• General astronomy
  • Build a solar system model during the day.
  • Observer satellites, planets, minor planets, comets, etc. Heavens Above
  • Neptune in Aquarius transits 04:18:15, July 10, 2013
  • MinorPlanet.Info
    • Pluto will be in the Milky Way in Sagittarius. 14.0 Magnitude, transits 12:33:01 AM, July 10, 2013
    • Asteroid (8) Flora 9.0 Magnitude, in Capricornus, transits 01:59:20, July 10, 2013
    • Asteroid (3) Juno 9.4 Magnitude, in Aquarius, transits 02:51:32, July 10, 2013
    • Asteroid (7) Iris 9.0 Magnitude, in Aquarius, transits 03:99:20, July 10, 2013
  • Observable Comets
    • Comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) 11.3 Magnitude, in Draco
    • Unfortunately Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) will be next to the Sun in Gemini.
  • Eclipsing binary stars
    • Beta Lyrae - Sheliak, an eclipsing binary and a visual multiple
  • Double stars
    • Epsilon Lyrae - double double
   
  
• Astrometry
  • Measure the position of the planets planets
  • Measure the position of the minor planets
  • Measure the position of comets
  • Measure the position of double stars
    • Double stars links
   
  
• Photometry
  • Measure the intensity of a star
    • XX Cygni
  • Measure the intensity of a eclipsing binary star
  • Measure the B-V color index of stars
    • Vega B-V color index 0.00
    • Arcturus B-V color index 1.23
  • Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of star cluster
  • Exoplanet transits

    I reckon there are 10 good transiting planets from July 7 through July 11. 
    Two of the transits may not be easily doable with a small scope. 
    Perhaps we could use one of the observatory scopes at least one night. 
    Note that TrES-5 b and TrES-3 b transits happen on 2 different occasions. 
    This means we could also directly measure the orbital period.  
    This would allow us to estimate planet radius and semi-major axis. 
    Otherwise we would have to use catalog values for the periods to calculate radius and semi-major axis.
     
    July 8     2 transits    Kepler-15 b*, Kepler-12b
    July 9     1 transit     WASP-1 b
    July 10    2 transits    TrES-5 b, WASP-2 b
    July 11    2 transits    TrES-3 b, WASP-52 b
     
    *larger scope would be nice
     
    Ken Hose
    
    We don't need total darkness to do photometry. 
    My assumptions for all the exoplanets were that we would start an hour before the beginning of the transit and for 1 hour after the transit. 
    I assumed that we could begin at 10:00 PM and image until around 5:00AM. 
    All the transits I listed meet those criteria and should be doable. 
    All the transit depths are within reason. 
    I can get good data quality for a 0.006 mag transit at home with my 12” scope. 
    60% of the transits listed below have a depth > .020 mag which is easy to detect.
     
    Exoplanet      Depth of Transit (Mag)
    Kepler-15b    .0114
    HAT-P-5b      .0142
    WASP-1b       .0166
    Kepler-12b    .0174
    TrES-5b       .0215
    WASP-2b       .0216
    WASP-52b      .0290
    TrES-3 b       .0291
    
    Ken Hose
    

    WASP-52b	0.0290
    TrES-3b	0.0291

   
  
• Spectroscopy
  • Measure the spectrum of the Sun and the sky
    • Sun spectrum taken with Screwdriver CD Spectroscope
  • Measure the spectrum of a star
    • Vega spectrum type A0V
    • Arcturus spectrum type K1.5III
    • Wolf-Rayet star
    • Be star
    • IY Dar infrared star
  • Measure the spectrum of a planetary nebula
  • Measure the spectrum of the planets
  • Measure the redshift of a Quasar
    • Quasar KUV18217+6419

Telescope Setups

• PMO 24 inch telescope
• PMO 15 inch telescope
• Ken Hose telescope setup
  • Celestron EdgeHD 11 with a QSI camera on an Mach1 mount.
• John Bunyan telescope setup
  • Takahashi FSQ106ED with a SBIG11000M camera on an Orion EQ-G mount.
• David Haworth telescope setup
  • Celestron EdgeHD 9.25 with a QSI532 camera on an Mach1 mount.