ZTF Comet

Time/Date

20230126T1730-2300

People

Tara, Onkar, Matt, Connor, Gabriel, Roy

Spaces Occupied

PHYS 306A, 401, 433C, Dome, Roof

Goals

1. Find and understand adapter plates for planetary CMOS

2. Look at ZTF

3. Collect tracking sensitivity frames for analysis

4. Determine ZTF positions

Log

1. Found ThorLabs LCP8S and SM2 IMT (TMA4) for planetary CMOS

2. Began thermalizing dome

3. Dome shutters opened via ASCOM Dome Control Panel on first try

4. Connecting Deep-Sky CMOS to finderscope

5. Connecting planetary CMOS to on-axis port

6. Navigated to "Outlet Control" in Bookmarks bar, logged in and turned on power to Outlet 1

7. Opened SharpCap, it connected to Deep Sky CMOS without issue over icron USB extender

8. While dealing with finding the right adapter for the planetary CMOS, we slewed to the Moon (See captures)

9. Then went to Jupiter, but began to encounter clouds

   1. We tried to determine the average FWHM, but only with camera settings 

10. Went to Aldebaran 

    1. manually adjusted focus on finder scope

11. Finally figured out how to connect planetary CMOS to main scope

12. Went back to Zenith, disabled tracking

13. Opened Mirror Doors

14. Slewed to Aldebaran and enabled tracking

    1. Main Scope view didn't see anything but noise

    2. Finderscope saw Aldebaran

15. Changed focus on main scope to, minimizing FWHM of Aldebaran

16. Pointed at Mars, focus is at 2075

17. Stored Mars object position (DFM TCS → Initialization → Telescope Position → hit "Use next object position" and hit apply)

18. Slewed to Beetlejuice

19. Slewed to M42

20. Roy turned off the vnc service Gabriel was connected to and didn't enable it again. Gabriel is very mad.

21. Attempting to slew to comet ZTF, using sidereal tracking rate

22. Pointed the finder scope to ZTF, can't confirm if main telescope is pointed to it.

23. All of our cameras are more sensitive to green spectrum of light

24. Roy is waiting

25. We used ephemeris from jplhorizons

26. Shutdown

    1. Disconnecting thesky6 (terminating telescope link)

    2. Stowed telescope at zenith (heard thump)

    3. South mirror door fell due to not having a pin 

    4. jerry-rigging south door pin 

    5. slew to zenith for second time 

    6. Closed mirror doors

Camera Connection CONUNDRUM

1. Planetary CMOS connected via LBD2 not appearing in SharpCap

2. Connected planetary CMOS via Icron USB Extender and it worked

ToDo

Notes

1. when it says "Approaching limits" in DFM it will refuse to slew until you use a hand paddle to slew it out of the limit zone 

Weather

Open

Open

Data

Data collected stored in _______ locally and _______ remotely.