Best Night of the Week

The 72-inch Perkins Dome in the moonlight

Finally, a good day in northern Arizona, not that we were conscious much to enjoy it.  The next time they want to make a zombie movie, they just need to film on location at an observatory.  The observations to date on the Near Earth Asteroid and the Trojan were both interesting, but not definitive at this time.  More observations are required, and we will get some this night.

We were warned that the guider was swapped out on the 72 inch during the day.  That resulted in some electrical issues and a runaway dome.  When we arrived in the early evening, we could not get the dome to find its home position.  The technician drove from town, and got it synced, but could not explain what happened.  He also focused the guider, which was then off.

Jupiter, Venus, Mercury (faint), and Mars (fainter) at Dawn

Technical issues aside, we were back in business as the last of the afternoon clouds burned off.  Brian Skiff was taking spectra on the 42 inch telescope and dropped by to talk photometry.  I later went over to the 42 inch dome to see his spectra program.  It is a continuation of a program started at Mt. Wilson many years ago.   He is getting several spectra of 114 solar type stars each year.  The idea is to see how they compare to our own sun.  Our sun has an 11 year solar cycle and created the Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715.  Do other solar-like stars do the same?  They figure they will need 50 years of data to get good enough statistics.