OBSERVATION I. (Setting, aligning, and colimating and focusing) Tuesday, 8 th June 2004. I. E. S. ESTUARIA
From 4:00 to 7:00 Manuel Reina, José Francisco the Head Master, the students in charge and the members of A. C. O. A. A. who collaborated in the activity entered the school: - The head master turned on the electrical supply of the sports hall. Both Jonathan of 2º B and Daniel of 3º B dismantled and took out the plug used for the hose and they passed it under the sport halls bottoms doors. The head master took it from the inside and connected it to the plug... The students there, helped by the members, set: Three telescopes. (The Main with cameras, TEAMS 1,4 & 5), (Filtered vision refractor TEAM 2) , (Refractor for projection TEAM 3); one S. A. I. (Electrical system of uninterrupted supply for the protection and autonomy of the telescope and the computer during ten minutes at full charge); two videos (PAL and S-VHS), and one television monitor. One PC, a laptop, two 17 inches TFT screens and then:
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(In order: Francisco, Jonathan, Diego and Daniel setting the electrical equipment. The teacher giving Jonathan the GPS coordinates. And, from left to right, the President of the Cultural Astronomy Club of Huelva "Andromeda" helping the head master and the teacher identify the stars shown by computer-controlled telescope)-(The teacher was wrong with polar star, je, je je!)- |
We aligned the teles cope MEADE GPS S/C of 10" with the GPS through the satellite and helped by the two guiding stars. We took note of the position of the GPS . We focused the telescope with a 12,5 m focal using the planets Urane and Neptune. Thus we checked the tracking of the telescope motors with the digital camera LPI, controlled by the laptop (and using the Barlow x5); in the meanwhile, we set the other cameras and their wires.
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(Photos: From left to right; Urane and its satelites. Neptune and Triton. We use the craters Copernicus and Reinhold to focus the Steel camera. Micro-meteor filmed by chance by the LPI camera when doing focusing trials.) |
 
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We activated the B/N Steel camera controlled by the PC and pointing at the moon. We connected the remote control to the laptop and to the motors of the telescope and we syntonized the colour camera with the PAL video as TEAM 4. We connected and syntonized the B/N camera to the captured camera in the computer, and from this one, to the S-VHS video in order to superpose the image of the digital clock of computer as TEAM 1.
- We made more precise the focusing of the colour video camera set on top of the main telescope and we aligned it with the digital camera. Then we made more precise the focusing of the black and white camera set on top of the small telescope used as guide of the main one with a 15 mm lens and we align it with the other cameras. Finally, we removed the Barlow x5 from the main telescope once we checked that the tracking and aligning were perfect as it remained fix with the stars without needing manual corrections and we set again the LPI camera at direct focus on the S/C 10" , this became our TEAM 5. And we checked the syncronizing to T. U. of the computer, laptop, cameras and videos, which had been syncronize the previus day with the STOPER program: We had to add two seconds to the colour video and one second to the black and white video. We took note on the syncronizing sheet. The die was cast, everything ready, we crossed fingers and we did not dare to touch anything, not even to press the setting buttons of the videos, not even to adjust the clock of the PC. ( If we did, we must restart all). And we awaited the dawn....... Go back to main page or go on