Focus Issue Resolved

Jonathan Green, got out to Kumeu Observatory last week in an attempt to resolve the focus issues he reported last time he and Shaun Fletcher were out there, after consulting Grant Christie about the issue he came armed with some new settings to try, once he had inputted the new settings the TCF auto-focus worked and the camera didn't stop anymore although he still couldn't run through a v-curve due to not having enough steps to get through, in other words the auto-focus was hitting the step number 1 before completing the v-curve, so knowing that the solution for that is to set the TCF back to 3500 which is the halfway point and then manually focus the telescope until it's back to near focus, once that was completed getting the v-curve was simple and getting a decent focus was not a problem.

Of course to manually focus the telescope he had to un-lock the primary mirror so we will probably need to re-collimate the telescope, also by moving the mirror this has also shifted the T-Point model so we will need to do another pointing model as well, knowing that we also need to take the camera off the telescope to remove the old Wratten and luminance filters and replace them with the new filters provided to us from Astronz Jonathan decided to not attempt another T-Point model until the new filters had been installed, of course there was also plenty of clouds around on the night that also influenced his decision to not attempt a new pointing model as well.

Unfortunately Jonathan discovered a new issue on the night with our computer network, the computer downstairs won't communicate with the dome PC anymore or go online, so we can't currently check the cloud sensor online at the moment, Steve Hennerley is back from overseas now so after having a chat with him over the phone we diagnosed the problem and Steve is going to purchase the replacement parts to get the network back up and running.

Now that Steve is back in New Zealand we are going to spend some time this Spring / Summer really optimizing all our systems at the observatory including our Polar Alignment, the tracking speed of the mount, collimation and a few other jobs that we were putting off while the microlensing season was still underway, we also have been granted a budget from the council of the Auckland Astronomical Society to employ our observatory neighbour Peter McLeod to undertake repairs to the dome's base ring and skirting as well as cleaning and re-painting the dome, we get our mains power from Peters house so it's great that we have someone so close to us that is prepared to undertake all the work that needs to be done to restore the observatory to it's former glory, again a huge debt of thanks is owed to Steve Calveley for suggesting to us that Peter could do all the work that was needed and of course for letting us operate the Kumeu Observatory on his land.

<- As you can see from this photo of a Moon halo above the Kumeu Observatory, the dome is really in dire need of a good clean and re-paint!

Posted by Jonathan Green

Focus Issues

Last night was the 1st good night in a while so Jonathan Green and Shaun Fletcher headed out to Kumeu so Shaun could get some practice in, unfortunately we had an issue with the Optec TCF focuser, basically it would start the auto-focus run take one or two images and then just inexplicably stop, also at times it would try to move the focus to some crazy step number size like around the 200,000 mark when the maximum step size is of course just 7,000, I was at a loss to explain this strange behaviour as no settings have been changed in the downtime between clear skies and it was working perfectly fine the last time I was out there, so we tried shutting everything down a number of times to see if maybe we had done something wrong in the setup procedure but nothing seemed to work and we were hit with the same problem every time we got to the auto-focus process, thankfully we have an Auckland Astronomical Society council meeting tonight so I'll be able to ask Grant Christie about the problem and see if it can be resolved, I'm sure it must be something simple that is just eluding me at the moment.

Last night we also had a few visitors to the Observatory we had a local Kumeu astrophotographer who is just 16 years old come and take a small tour of the Observatory with his Dad, we encouraged them to join the society and to visit Stardome where they will be able to actually "look" through a telescope, we also had two society members use the observatory grounds as a dark site to do some deep sky astrophotography from, so it was a busy night out at the observatory indeed! Even though it was really a very frustrating night for myself.

<- Robert Patterson setting up his imaging rig

Posted by Jonathan Green

And Then There Were Three

Last week and over the weekend we had a couple of good nights, so with no current alerts on, Jonathan took the opportunity to complete Shaun Fletcher's training, now there are three people who are capable of operating the setup in the main dome of Kumeu Observatory, we will still be looking to train more members of the Auckland Astronomical Society so that we can ensure that the observatory will never become disused and derelict again.

Speaking about derelict, Jonathan Green also met up with the treasurer of the society Niven Brown on Sunday afternoon to show him the damage to the dome that Steve Hennerley had discovered before he went overseas, basically we have a bit of rot on one side of the dome, probably because the skirting was never replaced and is inadequate to protect the under side of the dome from the elements, David Moorhouse had mentioned this problem to Bill Thomas last time he saw him in the city, Niven took some photos of the damage and will circulate them to the council, so hopefully with the consent of the council we will be able to hire a builder to come fix the problem, we also want to get the dome cleaned up as well seeing as it looks quite grubby with loads of moss and mold on the outside of the dome, it will probably need treating with a chemical wash and perhaps could be re-painted afterwards as well.

< Screen shot of an image of the Trifid Nebula that I'm working on in PixInsight, I'm still learning how to use PixInsight but it's a fantastic program and I can really see why Rolf Wahl Olsen gets such great results using it.

Posted by Jonathan Green

Internet and a Few Good Nights.

Sorry for the lack of updates, since you last heard from us, we now have the internet out at Kumeu Observatory thanks to Steve Hennerley, we also had a number of good nights last weekend, we didn't have any current Microlensing alerts on, so Jonathan invited Auckland Astronomical society members Shaun Fletcher and Carolle Varughese over to learn the basics of MaxIm DL, Shaun having his own home observatory and being an Astrophotographer picked it up really quickly and Carolle having studied Astronomy and having done a years worth of observations at Mt John Observatory also picked it up quickly, so we probably only need a few more nights of training to get these two up to speed, with no current Microlensing events to follow we do need to start thinking about new projects to tackle.

Another issue that has been discovered with the amount use of the dome is now getting is that the fibreglass sides are starting to really degrade and will require some maintenance, we will be bringing this up at the next society council meeting to hopefully devise a plan of action to repair the dome and perhaps even get the dome cleaned and painted at the same time as it's quite grubby after all these years.

<- M8 The Lagoon nebula captured and processed by Shaun Fletcher at Kumeu Observatory.

Posted by Jonathan Green

Crisis.....Averted... (but a lost night...)

On Tuesday 18th July, Jonathan headed out to the observatory to find beautifully clear skies perfect for some follow up imaging.  After getting set up and ready to grab some data, the remote connection to the dome PC from the bunkroom suddenly failed.  Checking upstairs the dome PC was no longer powered up - and - even worse, wouldn't actually power up.

