A blog about a telescopic system at the Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii to determine terrestrial albedo by earthshine observations. Feasible thanks to sheer determination.
Testing the Focus Search tab in the Eng. Mode. Works nicely – but how do you reset the scale on the graph?
Also tried to ‘open’ and ‘close’ the Front Iris (elsewhere labelled as 30mm and Open). This produced no effect what so ever on diffraction spikes or flux levels. Does the Iris work? In which position is it stuck?
Chris and Peter observed the bright star Markab on the night of September 30 2011. We noticed that changing the size of the Front Iris — from 30 mm setting to the 40 mm setting had no effect on the amount of light coming from the stars. In both positions we were getting peak counts in the star of around 56000, and total of 246000 in a 10×10 box centered on the star.
We were expecting the flux to increase in going to the 40 mm iris from the 30 mm iris by a factor of (40./30.)^2 = 1.8.
Are we misinterpreting what this iris does – or did it not move? We will ask Dave about this cosmic mystery!
