Spectral animation with AudeLA / SpcAudAce

Following a new version of SpcAud'Ace module in AudeLA, I have been able to make some animation of CH Cygni spectral evolution on july 25th. Halpha and Hbeta show double peak with V/R variation (V/R is the violet part of the emission line versus the red part; usually we measure a V/R ratio based on each peak intensity). Note that sometimes the V peak is the highest and sometimes it's the R peak... all of this within minutes!

 Halpha

Hbeta

HeI near sodium doublet

How to do animation in AudeLA?
First, make sure you have the latest SpcAud'Ace module (I used v4.01 here). Setup your working directory where you have your FITS file (and only those). Run SpcAud'Ace and then use the console with the command spc_anim:
# Usage: spc_anim nom_astre_sans_espaces ?delay_images(40) ?methode_normalisation(norma/[rescale]/none)?? ?lambda_min lambda_max ymin ymax???

for Halpha
spc_anim CHCyg 30 rescale 6500 6620 0 12

for Hbeta
spc_anim CHCyg 30 rescale 5850 5922 0 3

for sodium doublet area
spc_anim CHCyg 30 rescale 4830 4900 0 8

Shelyak eShel fiber injection unit at back of C11 telescope.

The yellow fibers transferes the light to the echelle spectrograph inside the control room.

The Atik Titan camera is used for autoguiding.

A flip miror has been installed to allow star gazing (for the fun ot it!)...

 

Oregon Scientific WMR200 weather station

Yesterday I installed an Oregon Scientific WMR200 weather station. I am using "cumulus" software to download and display the measurements on my PC. Simple and somehow cool... so far, no problem with that weather station.

Unfortunatly, Oregon Scientific weather stations don't seem to be recognized in PRISM v9 - too bad.

eShel fiber injection unit

I made some changes tonight on the telescope. I have added a flip mirror so I can look at the field of view without removing the eShel fiber injection unit; very convenient when using the telescope for star watching! :-)

Here is a picture of the telescope under the dome with the new setup at the back; I also improve the cable management:

I measured the focal length of the guiding camera and taking into account the 1.5x focal change at the fiber injection unit, I obtained around 1797mm, so around F/6.42 for my 280mm (C11) telescope.

Tonight I spent lot of times to focus the telescope by maximizing the spectrum output on 20sec exposures; I have been able to basically gain 40% of flux with this method - not bad!

I took some spectra of Albireo B (beta Cygni B), a Be type star. With the ST1603XME camera (cooled at -5°C), I got about 7000 ADU on Halph of that Be star - still need to improve the telescope collimation to get more flux into the spectrograph...

CH Cygni (2)

On july 25th I made a long (around 3h) serie of acquisition on CH Cygni; then I did another one last night (almost 2h, limited by clouds that came around 1h local time).

It is interesting to look at the spectra as they change very quickly. Here is a comparison between july 25th and july 27th (48h after):

And an animation just for july 25th showing drastic changes within minutes!

CH Cygni is a target for an intensive spectroscopic observation campaign at the moment; see for exemple:
* François Teyssier "Low resolution spectroscopy Observers's guide" - a must have document!:
http://www.astronomie-amateur.fr/index.htm
* François Teyssier web on syumbiotic stars (french):
http://www.astronomie-amateur.fr/Projets%20Spectro1%20SySt.html
* ARAS database on CH Cygni (my spectra should soon appear there):
http://www.astrosurf.com/aras/Aras_DataBase/Symbiotics/CHCyg.htm
* Article from Augustin Skopal on CH Cygni:
http://www.astrosurf.com/aras/novae/InformationLetter/ARAS_EruptiveStars_2015-04.pdf


A key extract from Skopal's article: Strong absorption/emission features observed mainly on the blue side of the Balmer lines, evolving on a time-scale of days or even shorter, reflect the complex mass ejection by the WD in CH Cyg as in a slow-motion movie. This is a great opportunity to follow the process of the mass ejection From_the active WD in more detail than in the case of the abrupt and violent nova outbursts.


As usual, some pictures of the telescope during the observations & screen shots (Aladin is a CDS tool that display the star field, very useful when field recognition is required):

CH Cygni

CH Cygni is a symbiotic star: a red giant and a White Dwarf coupled together with matter exchange... it is higly variable and fairly bright at the moment.

After a heavy rain in the late evening, I took some eShel spectra tonight with the C11: CH Cygni during 1h20m but also 31 Peg (Be star, spectrum in BeSS database).

 

CH Cygni: order 34 (Halpha)

 CH Cygni: order 38 (sodium doublet)

 CH Cygni: order 41

 CH Cygni: order 43

CH Cygni: order 46 (Hbeta)

 Spectrum of 31 Peg (order 34: Halpha)

How to reduce eShel spectra and publish on BeSS database

Last night, I took several Be stars spectra with the optical fiber fed echelle spectrograph (Shelyak Instruments eShel).

Acquisition was done with PRISM v9 (as it does control everything), but it doesn't reduce spectra. I could use ISIS software provided by Christian Buil but I wanted to test the new 3.0.0b1 version of AudeLA with the v2.4 eShel module.

First I have to define my environment/session in AudeLA and group all my image in coherent series. I have 49x bias, 21x dark of 600sec, 3x thorium-argon of 15sec, 19x flat (LED+Tungsten) of 2.5sec & 31x tungsten of 3sec calibration frames. And of course my series on bet Lyr, P Cyg, lam Cyg (reference), bet Psc, pi Aqr.