Even the IT support favourite advice of "turn it off and turn it on again" (well unplug it completely) did not manage to solve the issue.  Unable to contact Steve initially, Jonathan headed out to make the most of the clear skies with some DSLR astrophotography.

The following night Jonathan and Steve managed to hurry along the Auckland Astronomical Society council meeting members with a view to getting out of the meeting and up to the observatory as quickly as possible - with a spare computer power supply in hand.

Almost as expected (remember Murphy?).. the PC powered up instantly...

The challenge was working out WHY the PC had failed because having unreliable equipment is certainly going to have a negative effect on our efforts.  Out came the power supply tester (Steve's a professional IT nerd so has these things lying around...) and everything looked good... fearing the worst... the "intermittent problem"... Steve reconnected everything and powered up again to start some additional diagnostics.

One common cause in the PC world when something goes off suddenly and won't power back up (even with a "power cycle") - but then does some time later (maybe many minutes later) - is that there has  been a short circuit, power surge or "overcurrent" problem somewhere on the motherboard or power supply.  Most IT techs have seen this most often when an errant screw accidentally makes its way (purely by itself you understand) onto the exposed boards of a PC.  The protection circuity (such as polyfuses) kick in and power is removed.  It is common not to instantly come back on when the fault is removed.

OB171186_170719

The hunt was on - for insects in the power supply, "errant screws", possibilities of electrical surge (though the surge protector was still functioning).  Nothing was obvious ... so case back on and stand the PC back up.

At that point the probably cause of the issue was suddenly staring us in the face... the bright blue power LED (which is normally covered loosely with black electrical tape) was off... whilst the PC was on.  Jonathan was certain the light was on the night before when he was setting up and checking inside again, it was still connected.

It seems likely that the blue LED had failed, which in turn had tripped protective circuitry on either the motherboard or the power supply.  The mystery solved, we could be a lot more confident it wasn't going to happen again, and we took the opportunity to do something that should have been done when Steve built the PC - disconnect the Hard Disk and  power lights completely to protect the darkness of the dome.

With that resolved, and the skies clearing, Jonathan and Steve set out to grab some images of a new high priority microlens target OB171186.  Joanathan managed to get 28 300 second images over the next couple of hours - though had a few problems - the strange and as yet undiagnosed mount disconnection (from an earlier blog post) and an issue plate solving a number of (most of) the images in PinPoint.

Light Curve from OB171186

Steve processed the images next day for upload and managed to get the astrometric solution by reducing the number of star used for the solve and also narrowing the intensity range used for matching in the PinPoint settings.  This seemed to do the trick.  Steve also ran the images through a tool called PySIS - which uses differential image analysis to generate a photometric light curve.

Posted by Steve Hennerley

Action Stations!

OB171317

On Saturday the 15th of July Jonathan Green and Steve Hennerley were at Kumeu Observatory, after some advice from Grant Christie that the microlensing target OB170019 was still viable, we took just over an hour's worth of data on the target, Grant had advised that we didn't really need any more than an hour so we were kind of stuck for new projects as there had been now new microlensing alerts for a while, that day Jonathan Green had signed up for the Center for Backyard Astrophysics (CBA) in the hopes of finding some more projects to take on, he had copied down a few Cataclysmic Variable targets to attempt to image, so we attempted a few of the targets but found that each of them was only just above the noise level, so not knowing if that would be useful or not we decided to take more images of OB170019, unfortunately the clouds started rolling in about this time and we couldn't guide for 5 minutes anymore so we decided to pull the plug on the night and headed home with the idea of doing some research and finding some new projects to pursue when we don't have any more microlensing work to do.

On Sunday the 16th of July we finally had a new microlensing alert so it was action stations! Only one problem the forecast for that night was for increasing clouds! We decided to give it a go anyway and just hope for the best, Steve arrived 1st and found the sky was half clear and thankfully our target was on the clear side, so he opened up the dome and got to work, he captured 14 300 second exposures of our target OB171317 before Jonathan arrived, after a few cloudy patches we got back to work but it was slow going with passing clouds causing our guide star to fade more often than not, Steve headed home and Jonathan stayed on to keep imaging for as long as possible, we got to 27 300 second exposures of our target OB171317 although thin clouds may have affected a few of them.

Jonthan imaged the target when gaps allowed until 1:30 am when this cloud bank appeared in the West, it didn't take long after this photo was snapped for the cloud bank to move over our target and even though Jonathan stayed on at the observatory until around 3 am he never saw another opportunity to collect more data, so after calibrating the data we had collected he headed home and sent the files to Steve for submission to MicroFUN, hopefully we get a few more breaks in the clouds tonight to grab our normalizing data as apparently our target has already faded considerably.

Posted by Jonathan Green

Cloudy Nights at Kumeu

Since the last night imaging at Kumeu, we have had a run of some really bad weather, on Sunday the 9th after attending Neil deGrasse Tyson at Spark Arena I headed out to the observatory in the hope of clear skies but even with other parts of Auckland clear Kumeu was still under a pretty constant blanket of clouds, after waiting I drove home to find Coatesville clear but you could still see major clouds in the West. On Monday the 10th after attending the Auckland Astronomical Society meeting I headed out again in the hope of clear skies but it was raining on arrival so I attempted to wait out the clouds and rain by occupying myself with cleaning up the observatory but with no luck it was still heavy cloud when I left around midnight, I'm happy to report we have submitted all our current data to MicroFUN so all we need now is some clear sky to get back to work although fortunately there has been no new microlensing alerts in the meantime.

^ As you can see from this image of the cloud sensor graph clear patches have been few and far between, it's been frustrating because other parts of Auckland have looked relatively clear.

Posted by Jonathan Green

A Night of Two Halves

On Monday the 3rd of July, Jonathan Green decided to miss going to the Auckland Astronomical society meeting and head out to Kumeu instead, after a weekend of rain and clouds it looked like things were finally clearing up, after arriving around 6:15pm he opened up the dome setup and got a focus of a FWHM of 1.7 arc seconds per pixel ( not bad for having only just opened the dome ), he then got onto taking the normalisation data that we need to submit our latest microlensing data sets, so he started by imaging Ogle-Bulge-2017-1161, which was the priority target, he managed almost three hours worth of data before hitting the hard stop before the meridian crossing, this was the first time he had let the mount hit the hard stop, it made a beeping sound and he found when he tried to send it home that somehow the computer had lost communication with the mount.

