The story in Joe's words can be found here. |
Imaging took place at a state park a few miles southwest of Ft Bend. According to Joseph Dellinger, of the group that imaged the transient, "It is often possible to see down to 6th magnitude stars, but even so the sky never gets truly dark there... It helped that we had a clear night and the transient was very high, near the head of Draco...We've successfully imaged 18th mag asteroids with the ST-9 even with a bright moon in the sky. For pointlike objects you can counteract light pollution, to a degree, simply by taking longer images or stacking more shorter images." A note on the map: The dark line from Fort Bend southeast represents the approximate angle of the imaging camera. The imaging site is about 10 miles along that track. Conclusions: In Rockville, we haven't seen mag 6 stars for a long while, but we occasionally get down to 4th mag. During such times, we can extrapolate and assume that 17mag stars are possible for us during those times. When skies are worse, perhaps 16th mag at zenith should be possible. Note: During the summer and fall of 2001, I took a series of guided exposures and was able to detect stars down to magnitude18.5 using a V filter. The exposures were typically 5 minutes in length stacked 5-6 deep. These images and other relevant information may be found here. Capturing the burst will definitely requres two hour response to the burst report. |
On 10/10/00, I received encouraging news re the ability to go in deep and get that GRB from a light polluted site such as my own. I had calculated that an 18 inch scope should be sufficient given a good CCD camera and good tracking. Well, the results are in. Today, I received a GCN circular notice routed through the AAVSO (GCN 844). The Fort Bend Astronomy club of Fort Bend Texas has imaged GRB000926 at 19th magnitude. Fort Bend is a suburb of Houston, 30 miles southwest of the center of the city. The imaging was taken at roughly 9pm on 10/28/00, which required that the camera point 316 degrees azamuth, and 49degrees altitude. The camera was pointing southeast, 90 degrees off a line through downtown Houton. |
GRB Capture in Light Polluted Skies |
On 10/10/00, I received encouraging news re the ability to go in deep and get that GRB from a light polluted site such as my own. I had calculated that an 18 inch scope should be sufficient given a good CCD camera and good tracking. Well, the results are in. Today, I received a GCN circular notice routed through the AAVSO (GCN 844). The Fort Bend Astronomy club of Fort Bend Texas has imaged GRB000926 at 19th magnitude. Fort Bend is a suburb of Houston, 30 miles southwest of the center of the city. The imaging was taken at roughly 9pm on 10/28/00, which required that the camera point 316 degrees azamuth, and 49degrees altitude. The camera was pointing southeast, 90 degrees off a line through downtown Houton. |
Imaging took place at a state park a few miles southwest of Ft Bend. According to Joseph Dellinger, of the group that imaged the transient, "It is often possible to see down to 6th magnitude stars, but even so the sky never gets truly dark there... It helped that we had a clear night and the transient was very high, near the head of Draco...We've successfully imaged 18th mag asteroids with the ST-9 even with a bright moon in the sky. For pointlike objects you can counteract light pollution, to a degree, simply by taking longer images or stacking more shorter images." A note on the map: The dark line from Fort Bend southeast represents the approximate angle of the imaging camera. The imaging site is about 10 miles along that track. Conclusions: In Rockville, we haven't seen mag 6 stars for a long while, but we occasionally get down to 4th mag. During such times, we can extrapolate and assume that 17mag stars are possible for us during those times. When skies are worse, perhaps 16th mag at zenith should be possible. Note: During the summer and fall of 2001, I took a series of guided exposures and was able to detect stars down to magnitude18.5 using a V filter. The exposures were typically 5 minutes in length stacked 5-6 deep. These images and other relevant information may be found here. Capturing the burst will definitely requres two hour response to the burst report. |
The story in Joe's words can be found here. |