Month: January 2021

Review By Christof Wiedemair

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“I had the great pleasure to work with Vikrant from Cepheid observatory India on the measurement of the parallax of the comet 46P/Wirtanen some time ago. He is a very kind person and he agreed to help us with our task right away. The data he contributed were very precise and so the result turned out accurately, too. Since then, I follow the activities of the Cepheid observatory group on their website and am always very impressed by their high versatility and their diligence. Keep it up, Vikrant & friends!”


Christof Wiedemair (Italy) teaches maths and physics at the “Nikolaus Cusanus” high school in Bruneck, South Tyrol, Italy. With a group of enthusiastic students he carried out a lot of astronomical observations and projects during the last twelve years with great success, thus winning also several international competitions.

To learn more about the group @astrocusanus visit astrocusanus.blogspot.com

Christof Wiedemair

Comet C/2013 X1 PanSTARRS

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We carried out the spectroscopy of Comet C/2013 X1 PanSTARRS (Vmag = +9.67) as on 2016.01.09, using LHIRES-III spectrograph (23µm long slit, R=700, Angstrom /Pixel (A/P) =3.0) fixed on 0.20m SCT. The spectral image captured using Atik460ex cooled monochrome CCD coupled with LHIRES-III spectrograph. The image guided over spectrograph slit using Atik 383L+ monochrome CCD to get better S/N ratio. Comet seems enriched with C2,C2,CH+ & CN.
The spectral data corrected for instrument response and normalized. We used following software for different purposes.
APT Tool: LHIRES guiding/Histogram/Capture
Telescope control: Starry Night pro7 + EQMOD
CCDstack2.0: Image calibration
RSpec: Spectroscopy
Cepheids Astronomy Group, RBT, India.

Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina

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We carried out the spectroscopy of comet C/2013 US10 Catalina (Vmag = +6.1) as on 20th December-2015, using LHIRES-III spectrograph (23µm long slit, R=700, Angstrom /Pixel (A/P) =3.0) fixed on 0.20m SCT. The spectral image captured using Atik460ex cooled monochrome CCD coupled with LHIRES-III spectrograph. The image guided over spectrograph slit using Atik 383L+ monochrome CCD to get better S/N ratio. Comet seems enriched with C2,C2,CH+,CO+ & CN.
The spectral data corrected for instrument response and normalized. We used following software for different purposes.
APT Tool: LHIRES guiding/Histogram/Capture
Telescope control: Starry Night pro7 + EQMOD
CCDstack2.0: Image calibration
RSpec: Spectroscopy
Cepheids Astronomy Group, RBT, India.

Photometry: WASP-43b

cepheids

Exo-Planet, Class confirmed:
WASP-43b
Imaged/Calibration/Image solve:
PRiSM v11
Photometry and Data Fitting:
HOPS 2.6.8/Platform: Python 3.7.6
Instrument:
CCD: ATIK-383L+ mono
FILTERS: R
TELESCOPE: C11, 1623.0mm
Site:
ORIGIN: Cepheid Observatory, India, Vorion Scientific, India
SITELAT: +24:55:00:00
SITELONG:+75:33:58:99
Observers:
V.K.Agnihotri, B. Kumar, S. Mahawar, K.Vora
Remark:
Sky Clear
End

Photometry: HAT-P-21b

cepheids

Exo-Planet, Class confirmed:
HAT-P-21b
Imaged/Calibration/Image solve:
PRiSM v11
Photometry and Data Fitting:
HOPS 2.6.8/Platform: Python 3.7.6
Instrument:
CCD: ATIK-383L+ mono
FILTERS: R
TELESCOPE: C11, 1623.0mm
Site:
ORIGIN: Cepheid Observatory, India, Vorion Scientific, India
SITELAT: +24:55:00:00
SITELONG:+75:33:58:99
Observers:
V.K.Agnihotri, B. Kumar, S. Mahawar, K.Vora
Remark:
Sky Clear
End

46P / Wirtanen – Parallax removal

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The students of astronomy group of the language and high school in Bruneck, South Tyrol, estimated the distance of comet 46P using parallax method. We have pride to be part of this campaign. The project was completed by Christof Wiedemair and his students Vera Oberhauser, Lisa Niederbrunner, Pauline Hofer, Dominik, Maximilian and David.

Read: http://astrocusanus.blogspot.com/2018/12/46pwirtanen-entfernung-mittels-parallaxe.html

Few memorable pics!