OB171161_170703

Fortunately it was precisely at this moment that Steve Hennerley turned up, we resolved the issue with the mount and a few other issues we were having before getting back onto our target, we finished imaging Ogle-Bulge-2017-1161 after collecting three hours worth of data so hopefully that will be enough for normalisation, Steve headed home around 1 am and Jonathan stayed behind to continue imaging, he got started on the Ogle-Bulge-2017-1135 target, the first half an hour was plain sailing but the next 8 300 second images he took, took Jonathan until just after 3 am to grab, that was because we had big clouds coming in, he had to close the dome a few times out of fear of a downpour, the wind had also picked up by this stage so he could only grab one or two images in the brief gaps, after 3 am the situation deteriorated so he packed up and headed home around 3:40 am, so we only ended up getting just over an hours worth of normalisation data on the Ogle-Bulge-2017-1135 target so I'm not sure if that will be enough, after Jonathan made it home he sent all the calibrated image data to Steve Hennerley via the We-Transfer file transfer service to be prepared for submission to MicroFUN.

Obviously there has been a lot of rain over the weekend and things are starting to get a bit more muddy outside the observatory, it was really wet on the night as well with the humidity at a 93% level, Jonathan was very happy to see that at the end of the night we didn't have any sign of dew on our corrector plate so he thinks that the dew shield has proven to be the only thing we really need to keep the dew off, this is just as well because when you have to run the dew strap heater this adversely effects the images.

^Looking down the dew shield at a clean corrector plate after a nights observing in 93% humidity, note also how well baffled the dew shield is, David Moorhouse really did a fantastic job constructing this dew shield!

Posted by Jonathan Green

A Perfect Winters Night

On Thursday the 26th of June, Jonathan Green headed out to Kumeu Observatory early so he could grab more flat field calibration image files, before he left home he had copied the coordinates of the latest microlensing targets, after taking the flats he checked where the targets were located, only to find they were all still below the tree line so instead of wasting time waiting for them to rise he slewed to the star cluster Westerlund 2 and grabbed 20 x 100 second exposures, by the time that was done the galactic bulge had cleared the trees so he then immediately set about collecting microlensing data, but before he got started he re-focused the imaging system to a FWHM of 1.5 arc seconds per pixel on a magnitude 8.6 star, Jonathan imaged the target OGLE-2017-BLG-1135 until he hit the meridian, he was joined out at the observatory by Steve Hennerley just after 10 pm, while waiting for our targets to pass the meridian Steve and Jonathan used the break to find our target stars we were a little bit concerned that the signal we were recording wasn't strong enough but after a quick phone call to Grant Christie he assured us that our images would provide useful photometry, Steve ended up heading home around 1 am with the understanding that Jonathan would send him all the calibrated data from the night to be readied for submission, I think this is a method that we will employ from now on, after a full nights imaging you feel really tired and that's when mistakes happen so best to have someone who is fresh in the morning to go over the data and make sure it's all sent off correctly, although Steve also showed Jonathan how to prepare the data for submission just in case he ever needs to do it himself.

After preforming the meridian flip we changed targets to OGLE-2017-BLG-1161 as Grant had mentioned that this was the priority target, we ended up getting 34 x 500 second exposures of this target before it got into the fog and mist of the western horizon, we got 32 x 500 second exposures of the OGLE-2017-BLG-1135 target and we also managed to grab 8 x 500 second exposures of OGLE-2017-BLG-0019, one thing I noticed over the night was that some images would not automatically solve in PinPoint so I think we might need to adjust our settings in PinPoint when solving images in the bulge, by 5am I was losing my guide star due to the mist and clouds that were hanging around low in the West, so this was a natural stopping point for the nights imaging. I calibrated all our data and copied it onto a USB data stick, shut down the dome and headed home around 5:30am, when I got home I immediately copied the data onto my computer and sent the files to Steve via the We-Transfer file transfer service, all in all it was a very productive night and I was happy to see when I woke up an e-mail from Grant saying that he had no problem running our images of OGLE-2017-BLG-1161 through Pysis and that the photometry looked good, we are now looking forward to the next clear night so that we can capture the normalisation data for our new targets.

<- The Galactic Bulge not long before Jonathan stopped for the night, thin clouds and fog made auto-guiding impossible and with not being able to auto-guide he couldn't continue capturing 300 second exposures anymore, so this became a natural stopping point.

Posted By Jonathan Green

A half decent night finally.

OB170019_170627

On the 27th of June Jonathan Green headed out to Kumeu Observatory at 7:30 pm, there was still a lot of thin clouds about on arrival but the forecast looked pretty promising so he opened the dome and setup for a nights worth of imaging, he targeted OGLE-2017-BLG-0019 to be able to capture some normalising data that is needed to be able to submit our data, he found he could still auto guide through the clouds without too much issue, we only lost the guide star twice over the 1st half of the night.

The Sky conditions looking towards the Galactic bulge for the 1st half of the night. 

Just after 10 pm Steve Hennerley turned up and after a brief chat we decided to just keep imaging the microlensing target OGLE-2017-BLG-0019 for the entire night, we continued imaging without any issues until we hit the Meridian crossing, so we paused to wait for our target to cross the Meridian before preforming a "Meridian Flip", we took the chance while we had a break in the action to fix up the dual monitors of the downstairs computer workstation and then refocused on a mag 8.3 star and got a result of a FWHM of 1.5 arc seconds per pixel, my initial focus was only 1.9 so obviously the "seeing" must have improved, I went out side and found that almost all the clouds had dispersed, Steve needed to go to work early so he hung around to make sure the 1st couple of images came down successfully then headed home, Jonathan Green stayed on imaging until 4:46 am by which stage the target was getting pretty low in the sky in the West, he could tell the images were getting worse at this point and could see via the fits header that he was imaging through an Airmass of 1.8, we had captured 78 x 300 second images of the target so we have plenty of data now, of course our next goal is to actually submit our data, after Jonathan closed up the dome he headed home around 5:30 am.

Posted by Jonathan Green

Cloudy nights and a Rookie Mistake.

