Red Barn Observatory MPC/IAU H68

Established 2006

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RED BARN OBSERVATORY - MPC H68 - PROJECTS & PUBLICATIONS

2010

Letter to Readers:

Due to me (the operator) being in school the past six months, the Red Barn Observatory has been pretty much inactive.  As of March, my school has came to an end and observations are resuming.  In the past, observations mainly pertained to asteroid and comet (especially Near Earth Objects) follow-up observations and discovery.  But now due to the big surveys claiming just about all of the new objects, and those fainter than magnitude 20, I have turned my studies to primarily asteroid and comet follow-up observations and photometry of these objects - also known as lightcurve work.  When a body in space (especially a minor planet) rotates, the amount of light reflected from this body varies due to the shape of the body.  When this light is reflected back to Earth, the magnitude of the light can be measured and calculated to produce a "brightening and dimming" effect known as a lightcurve.  The same equipment still exists in the observatory and will remain in full operations to continue this work.  Telescope: 0.3-m Meade LX200 @ f/4.4.  Camera:  SBIG ST-7 (old parallel version).  Software (telescope control): TheSky6 Professional, MPO Connections (CCD control): CCDSoft5, MPO Connections (processing software):  CCDSoft5, Astrometrica, MPO Canopus/PhotoRed v10, RegiStax, FindOrb.  I also collaborate with the Tzec Maun Observatories in New Mexico and Australia.  This allows further observations (and more data) to be added to the lightcurves that are generated with MPO Canopus.  The work produced this year will be published within this Web site or links on this page.  If anyone has any questions or suggestions please feel free to e-mail me.

* 3-20-2010 - Follow-up observations of Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2002 FB3 (163243) were collected and submitted to the Minor Planet Center (see observations below).  At the time of imaging this object was at magnitude 17.3 - 17.5 and moving at a rate of 2.73"/minute.  The images below were composed of 14 1-minute exposures stacked in Astrometrica.  2002 FB3 is the "dot" at the top of the images.  The night of imaging this object, a series of 85 - 1-minute exposures were collected.  The exposure length should have been longer to produce better results.

Astrometry submitted to the MPC from 2002 FB3

* 3-21-2010 - Sky conditions were not very favorable, so it was decided that photometry would performed on asteroid 321 Florentina since it was in a favorable position and would be a good target.  A total of 84 - 1-minute exposures were collected of this object over a period of nearly two hours.  More data is needed (and will soon be collected) to produce a better lightcurve of 321 Florentina.  The photometry results from data collected at MPC H68 are below.  More data will be added to this lightcurve.

Below is the astrometry of 321 Florentina submitted to the MPC.

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Copyright © 2006 The Cometary Space Web of Steve E. Farmer Jr.

Last modified 08/31/2010 02:19 PM -0700

This web site has been active since March 1, 2006

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