramblings.....things that have happened that affect me, the observatory or the results obtained.

[June 5, 2004] PE Testing and Venus Transit webcast testing

More PE testing and analysis completed at the observatory producing some interesting results!  See here.

Completed set-up trials for the CSIRO Venus Transit web cast.

[May 15, 2004] It never rains but it pours - 2 more MP Discoveries at E14

2 new Asteroid discovered at Hunters Hill Observatory.  2004 JX₆ and 2004 JY₆.  2004 JX₆ has subsequently been linked by the MPC to 2001 VD₇ so I lost discovery credit on that one.

[April 28, 2004] New Minor Planet DISCOVERY by E14

Quite by accident (and the result of a little laziness on my part) a new Main Belt Asteroid, 2004 HJ₄₈, was discovered on the evening of 22 April 2004 whilst doing follow-up astrometry for NEO 2004 GD₂₈. 

Staff at the MPC noticed that my astrometric report for NEO 2004 GD₂₈ was quite a long way off the calculated orbit so I was requested to re-measure the images.  First time round I did not even notice the actual NEO 2004 GD₂₈ as it was so faint.

That big black blob in the discovery image to left is a magnitude 7.5 star.  Discovery details here.

[April 26, 2004] Equipment problems but still managed a good haul of NEO astrometric observations

Nabbed 13 follow-ups of NEO's last night (11 before midnight) before the cool weather (6°C 75% Hum) fogged the corrector of the 14".  I cleared it with the hair dryer and turned up the heat on the observatory heater but this caused an overload and shut everything down.  Tired, I decided to call it a night (it was 3am)

Still having trouble with the connection between MaxIm and my SX MX716 camera.  At least AstroArt is still working and I can still use the ACP3/MaxIm unguided for pointing.

Observatory PC died several times last evening during testing.  The LAN card seems to have been the culprit.  Replaced it and installed new USB 2 card to connect the camera to.

The 14" LX200GPS had it's first (and hopefully last) runaway slew last night.  A ProcTrap 2 error occurred whilst the slew key was pressed so I could only power down the scope to recover control.

[April 4, 2004] Observatory upgrade and we're open for business once more

After 3 months of waiting since the new 14" scope arrived, the wedge and observatory modifications have been completed.  With the help of a handful of CAS members the 14" has been lifted into place.  A couple more hours of fitting the accessories, balancing the tube and it was ready for first light and Polar Alignment.  See here for the first light images of Jupiter
 

● Email Me at higginsdj at bigpond dot com ●