On the 25th of June Jonathan Green was involved in an astronomical outreach event at Smales Farm on the North shore, the event was a Matariki festival and members of the Auckland Astronomical Society provided telescope viewing to the public, we were ducking rain showers for most of the night but by 9 pm things had cleared up so sensing an opportunity I packed up and left the festival around 9:30 pm to head out to Kumeu, we have had a really bad run of weather lately so you really just have to take your chances when heading out to the observatory at the moment, the sky was still clear when I arrived but after I had opened up the dome and managed to get a decent focus heavy clouds began to roll in, I went outside and watched them for a while, the clouds became progressively thicker and the wind started to pick up, I was lucky to just beat a really heavy rain shower by racing up and closing the dome just in time, I attempted to wait out the clouds and rain by occupying myself with cleaning up the observatory and cleaning up the dew shield that David Moorhouse had built for the "Nustrini" C14, spiders had built lots of webs in it since we took it off when installing the Paramount GT100S, after I had done all that I found that it was still raining and with no gaps on the horizon I decided to head home around midnight.

^ Jonathan Green Shows a member of the public Jupiter through his 8' Meade LX90 SCT.

On the 26th of June Jonathan Green headed out to Kumeu Observatory at 7 pm in the hope of finally capturing some clear skies unfortunately the sky was completely clouded out when he arrived, the forecast was for a clear skies for the following day so in the hope the skies would clear sometime over the night he setup the newly cleaned dew shield onto the "Nustrini" C14 and opened up the dome, while waiting Alan Kane turned up also with the idea of doing some observing, I talked to Alan about the cloud sensor and how it was no longer logging data on the graph and he showed me how to reset it, so our cloud sensor is back to working properly again which I'm really happy about, by the time Alan had set up his Dobsonian the sky started to have a few gaps in the clouds, so I set about gaining focus, after many attempts the best I could manage was a FWHM of 2.5 arc seconds per pixel, not good at all compared to the other night, Alan also confirmed that the seeing looked average visually.

The clouds were coming and going so I attempted to get some work done in the odd gaps, what I wanted to do was take an hour or two of normalising data on the previous microlensing target that we got data on the last time it was clear, because you can't submit your data without the normalising data, I did manage to capture an hours worth of data but I was really not happy with the quality of the images even though I didn't have the dew strap on at all thanks to using the dew shield, using the graph window in MaxIm DL I could also see that the results were really jumping around, I went outside to talk to Alan about the sky conditions and he confirmed that even in the clear gaps we were still getting mist and thin clouds so this was no doubt what was causing the results to jump around, around 11 pm I had to stop due to deteriorating conditions, I went to calibrate all the data I had captured on the night so far only to find I had made a rookie mistake, all the data I had captured on the night was at 2x2 binning but we only have full calibration files for 1x1 binning, I guess my mind was a bit distracted as my e-mail accounts had been hacked that day and I was still getting phone calls about it while I was at the observatory, I just didn't notice that the binning was at 2x2 not 1x1, it was a painful lesson to learn as it meant the nights observations were useless but I know I won't be making that mistake again ( I hope ), on a positive note the dew shield worked perfectly, so I think we will be keeping that on the telescope from now on, by 11:30 pm the sky conditions had really become quite bad so Alan packed up and headed home, while Alan was packing up I managed to focus a star at a FWHM of 1.7 arc seconds per pixel during a break in the clouds, so not wanting to go home while I had a finally managed to get a half decent focus I stayed on, unfortunately the sky conditions just worsened so I ended up giving up around 2 am and packed down and headed home in defeat, hopefully the sky will be clear tonight so I can finally get the normalising data I need to start submitting microlensing data.

^ David Moorhouse's well constructed dew shield on the "Nustrini" C14

Posted by Jonathan Green

Sharp Focus on a Marginal Night!

Saturday the 17th of June was a fantastic Winters day with lovely blue skies, unfortunately as the Sun began to set thin clouds started to roll in, thinking that I may as well head out to Kumeu anyway in the hope that the clouds would clear up I arrived at the observatory at 7:30 pm, the Sky was certainly not clear on arrival, so I just opened up the dome and hoped that things would improve, while waiting for the sky to clear I noticed that the cloud sensor was no longer logging data, I'm not sure what the problem is, after giving Steve a call, I tried a few things but failed to get it working again, so that will be something we will need to have a look at, as having a working cloud sensor is very useful indeed.

<- The Sharpest Focus ever recorded at Kumeu Observatory so far!

I noticed that the one part of the Sky that seemed not to have many clouds, was looking in the direction of the constellation of Carina, so knowing that there is an interesting target in that part of the sky, I set about gaining focus, It was a bit strange that on a night when the conditions were so marginal I managed to get the sharpest focus ever obtained from Kumeu Observatory! With a FWHM of 1.25 arc seconds per pixel on a Mag 8.6 star! We have discovered evidence that we have mirror flop issues so maybe the mirror just flopped into perfect collimation or something?


After gaining a sharp focus I started to image the Star Cluster Westerlund 2, the cluster contains some of the most massive stars known in our galaxy as well as many interesting "Wolf–Rayet stars", even though that part of the sky was the clearest, I think there was still enough clouds around to end up effecting the images so I'm not sure if the data will be useful or not but Grant Christie and Tim Natusch at Stardome Observatory have been studying the cluster for a while now so they might find the data useful.

^ A stack of an hours worth of one minute exposures of the Star Cluster Westerlund 2 in the constellation of Carina.

By the time I finished the hour long run on Westerlund 2 I set about attempting to gain some data on our current microlensing targets but needing to get five minute exposures I found I couldn't autoguide for long before losing the guide star due to clouds, so after a few attempts I went outside and found that the sky conditions had deteriorated, so I packing down and headed home just after midnight.

<- The Sky Conditions when I arrived at Kumeu Observatory.

Posted by Jonathan Green

8th-9th of June, A new T-Point Model and Data Acquisition Begins.

On Wednesday night I headed out to Kumeu Observatory around midnight, clouds and rain stopped me from heading out earlier, after arriving I had to then wait for another hour for the sky to clear up enough to bother opening up the dome, after gaining focus I imaged a microlensing target "OGLE_2017_BLG_0896" this time I tried to keep the dew strap turned off in the hopes I could gain better image quality but after just 20 minutes the corrector plate had fogged up, so I turned the dew strap back on and waited for the corrector to clear, unfortunately by the time the corrector had cleared the clouds came rolling back in and I only barely managed to close the dome before another rain shower hit, I waited for a while after this but with no end in sight for the clouds and rain I decided to pack down and head home around 3 am.

^ Dew on the inside of the corrector plate, it's looking like we will have to just work with the dew strap on or else risk not getting much done on clear nights.

