Starship Asterisk*

Photometry of one star might sometimes be confusing. For instance, the opacity maps show a big cloud crossing the north part of the sky. http://nightskylive.net/mk/mk041015/mk041015ut105429v.jpg Looking at the set of opacity maps we can see it crossing the sky. The first meteor picture is not a mete...

Thanks Tilvi. I will compute the exact parallax soon.

These objects are certainly not airplanes. I estimate that they should be serveral hundreds kilometers above the earth.

All sources of WOLF are now available at http://www.nightskylive.net/wolf/source

These objects aren't airplanes. I am almost sure this is an Iridium satelite.

Newest versions are always available for download at http://nightskylive.net/software/apod But how do we know there is a new release? :? There is a label of the date in which the last release was updated, right below the download link. Apod is still in "beta" it has no formal versions, bu...

Lior, OK, that might work, but it seems to require some programming effort. Can't we just run the file transfer program with the linux "nice" command, which can lower its priority? Then, when the normal priority camsnap.exe command is issued, won't linux immediately take notice of the new...

As far as I know, this one was seen by the people at MK as it was crossing the sky.

WO has a much faster machine than SD. Therefore, camsnap.exe starts faster at WO so the exposure starts earlier. One option is to change the code of camsnap.exe so it will start before the picture should be taken, and starts the exposure exactly at the time that is given as a parameter (a new parame...

Great idea, but I have had several times where the APOD program starts taking up 99% of my CPU and slows my computer to an absolute halt (requiring me to shut it down with the Task Manager). Because of this, I have been forced to remove the program. Also, it would be nice if the program (a) kept th...

tilvi wrote:The last 24 hours movie on the NSL front page doesn't seems to work
http://nightskylive.net/worldmap/wm-movie.gif

Maybe it will work now.

Thanks aschinck, the camera is up again.

Since the camera's orientation has been changed, the photometry files are completely wrong. Please don't use them until I adjust the orientation again.

The photmetry files are now enabled enabled at Cerror Pachon.

CP does not yet generate photometry files. I'll set it up as soon as possible.

Tilvi,

Your charts show that it is the ISS on the second picture, but it cannot be the ISS in the first one. The two objects in the first frame are much lower.

Checking into it, I think it's a satellite glint from "iridium 60". "Heavens Above" gave a very accurate prediction of this glint: http://www.heavens-above.com/iridium.asp?lat=20.707&lng=-156.2559&alt=3048&loc=Unspecified&TZ=UCT10&Date=38250.6553333333&Dur...

I'm not sure about that. I think that the long line is the international space station, and it appears both at Haleakala and Mauna Kea. It's hard to get parallax of that one because it is just a long line which doesn't have a "handle". Anyway, that object seems to be at about the same orde...

http://nightskylive.net/mk/mk040924/mk040924ut145101p.jpg There are two bright objects near the north star. We could guess they are meteors or satellite glints, but if that was the case, we should have seen them also at Haleakala. The fact that these objects are at a low altitude north to Mauna Kea...

The two following two images captured the same meteor at the same time in both Haleakala and Mauna Kea (near the north star): http://nightskylive.net/mk/mk040922/mk040922ut150252p.jpg http://nightskylive.net/hl/hl040922/hl040922ut150251a.jpg I was curious to see what information can be analyzed by u...

Also, if you want to use the uninstaller you can use "control Panel" and choose "Add/Remove software". Then you should select "APOD" from the list.

Yet, it is safe to just reinstall the software on a previous installation.

I agree. This must be the iris. The low counts that we get implies that this is the problem. We had the same problem in Mauna Kea and they opened the iris to get a whole different picture. I don't think it should be so difficult to do, even though you need a screw driver to get to the iris ring. I d...

It seems that we get some productive photometry data from Haleakala. For instance, HD12929.

http://nightskylive.net/hl/hl040916/HD12929.html

It is very clear that the counts are well corelated with the altitude of the star.

I think that the airplane is just to low, and the two concams are too far from each other to see it. Also, this airplane is at the north of Haleakala, while MK is at the south. Maybe if the airplane was at the south of Haleakala it would be also visible by MK. Anyway, the airplane should be no highe...

I noticed this streak too.....if you look at the whole sequence for that period of time i also saw that the surrounding buildings features in the periphery of the cam image were breifly illuminated during the passage of this object. If this is in fact the case then the argument for a meteor becomes...

The software for hl-concam should be now fully functional. Opacity maps are expected to be generated in just few days from now, after the software aquires some data.

Although still in the parking lot, and only about 50% of the sky is visible, the software that generates photometry files is now running.