What would you do with a 40+ inch telescope?

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Sun, 01/10/2016 - 14:27

Hi!

Yesterday I visited a remakable private observatory: The  EXPO Observatory in Melle, Germany.

http://www.sternwarte-melle.de/index.htm

The main instrument is a 1.12 m aperture Newton telescope (sic!) , with 4.4 m focal length. It's privately owned and open to the public for tours and observations. An exclusive observation night costs 70 EUR. It's the first time I had difficulties using an amateur telescope because of my acrophobia... They use something resembling my biggest telescope as a seeker....

The site is reasonably dark but as it's in Germany, the probability of a cloudless night in general is not great and there is always some light pollution near the horizon.

So...what would you do if you had this thing within driving distance of only an hour from your home? Spectroscopy comes to mind but I'm not yet skilled in it and would rather practice with smaller gear before wasting obs time with this one. What would be a good project that requires only a few observation nights with potentially large gaps between them (each at 70 EUR) but could benefit from the impressive aperture?

CS

HBE

 

Affiliation
Magyar Csillagaszati Egyesulet, Valtozocsillag Szakcsoport (Hungary) (MCSE)
Hi Bikeman,I assume there is

Hi Bikeman,

I assume there is a CCD camera for this telescope. Since you have quite some experience in DSLR photometry, but don't want to waste your time with spectroscopy, then CCD time series photometry is the logical answer. You can try either some CVs or some suspected variables. (Actually I have some quite faint candidates found during our "Vendégcsillag-kereső" /Guest Star Hunter/ programme, if you want I can recommend some of our stars in PM.)

Clear skies,

Robert

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
camera options

It's a good question which sensor to use on this one. I don't have a CCD camera that would be good for this one, and I don't even have photometric filters other than small 1.25 inch ones that would not be so great for this scope I guess :-). OTOH I'd prefer to use my own sensor equipment for such a project so that I could reuse filter + sensor calibration in other projects with smaller telescopes I have access to. Rather than using someone else's CCD and filters I'd then proably consider buying something new if the project is exciting enough.

I would not even rule out doing DSLR photometry on this big scope even it it sounds weird at first. But in the end the sensors of modern DSLRs are not that bad after all and the abundance of photons on a 40+ inch scope would help to characterize the transformation necessary to translate the Bayer RGB to standard photometric filters. 

It all depends on the target object. For some target objects I'd guess that the magnitude value itself is not that important but the absence or presence of variation itself is important (as in exoplanet transits). Then again I'd prefer projects that deal with the instrinsic brightness of a star.  

 Cheers

HB

 

 

 

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Unfortunately, I was now told

Unfortunately, I was now told that guest observers are only allowed visual observations on this instrument.

CS

HBE