7p1 Faulkes Telescope session 5th July

The session didn't start well. Students were still arriving and trying to find places, whilst an early student, hi-jacked to take control of the telescope, tried to get the link to work. For some unknown reason the telescope was closed. Rather than give up, the student tried the link to 'control' every few seconds with the hope the telescope would open. After about five minutes, which were spent describing what would have happened, and filling in details on an observation sheet (an older version of which is shown here):


As we were getting into the swing of 'what would have happened...' the student, still plugging away at the control button, became very excited, because the telescope was finally open! We swung into action and began putting in the co-ordinates of our first choice of star object, pressed the 'move telescope' button and ...nothing happened (apart from receiving a message saying the telescope was unable to slew (move)). We tried again, and again...nothing happend. Remembering that sometime the telescope got 'stuck' and had to be given different co-ordinates to 'unstick' it, we tried entering the co-ordinates for the next object on the list. Nothing happened! :-(

There was not a lot to be done. If it doesn't work it doesn't work. We were about to begin searching for the chosen objects in the archive, when the student at the control (luckily a persistent student!) announced the telescope was working. He had entered the co-ordinates of another object on the list, and the telescope had finally responded! Yay!

With only fifteen minutes of control time left to go, I didn't think we would get many of our images, since several of them were longer exposure times. However, we managed to get two very good images of M92,a globula cluster, and the excellent Cocoon Nebula, which we'd never imaged before:

M92, a globula cluster
Sky Object Name: m92
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 5, 2010 13:45:31 UTC
RA: 17h17'07"
DEC: 43°08'14"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 8 secs.
Instrument: EM01


IC5146 Cocoon Nebula
Sky Object Name: ic5146
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 5, 2010 13:54:50 UTC
RA: 21h53'30"
DEC: 47°16'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 100 secs.
Instrument: EM01

With only minutes to go, we tried to take a 3-colour picture of the Dumbell Nebula. The telescope control informed us there wasn't enough time. We reduced the time again and again, but still it wasn't possible. It suddenly occurred to me that the time was taken changing filters, so if we did a single filter it might allow this. We managed a 10s image using the red filter...which, though not spectacular, showed the nebula quite clearly!

M27 Dumbell Nebula
Sky Object Name: m27
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 5, 2010 13:58:44 UTC
RA: 19h59'36"
DEC: 22°43'01"
Filter: R
Exposure time: 10 secs.
Instrument: EM01