I start by crrating my master bias & dark; I also define my "hot pixel" list for the camera (very noisy as it was cooled only at 0°C that warm night). And I look for the grating angle with just one flat & one thorium-argon, and only order 34 to start with. Once I have the parameters ok, I extend to the full thorium-argon, flat & tungsten series which of course take more processing time.

I reduce lambda Cyg and use the MILES spectrum (HD198183) to do my instrumental response. I then reduce all my spectra using that instrumental response. This could be improved by setting up better margin but result seems ok.

I looked at a recent spectrum (still couple of months old, so visible changes are certainly real) of Olivier Garde with his eShel, around Halpha:

OK, here are the eShel parameters I used to reduce the spectra:

And the outcome (resolution table & calibration line position on the thorium-argon spectrum) is satisfactory for a first night; I shoulmd be able to improve the resolution overall by improving the Canon lens focusing position (ie the extension tube between the ST1603XME & the lens); note also that I focused the spectrograph on Halpha:

Now, going into BeSS database (http://basebe.obspm.fr/basebe/) was a little bit more cumbersome as I already used the eShel there but with the observatory/dome. So I had to reuse the names (BSS_Inst, Instrument, Camera...) as the database didn't want me to recreate new ones. Smart but frankly annoying. Anyway, I had to redo all my BeSS export in AudeLA using the proper names this time:

 And last but not least, here my 80 spectra (4 targets, 20 orders per target):

See BeSS and ARASBeAm front end, as well as Shelyak Instruments article on what are Be stars:
http://basebe.obspm.fr/basebe/
http://arasbeam.free.fr/
http://www.shelyak.com/dossier.php?id_dossier=24


One issue to mention... I also have a spectrum from P Cygni and unfortunatly no database for this spectrum yet... Hope we will come up with an ARAS database sometime! :-)

There is a manual database but LBV (Luminous Blue Variables) and P Cygni are not in yet (but others campaigns are very actives there):
http://www.astrosurf.com/aras/Aras_DataBase/DataBase.htm

Anyway, I sent my spectrum to Ernst Pollmann who is studying this star and somehow coordinates the amateur effort in terms of spectroscopical observations:
http://www.astrospectroscopy.de/

I also sent a note on ARAS forum as this is key in terms of pro/am collaboration:
http://www.spectro-aras.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=17

eShel spectrograph first light !

Now I'm getting toward the main goal of the observatory: to run our Shelyak Instruments products, with the eShel for high resolution work.

I have installed the eShel today and I ran all cables & fibers (the eShel is an optical fiber fed echelle spectrograph with a resolving power R~10000) through the tunnels below the concrete si I have no external cable anymore - much easier to operate.

The Losmandy Titan mount runs great (but still need some finetuning, lot of backlash), and I can control the Gemini v1 L4 throuh ASCOM Gemini.Net driver. I had a shortcut on the CR2032 battery inside and I fixed it. I also reduced the GoTo spedd at 400, no need to go too fast as the dome need time to move around (3 minutes for one complete rotation).

The PRISM v9 software control everything:
-the dome through our Shelyak Instruments Dome Tracker (direct driver in PRISM)
-the mount through Gemini.Net ASCOM driver
-the Atik Titan guiding camera through an USB hub
-the SBIG ST1603 camera that sits on the eShel spectrograph and gives the spectrum

I haven't connected the Thorium-Argon calibration unit yet as I am missing a power cable; I run it manually for the moment.

Below is the first 5min exposure on beta Lyrae (Shelyak) and a picture of the control room from where I control everything. Note the very bad star shape: telescope is not colimated yet and today's seeing is terrible, typical for my area.

It is surprising to see everything working very well about one week after starting installing the observatory!!!

I also have a camera inside the dome to check the telescope & dome position...

Targets of the night: beta Lyr, lam Cyg (reference), P Cyg & pi Aqr.

 

Solar panel

Today I have added a solar panel (4.8W) on the observatory to recharge the 12V battery on the dome which power the shutter motor to open or close the dome...

I have also put some protection at the bottom of the dome, at the intersection with the concrete to protect from rain (but still waiting for some as weather has been incredibly sunny for about a month now!).

I have added some cameras to see the installation, including the telescope & dome position - IP cameras are great for this purpose - I have installed Foscam FI9821P camera, very eay to configure & use.

Visit at OBE - François Colas / CCD versus CMOS !

July 16th: some clouds but I was able to open the dome and use the scope. I changed the camera from the CMOS PL1M (QHY5) to an Atik 314L+ CCD camera... what a change! Here is a difference between shots the night before and tonight with similar exposure times - no doubt, CCD wins :

I also changed my Losmandy Gemini Serial cable with a newer and longer one and it did improve a lot with only one time-out during the night. Need to pass the cables through the ground canal now...


François Colas from Paris observatory visited and we played around with the equipment & PRISM v9 software. We took some exposures (11x30sec, dark substracted) of some deep sky objects and we also played with astrometry & photometry functions (sky background measured at 17.7 due to thin layer of clouds; seeing around 3.4").

For initial focal length calculation and image automatic astrometry, we used http://nova.astrometry.net web site which is terrific. We had to use JPEG instead of FITS to get a result in a reasonable time.

 Hercules globular cluster M13

M92 globular cluster

Lyrae "ring nebula" M57

Dumbell (M27) planetary nebula

NGC6888 Crescent nebula

Acquisition session in PRISM v9

Automatic observation in PRISM v9

 Automatic observation: beta Lyrae star (Shelyak)!

 Auçtomatic astrometry in PRISM v9

 François Colas in control!

Configuration of the night for imaging