Thursday was a lovely clear day so seeing my opportunity I headed out to Kumeu in the afternoon before sundown to grab sky flat's for calibration, while I was waiting for twilight I was visited by Steve Calveley and his wife, Steve owns the land that Kumeu Observatory is located on and he is also a past president of the Auckland Astronomical Society, I showed him all the new equipment in the dome and talked about our research projects, he was very happy to see Kumeu Observatory back in operation and shared some interesting stories about the observatory and the society from back when he was involved, he also expressed an interest in helping out with the current projects.

After Steve and his wife left I got on with capturing Sky flats, now that I have the flats for the "wratten filter" we can now reduce our image data correctly for submission, being there so early and with all our current targets very low in the sky I decided to have a go at doing a new pointing model using the T-Point add on for the Sky X, after a few failed attempts I figured out how to do it properly again and managed to get a decent pointing model, although I did have a few failed pointing samples near the almost full Moon, we could definitely see that there is an east / west bias that is indicative of mirror flop but at least we won't have to do star synchronization and solve images each night to be able to point the telescope accurately, hopefully it will stay reasonably accurate until we decide to change things again, while I was finishing my T-Point model Steve Hennerley showed up, so after looking at the results and having a chat we decided to get on with some image acquisition of the microlensing target "OGLE-2017-BLG-0019", we managed to grab 2 hours worth of data on this target as well as some new images of "OGLE_2017_BLG_0896", one of the best moments of the night came when me and Steve managed to identify the target star using the OGLE finder Chart.

<- The Ogle finder Chart image

And our image of the target, which is a crop from one of the original Fit's files ->

After Steve left to catch some sleep before work, I stayed behind and kept on imaging but I noticed that the auto-guider started losing it's guide star, I managed to resolve the problem eventually by disconnecting the camera and then restarting MaxIm DL, I then re-enabled the auto-guider in the telescope setup section and this seemed to fix the problem, although when your taking 5 minute exposures and run into problems like this you can end up wasting a lot of time and when your tired from being up late a couple of nights you tend to make mistakes, so after finishing off the two hours worth of images of the "OGLE-2017-BLG-0019" target and creating copies of the images that I then calibrated, I ended up closing up the dome and copied all the images onto my USB stick and headed home around 5:30 am.

I'm really looking forward to the next clear night and hopefully we will soon be able to complete our next goal which is to start submitting our data for analysis.

Posted by Jonathan Green

1st attempt at a Microlens Star Field.

Last night after attending the Auckland Astronomical Society meeting at Stardome Jonathan & Steve headed out to Kumeu Observatory at Grant Christie's suggestion to attempt to image a microlensing event in the galactic bulge, Steve arrived first and opened up the dome but quickly found he could not astrometrically solve any images, the reason why this was the case is because while Steve had been working on the dome rotation automation over the long weekend he noticed that the time on the dome computer was not correct, he fixed the time but that of course caused all our pointing data to become out of wack so essentially the Mount didn't know where in the sky it was pointing anymore, after trying a few different failed attempts to resolve the problem Jonathan suggested to Steve that we just start from scratch and clear all pointing data and go find a known star to synch to, we eventually ended up on Alpha Centauri and managed to get synchronization by this stage it was fairly late (1:30 am ) so Steve headed home because he needed to get up early for work.

After Steve left I solved a few images and then focused a mag 8.5 star to a FWHM of 1.499 arc seconds per pixel, I then went to the microlens field and astrometrically solved the field to confirm the position, I managed to get 17 five minute exposures before the sky crapped out with fog and clouds, I left the observatory around 5:30 am as there was pretty much no chance to get dawn flats due to the bad conditions so we still can't reduce our data until we get new flats.

<- Focus Star

The above image is of the target microlens star field, please note that the image is not calibrated and was taken while the waxing gibbous Moon was still well above the horizon, even though I managed to get a decent focus I was forced to run the dew strap at full to keep dew off the corrector plate which would have no doubt affected the images, also something else I noticed was that the aberrations all look worse on the left hand side of the image but I'm not really sure if that's our collimation or the focal reducer causing that.

^ The current observing conditions have been very sporadic out at Kumeu, as you can see from this cloud sensor graph above, the blue parts are rain, the red parts are heavy clouds, the yellow parts are light clouds and or fog and the white parts are clear skies, so you really need to be on your toes to be able to get anything done, hopefully we will have more stable conditions soon.

^ The very picturesque scene looking at the valley across the road from Kumeu observatory, you can see that the fog and mist fills up the low lands but it's like the fog is like water in a bath and eventually it fills up the valley until it spills over and ends up over the trees and dome of Kumeu Observatory, it seems like this phenomenon might be quite a common occurrence at this time of year out at Kumeu.

Posted by Jonathan Green

A Foggy Start to Winter

Last night I didn't manage to get out to Kumeu until around 9 pm, not long after I arrived Auckland Astronomical Society member Alan Kane turned up and set up his big Dobsonian telescope to continue his current visual observing challenge of ticking off all the Catalogue of Principal Galaxies (PGC) objects that he can see through his telescope, he's already ticked off all the NGC objects! so he's onto fainter more challenging targets now.

Before Alan had turned up I had opened up the dome, pointed the telescope to near the zenith and started to attempt to gain a good focus using the auto-focus function in MaxIm DL but I couldn't manage to get anything better than a FWHM of 2.3 arc seconds per pixel, I had already wasted around half an hour trying to get a better focus but I was kind of in a rush because I really wanted to go after a Star Cluster that Grant Christie and Tim Natusch have been currently studying over at Stardome Observatory, the time constraint was because the Star Cluster is in the Constellation of Carina and at this time of the year Carina quickly goes behind the trees so it's hidden from our view for most of the night as seen from the Kumeu Observatory dome.

So in the end I had to just settle for a less than perfect focus, finding the Star Cluster which is named "Westerlund 2" was fairly uncomplicated because all I had to do was enter the RA and DEC coordinates into the My Chart Elements feature of the Sky X, then centered the target and slewed to the object and it almost dead center on the first try, I then proceeded to image the cluster until it went behind the trees I managed to grab around 58 images, unfortunately these images couldn't be correctly reduced as we still haven't taken any sky flats for the "Wratten filter" which is the filter we should be using for all our scientific work from now on, I did fire off a couple of the images for Grant to take a look at for comparison purposes, I can now really appreciate how much work is needed to try get the "Nustrini" C14 as optimised as the 16' Meade LX200ACF that Grant and Tim use over at Stardome.

