NEOWISE C/2020 F3 comet

July 19th and July 2th while the observatory was observing Be star spectra in automated mode, Rachel and I went on top of the near by hill to watch NEOWISE C/2020 F3 comet. It was beautiful with the 60mm refractor but also in picture...

Comet above 'Chartreuse' and more specially 'Chamechaude' peak

Rachel looking at the sky (smartphone pic !)

1 hour above Chamechaude

New pic taken July 20th using a tracking device:

Sum of 19x30sec exposures, Sony a7r4 with Canon 100mm F/2.8. Processing in SIRIL & LightRoom (thanks to Rachel!).

Dome rotation sensor maintenance

On June 20th, I forgot to disconnect the dome battery charger cable and when the dome rotated the wire got stuck within the dome rotation motor mechanism. This led to some trouble with the dome rotation sensor. I dismantled it and it seemed to work for couple of nights but it obviously had a problem so I ordered a new one and replaced it on June 25th. This fixed the problem and the dome is now back in synch...


Rotation sensor reference is ENA1J-B28-L00128L (RadioSpare RS Component: 263-2889).


Here is a picture of the sensor with cable color:

And a picture of the 5 years old sensor to show the time/weather damage:

Last but not least, the wheel on the sensor is glued with a bi-component Epoxy glue, I found the SADER one very good for this purpose (I already reglued the sensor about 1 year ago):

all the popies around the observatory !

BeSS 2019 statistics

Here are the statistics per year, overall - we see that 2019 is a record year (not counting 2007 as those were mainly archives from several years):

Here are BeSS top observers as of 22-june-2020 (note that I'm now over 45000 orders and over 2000 Halpha spectra):

 The trend is up for Halpha orders/spectra (year of acquisition):

 

 Cumulated, ths is more than 21000 high resolution (R>5000) Halpha spectra/orders in BeSS from amateurs:

 Distribution by country still show France and Europe as top ones - more observers around the World are needed.

Details per year/observers:

 

Thanks to Frank Houpert, here are the statistics for BeSS Halpha spectra/orders and observing time for the year of 2019. It is interesting to look at it from total acquisition time perspective:

 

 Observer's location on a global map, from 2018 data, also show uneven distribution:

BeSS 2000th Halpha spectrum milestone

On the night of 21 may 2020, my automated spectra acquisition script acquired my 2000th spectrum for BeSS Be Star Spectra database!

I also just crossed a key milestone with more than 1000 Halpha spectra (23368orders) acquired with the automated acquisition script in PRISM!

 

My overall Observatory log including night of 21 may 2020, since the constuction of the observatory almost 5 years ago:

12 Vul outburst

On 21 may 2020, I took a spectrum of 12 Vul to find out it outbursted. It is also visible on Hbeta and even Hgamma:

Lucky, I also took a screen capture during 12 Vul acquisition, excellentes conditions (turbulence et focalisation):

V442 And ephemeris

There is a gap in BeSS in march/april but recent spectra from Valérie Desnoux show that it's back into absorption now.

Here are the graphs with BeSS spectra as of today - again, many thanks to all active observers of this star!





As it is doing an outburst rather frequently in the past few years, it is certainly very interesting to start monitoring it again for this new observing season.

From Coralie Neiner on Spectro-L discussion group:

Noel Richardson has used the BeSS data of V442 And to derive an ephemeris of its emission level. This star seems to be one of the few Be stars for which the outbursts are quite regular.

His model predicts that the next emission maxima should occur on July 13 (2020), January 9 (2021), and September 20 (2021) within an error of a few days.

Each outburst lasts several weeks, so it would be ideal to start observing this target about 1 month before the above dates and continue until emission has decreased (i.e. another 1 month after emission maximum).

So please, consider observing V442 And starting on June 13 (or as soon as your site permits its observations after that date), once per night and until mid-August, and upload your data in BeSS. This will allow us to confirm the validity of the ephemeris and the periodicity of the outbursts.

So critical observing periods should be:

• June 13th, 2020 to August 14th, 2020 
• December 9th, 2020 to February 9th, 2021
• August 20th, 2021 to October 20th, 2021

And individual graphs for recent V442 And outburst:

Semi-automated Be stars spectra acquisition, BeSS stats & V442 And update

As we still live in a lockdown situation due to Covid-19 in France (and overall in the World), several virtual talk have been organized all around.


On april 23rd I gave a talk (in french) as part of the 2SPOT (http://2spot.org/) virtual talks.

Video: http://2spot.org/Conf%C3%A9rences/2020_04_23%20-%20Spectroscopie%20des%20%C3%A9toiles%20Be%20par%20Olivier%20Thizy.mp4

Chat: http://2spot.org/Conf%C3%A9rences/2020_04_23%20-%20Spectroscopie%20des%20%C3%A9toiles%20Be%20par%20Olivier%20Thizy%20-%20chat.txt

I gave the same talk on april 28th but in english and with the participation of Noel Richardson who gave some new information regarding V442 And (look around 25min time stamp):

Associated with that talk is a record of april 24th session:

And a video clip containg clips of th observatory and all-sky video of that night with Space-X Starlink well visible: