Re: TT Ari and Swift

From: Joe Patterson <*jop_at_astro.columbia.edu*> Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:41:17 -0500 · jop_at_astro.columbia.edu

Gracious, the November night comes early in Finland.  Well, faint is 
definitely good, in my opinion!  I'm inclined to say keep the time 
resolution good rather than improve SNR.  Partly because with good time 
resolution, you still leave the improved-SNR door open (by condensing 
the points later), and partly because the star does show - in the little 
flares - activity on very short timescales (occasionally rising/falling 
a magnitude in <2 minutes).

BTW Arto and Berto got some good ink in recent Sky and Telescope issues. 
Arto got onto a "top ten science-amateurs" list, mainly via a 
planetary-transit observation.  And Berto for a little blip in the 
critical part of a microlensing event, which attested to a planet 
observed through the microlensing technique.  Both great achievements...
and both guys have been there before.  Congrats.  I hope we can lure you 
guys to Big Bear in 2010.

joe

Arto Oksanen wrote:
> After a month or so of cloudy nights the sky cleared tonight and I am
> observing TT Ari (from 15 UT). The star is faint at CV=16.5 on the
> first unfiltered images giving poor SNR=10.  Should I expose longer or
> is it important to keep the sampling under one minute? The SNR should
> improve bit with darker sky.
> 
> I had to override the humidity sensor to open the dome. It has been
> 100 percent past few days.
> 
> arto
> 
> 2009/11/20 Joe Patterson <jop@astro.columbia.edu>:
>> Unless I'm losing brain cells even faster than I thought, these Swift
>> observations (in this message from Koji) will take place TONIGHT, just
>> as our intrepid USA westerners are losing the star.  But there will be
>> windows for AU/NZ, then for Europe/Africa on Saturday night (pardon me,
>> AU/NZ folks, I temporarily forgot where the IDL goes way down there, so
>> don't hold me to terms like "tonight" and "Saturday night").
>>
>> joe
>>
>>
>> Hi Joe,
>>
>> The first 6.5 ksec of the new Swift time has been scheduled for Nov 21.
>>
>>    http://www.swift.psu.edu/operations/PPST/2009325/TTAri_ppt.html
>>
>> The expected UT times of observations are:
>>
>> 09:15-09:22
>> 10:51-11:01
>> 12:27-12:37
>> 14:04-14:13
>> 15:40-15:50
>> 17:17-17:31
>> 18:53-19:07
>> 20:29-20:43
>> 22:06-22:19
>> 23:42-00:00
>>
>>                                - Koji
>>
>>
>>
> 
> 
> 