The Star Cluster Westerlund 2 in the constellation of Carina, this cluster contains some very interesting Wolf–Rayet stars. ^

One piece of news that I'm really happy to announce is that our frosting issues seem to be over for now. I think the desiccant obviously just need more time to remove moisture out of the imaging system, last night was a really good test as well because the weather station was recording the humidity at 91%!

While I was imaging the Westerlund 2 Star Cluster I was thinking about why I couldn't gain as good a focus as the last time I was out at the observatory, one thought was that maybe the collimation may have slipped out but it then dawned on me that I had made a rookie mistake, last time I was out at the observatory I had the dew strap cranked up to full and I had forgotten to turn it off, a quick trip up to the dome confirmed my suspicions, so I turned off the dew strap and waited for a few minutes while it cooled off before I again pointed the telescope to near the zenith to try gain a good focus, this time I managed to measure a magnitude 8 star at a FWHM of 1.4 arc seconds per pixel, so I think it must have been the dew strap that was mucking up my focus attempts earlier on in the night, so it has to be part of our shut down procedure from now on that you turn off the dew strap when closing up for the night.

I should note that about twenty minutes after getting a good focus I had to turn the dew strap back on as the corrector plate was starting to fog up, I had to wait for five minutes or so for the corrector to clear again but thankfully the focuser was tracking the temperature correctly so I didn't lose my sharp focus.

<- Two frame mosaic of the Cats Paw Nebula in Scorpius.

With all that behind me I set about imaging the Cats Paw Nebula I wanted to try making a mosaic of the entire nebula but only managed to grab two fields of view using 25 x 1 exposures each with the Optolong Red filter before the stars all started to fade, thinking that corrector plate had fogged up again I raced up to the dome but no the corrector plate was clear, I then ventured outside to see some of the thickest fog I have ever seen! In fact the fog was so impressive it even made this evenings News report. It was so thick you could barely even see any stars with the naked eye anymore, seeing that this was going to end my nights activities I closed up the dome and headed home around 4:30 am.

Posted by Jonathan Green

High Humidity and More Frosting Issues.

Last night I went out to Kumeu Observatory around 7 pm, Steve wasn't free so I set about testing out the camera in the hopes that by cooking the desiccant I would have solved our frosting problems, unfortunately as I cooled down the camera I saw halos start to develop around the stars and after just ten or so minutes I started to see the tell tale signs of frost starting to form, while I was working in the observatory I had set up my DSLR outside to capture a startrail and after going over the images today I noticed quite a bit of thin cloud that was invisible to the naked eye but was clearly captured by the camera, so maybe some of the halos I was seeing may have been caused by the clouds although the tell tale signs of frosting are really quite distinctive and can't really be mistaken for anything else.

Halos around the stars after cooling down the CCD ^

The problem with the halos must have been in camera though because when I warmed up the camera the halos all went away and when I cooled down the camera they quickly came back, I had read online that after cooking the desiccant it may take a day or two for the desiccant to absorb all the moisture from the camera so maybe there just hasn't been enough time for the desiccant to do it's job or perhaps it's time to buy a new desiccant, we can't really do anything below zero degrees Celsius at the moment as you start to develop the halos below that temperature and once you have the halos they tend to effect being able to obtain good focus, I noticed that the weather station was reporting that the humidity was at 90% so I think this may have been a factor also, when I shut down the dome later on in the night the shutter was literally dripping wet! I also did some tests of running the camera at zero degrees Celsius for an hour or so and then cooling it down as me and Steve had read that in an online forum as being a possible solution to the problem but to no avail as soon as the camera was set to -20 you would see the halos start to form followed by frost in the 5-10 minutes after cool down, we will have to find a solution to our frosting issues quickly as the microlensing season is fast approaching.

Startrail looking south over the Wasp Observatory that I took while working in Kumeu Observatory. ^

I stuck it out until 2 am doing some pointing tests by astrometricaly solving images with the Image Link function in the Sky X, using this technique I could easily find variable stars such as AR Sco, so we will probably just use this method until we can get a really robust pointing model done, by 2 am the clouds had inevitably rolled in and put an end to the nights observations.

Posted by Jonathan Green.

Ice and Clean

After the adventures in collimation of the night before, another clear night saw Jonathan and I again off to Kumeu (missing out on the AAS film night).  Jonathan was out there first and was quickly frustrated once again by frosting on the CCD sensor.  After a couple of "warm up" and "cool down" cycles still hadn't fixed it, it was clear this problem was going to start getting annoying rather fast.

Cleaning the corrector plate on the C14

After I arrived, we decided to leave the camera with the coolers off for a while and tackle another little job that's been on the list for far too long - the C14 corrector plate.  We haven't cleaned the corrector at all since we started (a long long time ago....) so you can imagine the quantity of dust, water spots, insect gunk and all manner of things on there. (Actually you don't need to imagine - we've got quite a few pics of the corrector on the blog!)

I'll get you....dust particles... 

Using the old faithful technique of a bulb blower,  soft white tissue and 30% alcohol solution in demineralised water, the outside surface of the corrector was slowly and carefully de-gunked  - which had the predictable effect of showing just how much gunk was on the inside of the corrector - this will have to be addressed in the short term.  A medium term project might also be to get the primary cleaned (I know people have had fantastic results using the novel cleaning kit from https://www.photoniccleaning.com/)  or potentially re-aluminized - as there is an appreciable quantity of dust and a small mould/fungal spot.

Dismantling the filter wheel on the SBIG ST10XME

We also checked out the filters, as we know the new RGB we were testing needed to be tightened up - but also noticed the L and the #12 Wratten filter were looking past their best too...  after pulling the flter wheel out it was clear that the L and #12 filters would definitely be causing issues with our images.  Even though we are planning to replace these filters, these too had a very careful cleaning and came out looking much better than they were originally.

Carefully cleaning the L filter

We reattached the camera and cooled it down, only to be instantly frustrated by frosting again almost immediately.  We are definitely going to "cook" the dessicant pack again, as it's clear there is obviously moisture in the system that's not being removed.  We jumped on the internet (via Steve's phone as we've not get this sorted yet still) and learned a couple of interesting things about this problem:

1. you can buy a replacement dessicant plug that takes disposable gel packs - this is fantastic as it would allow us to replace the dessicant quickly without the "cooking" process
2. A technique described on a forum for cooling down in stages to avoid the frost. 