Image 1: The Wirtanen parallax team!

From left: Vikrant Agnihotri, Vera Oberhauser, Lisa Niederbrunner, Pauline Hofer and Sebastian Voltmer.
Image 2: Screenshot of Vikrant’s computer screen on the evening of the data acquisition. For motivation or to stay awake, he faded in a group photo of the “Team Bruneck” that we had sent him shortly before!
Image 3: From left: Dominik, Maximilian and David evaluating the collected data!

Review By Georgios Lekkas

cepheids

“The website is very good! Very detailed information about the observations that contribute to science such as astronomical astrometry, photometry and spectroscopy. All the equipment and software used are written so it is very useful for other astronomers to compare observations and data. Keep up your amazing work!!.“

Georgios Lekkas (Greece) is undergraduate student at Physics Department at University of Ioannina (UOI). He is active in sunspot observations at AAVSO and SILSO. He images planetary systems at Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory (PVOL), and recently joined as active member of the “Exoclock Project” affiliated with “Ariel Space Mission”.

Georgios Lekkas

Comet 141P/Machholz

cepheids

Image:
Object: Comet 141P/141P/Machholz
DATE-OBS: 2021-01-14T14:40:15
EXPTIME: 1980.00 (seconds)
SUBFRMS: 22
OBJCTRA: 00 24 49.591
OBJCTDEC: -06 43 13.196
Instrument:
Catalog: UCAC4
Bessell (B): +*.*, Bessell (V): +*.*
Bessell (R): +14.8, Bessell (I): +*.*
CCD: ATIK-383L+
FILTERS: R
TELESCOPE: C11, 1623.0mm
PRiSMv10, Astrometrica
Site:
ORIGIN: Cepheid Observatory, India, Vorion Scientific, India
SITELAT: +24:55:00:00
SITELONG:+75:33:58:99
Observers:
V.K.Agnihotri, B. Kumar, S. Mahawar, K.Vora
Remark:
Sky Clear
End

TCP J09370380+1657350 Photometry V/R/I

cepheids

Image:
Object: TCP J09370380+1657350
DATE-OBS: 2021-01-13T20:16:18
EXPTIME: 1200.0 (seconds) for V/R/I
SUBFRMS: 10
OBJCTRA: 09 37 03.80
OBJCTDEC: +16 57 35.00
Instrument:
Catalog: UCAC4/USNOB1
Bessell (B): +*.*, Bessell (V): +14.614
Bessell (R): +14.848, Bessell (I): +14.734
CCD: ATIK-383L+
FILTERS: V/R/I
TELESCOPE: C11, 1623.0mm
PRiSMv10, Astrometrica
Site:
ORIGIN: Cepheid Observatory, India, Vorion Scientific, India
SITELAT: +24:55:00:00
SITELONG:+75:33:58:99
Observers:
K.Vora, V.K.Agnihotri, B. Kumar, S. Mahawar,
Remark:
Sky Clear. V and R band magnitudes are estimated using UCAC4 catalog. I band magnitude is estimated using USNOB1 catalog.
End

V band JD 2459228.35160
R band JD 2459228.32211
I Band JD 2459228.33774

Sample Marked Image

TCP J09370380+1657350 Circled

JD mag Flt SNR ZeroPt Cat Design.

2459228.32211 14.848 R R 136.93 27.223 UCAC4 TCP
2459228.33774 14.734 I I 73.31 26.073 USNOB1 TCP
2459228.35160 14.614 V V 242.13 27.536 UCAC4 TCP
—– end —–

M38

cepheids

Remotely imaged by Kuldip Vora, from Ahmedabad, India.

Image:
Object: M38
DATE-OBS: 2021-01-12T13:34:45.691200
EXPTIME: 2400.00 (seconds)
SUBFRMS: 20
OBJCTRA: 05 28 42.693
OBJCTDEC: +05 28 42.693
Instrument:
Catalog: UCAC4
Bessell (B): +*.*, Bessell (V): +*.*
Bessell (R): +*.*, Bessell (I): +*.*
CCD: ATIK-383L+
FILTERS: R
TELESCOPE: C11, 1623.0mm
PRiSMv10, Astrometrica
Site:
ORIGIN: Cepheid Observatory, India, Vorion Scientific, India
SITELAT: +24:55:00:00
SITELONG:+75:33:58:99
Observers:
K.Vora, V.K.Agnihotri, B. Kumar, S. Mahawar,
Remark:
Sky Clear
End