We gave #2 a go and cooled the chip to zero for half an hour before taking it any colder - this seemed to do the trick (though it might have just been luck this time) as we managed to cool further without seeing any frosting.  We'll certainly add this to our process for the future to see if this will avoid this situation.  

One final challenge for the night is that the focal reducer we have is also in dire need of replacement/professional cleaning or removal - though at this point we noted that we don't have the original 2" nosepiece- something else for our shopping list.

After I left around 12:30, all Jonathan did  was try image for a while but soon got hit with more frosting issues so frustrated, packed down and cleaned up the observatory including removing a dead mouse from under the dome ( gross but at least we know the rat bait is effective ), Jonathan ended up taking the desiccant home and cooked it (it goes in the oven for 4 hours to dry out the dessicant material) the next day. He then took it back out to Kumeu and reinstalled into the CCD camera, hopefully that should resolve our frosting issues for a while.

Steve and Jonathan

Collimation

Dew on the inside of the corrector plate

Last night Jonathan & Steve met up at Kumeu Observatory to take advantage of the clear skies and get to work on collimating the "Nustrini" C14, Jonathan arrived first and while waiting for Steve set about focusing the camera and doing some pointing tests, from the outset he was hit with frosting on the CCD, this happened 4 times before we decided to run the camera at -15 instead of -20, this seemed to resolve our frosting issues on the night but what is certain is that we either need to cook the desiccant again or replace it with a new one, also had an issue with dew on the inside of the corrector plate again and found this was due to the dew strap not being warm all the way around, it looks like we are using a dew strap that is not designed for a C14, so after adjusting the dew strap so it was providing heat to the affected area and taking off some of the masking tape over the vents so that we could air out the optical tube, thankfully this seemed to to do the trick as the dew eventually disappeared. Grant at Stardome has experience a similar problem with dew on the inside of the corrector - whilst sealing any small holes is great to prevent dust setting into the system it is also preventing adequate ventilation, and any humid air in the tube is unable to be circulated out.

CCD Inspectors's Single Star Collimation 

.After Steve arrived we set about collimating the telescope, we used CCD inspector and defocused a single star into an annulus.  It appears we don't have enough "travel" on the TCF focuser to defocus the star enough, so we needed to manually defocus to get the start image big enough for the CCDInspector process.

Starting off by identifying where on the image the collimation screws were in relation to the image (by making a shadow with my hand) it was easy to see which screw to adjust - basically the one which "moves" the image in the direction of the line on screen.

After making the corrections that CCD inspector gave us we improved the collimation then moved onto using the multi star collimation feature of CCD inspector, we used an open star cluster near the zenith but after a few attempts we ended up making the collimation worse so ended up having to star over !

Steve Hennerley collimating the "Nustrini" C14.

When we did start over though, and had to manually refocus and start again with the single star, we learned that our "shipping bolts" we installed to combat "mirror flop" may be causing us more problems than they are solving.  If we leave them loose enough so they don't interfere with the mirror, they are probably ineffective, and we've noticed they loosen up as we slew around (as the mirror cell is moving we guess).  If we tighten them however (or more correctly, tighten the focus against them) then there is a significant deflection of the mirror affecting collimation.  The shipping bolts are not opposite each other - rather they are 120degrees apart and opposite the focuser (if you imagine the CCD inspector picture of the collimation screws above as being the back of the scope, the focuser is at "A" and the two bolts are at "B" and "C").  This has the end result that the mirror is pivoted along the A to "B-C midpoint" axis.   This may need revisiting - but for now we left the bolts "just" touching the mirror cell.

We ended up collimating the telescope until about almost 3 am in the morning, we could definitely see a huge improvement in the images and the shape of the stars, after Steve left Jonathan managed to focus a star near the zenith at a FWHM of 1.7 arc seconds per pixel, after taking a few test shots he could really see how improved the images were but we will need to monitor the situation because if the primary mirror is flopping we can expect the collimation to degrade fairly quickly, with another clear night tonight Jonathan and Steve plan to catch up again and see what else can be done in preparation for the forthcoming microlensing season.




Posted by Jonathan Green & Steve Hennerley.

Cables....Be Gone !!!

Even though the skies weren't particularly clear this evening, Jonathan and I headed out to the observatory to tackle a few jobs that were on the list. A critical job that needed doing was to reconnect the dew strap to 12v power.  Since we'd replaced the mount electronics, the dew strap power couldn't actually be hooked up as the power had been routed through the original mount wiring (pretty much the only thing that was).

I wasn't keen on a temporary fix (we all know how these have a habit of becoming permanent) - and a "dream" of mine since we installed the paramount was to get as much of the cabling as we could to use "through mount" cabling to eliminate the risky "cable snake" that carried signal and power to the scope equipment.

Indeed when we rebuilt the mount, we were already supplied with the standard SoftwareBisque connector panel -  this was prewired with USB, a multipole pass thorugh power connector 5v and 12v outputs (though low current - we weren't too comfortable trying to drive the heater with the 12v).  We worked out this was almost enough for us to connect everything we needed bar a couple of items - one of which was the dew heater.

Custom wiring box on the mount dovetail plate

In the end we added to this two "network" sockets (connected with Cat5E cable) and two DC power sockets (locking 2 pin connectors) neatly mounted to the dovetail plate in a 3D printed enclosure. This provided all the connectivity we needed now, plus a little room for changes and expansion as we broaden our astronomical horizons.

in theory therefore, all that was required was making up a few cable connectors and we'd be to enjoy a cable-snake-less future....   Step one though is that we hadn't quite worked out the best (ie tidiest) way to get power into our extra power cables.  There were a number of spare "keystone" type connectors in the mount side panel we could have used - but unfortunately the locking connectors we used at the scope side were too big to fit.  We were originally planning to use "Anderson Power Pole" connectors but they didn't have an elegant panel mount solution.

The mount control panel showing our
newly installed Anderson PowerPole
connectors (top centre)

In the end the 3D modelling software and 3d printer again came to the rescue and we manufactured a custom "keystone" style mounting bracket for a pair of "PP30" connectors.  After adding further PP30 connectors to the lead from our 12V power supply (which would have been easier with the correct crimping tool for the job!) , and the appropriate 2 pin connector to the lead to the dew heater we were finally ready to test.  The dew strap (controlled by a PWM controller designed to handle LED lights) heated up properly and we were back in business to fight the dew. (if only it had been powerful enough to evaporate the clouds that had started gathering thickly!)

How many parts?

Of course one win doesn't make a successful evening - and with one device fully cabled up through our new mount wiring, sights were set on the rest of them!  Next in line was the biggest chunkiest cable - the power supply to our SBIG ST10XME camera.  From research this unit couldn't be driven from just 12v - the power supply has +12v -12v and +5v all supplied though a "DIN" style connector.

Making the cable connectors

The plan for this was to route through the small "Kycon" 4 pin connector in the SoftwareBisque wiring loom (labelled "power in" on the pic above).  this meant making up two adapter leads with DIN connectors on one end and "Kycon" on the other.  The DIN connectors were straightforward enough (once I'd checked, diagrammed, double checked and tested the pin layout) - but the Kycon connectors must be the fiddliest, most over-engineered plug on the planet.  It is supplied in no less than 8 individual parts, all in separate plastic baggies and a set of instructions.  The first one took some time to carefully assemble - though by the time I got to the second it was admittedly not quite as challenging.

Whilst it was a little nerve wracking to plug the new connector into the camera (even after double checking the polarity and voltage of the 3 voltage line pins), happily everything worked as it should have done and the camera spun up nicely.  The only remaining piece of equipment to handle was our Optec TCF Focuser.

As luck would have it, this one was probably the easiest.  The focuser connects to the controller by way of a 9 pin "D" plug cables to a modular RJ45 socket.  As a career geek, I've always got a handful of RJ-45s and a crimper at hand, so this was a 2 minute chop the wire smaller and connect on a new plug (which was even cabled as standard "T-568-B Spec").  Adding a small Cat5 patch cord at the control panel end and suddenly a long time dream was just about reality!

All that remained was to tidy and tie up the wring to keep it need and free from snagging on anything and to double check all our connections, and - importantly - to make sure everything still worked..

The process of moving from externally cabled equipment to using a "through mount" approach has taken a lot of planning - even at the early stages when we were tearing out the old control gear from the mount.  We needed to have our dovetail plate machined to take extra cables, and even create custom connector boxes.  Even with everything in place there was a bit of research required for the final cabling and it took a good few hours just to get everything built and plugged in.

The end result though is that now, as well as a much neater set up, we are free from the worry of the cables dragging on the floor or snagging on something - or of course one of us tripping on it.  We've also reduced the risk of damage to the cables, or a connector.

Steve

The end result - notice that all the cabling to the OTA now goes to the dovetail palte connector boxes.

6th-7th of May, Clouds and CCD Frost.

On the 6th of May I headed out to the observatory after sundown to be pleasantly surprised to find that the Wasp Observatory was open, Nicola Gujer was there using the University of Auckland's Department of Physics Meade 12' Inch LX200 Schmidt–Cassegrain to capture data for her project to study the astronomical "seeing" in Auckland, after setting up I went to focused on a few stars only to find I was getting some pretty bad results, after realising that I wasn't pointing the telescope high enough I managed to focus a star with a FWHM of 1.8 arc seconds per pixel, after finding an interesting target to image I noticed some strange features on the images, I think some of the early ones could have been ice starting to form and I was sure of it later on when the familiar arcs appeared, knowing that the only way to fix this was to "warm up" the camera, I did so and confirmed that the aberrations on the images were indeed caused by CCD frosting, the thing was I had to "warm up" the camera about three times before the problem went away entirely so i think we may have to cook the desiccant again.

NGC 2997 with the 1st signs of frost starting to form.(note that the image is uncalibrated and was also affected by the gibbous Moon.) ^

The Star that Nicola was monitoring went behind the trees so she packed up and headed home around 11 pm, after she left I started imaging part of the Lobster Nebula (NGC 6357), I captured around half an hours worth of data before the clouds started to arrive, I tried to wait them out but they were very consistent, it was very frustrating as I could tell the rest of Auckland was in the clear, the clouds were coming in from the west and not getting much further in before thinning out and dispersing, while I waited I got the vacuum cleaner out and gave the observatory a good clean up, after packing down I left the observatory around 2 am.

Part of the Lobster Nebula (NGC 6357) ^

I also went out to the observatory on Sunday night (7th) but got clouded out before I could get much done, I looked at the cloud sensor downstairs and noticed I had made the right decision leaving the previous night as the sensor showed that the sky didn't clear until 6 am!

Posted by Jonathan Green

Documentation, Guiding, and "Point Telescope Here"

After a few rainy nights, the clouds cleared and another opportunity came up to knock off a few tasks. I arrived the site a little earlier than Jonathan and as I was starting things up, started to produce our "SOP" (Standard Operating Procedure) documentation.  By documenting our startup, operation and shutdown procedures we will ultimately make it easier to train others into using the site - and more importantly have a consistent way of doing things.  This also allows us to document little used procedures to save "head scratching" time when we need to use them again.

So we now have the bones of the Startup, Guiding and also "Point Telescope Here" documentation.

Cats Paw - 40 mins exposure (2 min subs)

The 'PTH' process is one that we were really happy to get working the last time we were set up - this allows us to centre an object in our field, if it's slightly off to one side say, just by clicking the point in the image that we are interested in.  The mount automatically tweaks it's alignment to get your desired target dead centre.

It's not a particularly hard process to get working - in fact when we first did it we were surprised we had taken so long to get it working.  It was so easy in fact that we didn't bother writing down what we'd done.   Needless to say, it wasn't working in the  new setup, and we couldn't quite remember the simple steps we needed to do!!

After requisite head scratching, it was indeed really easy to do - so I did it - but more importantly, I also wrote down how I did it so that next time it will be much faster!

Whilst working on this we also discovered the cause of the guiding woes from earlier in the week - it looks like it was just an extra "calibrate" that might have been needed to fix the problems!  We had guiding working just fine in all the areas we tried.

Since Jonathan had enjoyed the remote operation experience so much, I also improved the monitor setup down in the bunkroom - there are now two bigger monitors to use which makes operation all that much easier.

The other major task completed tonight was another improvement on out polar alignment by doing a few more rounds of drift alignment.  We have got rid of almost all the drift but still see more East/West movement than we are expecting - this possibly needs more investigation (could be just PE) but it's so slow that the autoguider will take care of it fully for now.

There was a little light cloud around so our test imaging wasn't particularly great and we are desperately in need of collimation.  We have found out there is to be some microlensing work to complete next month so the race is now on to get these tasks - along with checking out the filters and focal reducer - knocked off before then.