While attempting to predict the actual events should look like (coming soon to the web page!) we came to an initially horrifying but ultimately only slightly amusing conclusion. First, the horrifying part: there was no eclipse of Namaka by Haumea on 1/31.
What???? We had a half a dozen telescopes on the scene watching nothing? Well, luckily, no.
We just had an error in our projection prediction. Namaka wasn't eclipses by Haumea, Haumea was shadowed by Namaka.
Phew.
All of the times listed on the web site (and thus all of the times you would observe from a particular spot) were all correct, it's just that the event we were seeing was the opposite.
As of now they have all been fixed.
In the end, getting all of this right is critically important. The interpretation would be completely off if we had it backwards. But for now, I think, no harm has been done. And, I think, everythingis now right.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Analysis continues
By now I've seen at least preliminary data from most observing teams and I tentatively think that we detected Namaka going into eclipse. The difficulty is that the eclipse actually takes some time -- ~15 minutes -- during which Haumea is changing rapidly.
As an example of the sort of data to be analyzed, I show below the first reduction data from the Palomar 200-inch telescope (in blue) and the University of Hawaii 88-inch telescope (in black) scaled to match each other as best I could. Times are UT the night of Jan 31, and intensities are relative to field stars.
In this plot you see about 1 3/4 rotations of Haumea. Haumea is elliptical and rotating end over end with -- we think -- one of the faces slightly darker than the other, thus the slight differences between the peaks and troughs 2 hours apart.
The expected signal of the Namaka eclipse is a ~1% dimming of the signal for ~1 hour!
Nothing is obvious by eye, so the analysis requires careful examinations of the before and after light curves. With almost 2 complete rotations we can do that comparison here. Even better, though, at least 2 observatories did observations on separate nights to get good comparison data. These give the best shot of showing something.
I think I know where the event is in the light curve above, as I also compared everything to a well measured light curve from Lacerda (though it is clear that there have been changes from when he observed). But I am eager to hear from the multi-night observations for a better indication.
As an example of the sort of data to be analyzed, I show below the first reduction data from the Palomar 200-inch telescope (in blue) and the University of Hawaii 88-inch telescope (in black) scaled to match each other as best I could. Times are UT the night of Jan 31, and intensities are relative to field stars.
In this plot you see about 1 3/4 rotations of Haumea. Haumea is elliptical and rotating end over end with -- we think -- one of the faces slightly darker than the other, thus the slight differences between the peaks and troughs 2 hours apart.
The expected signal of the Namaka eclipse is a ~1% dimming of the signal for ~1 hour!
Nothing is obvious by eye, so the analysis requires careful examinations of the before and after light curves. With almost 2 complete rotations we can do that comparison here. Even better, though, at least 2 observatories did observations on separate nights to get good comparison data. These give the best shot of showing something.
I think I know where the event is in the light curve above, as I also compared everything to a well measured light curve from Lacerda (though it is clear that there have been changes from when he observed). But I am eager to hear from the multi-night observations for a better indication.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Good weather for tonight
All is set for our attempt tonight. Amazingly, it looks like the weather forecast is good for southern California (Palomar), southern Arizona (Vatican Observatory), southern New Mexico (Apache Point, Magdalena Ridge Observatory), and also Mauna Kea and Haleakala (UH 88inch and Faulkes 2m, respectively). I believe this to be some sort of record.
Bill Ryan at MRO got a nice comparison light curve from last night, which will be quite useful for definitely identifying tonight's event.
Between all of the observatories we will have two full rotations, so even thought it might be painful, I believe we will be able to stitch together a full dataset for comparison.
Bill Ryan at MRO got a nice comparison light curve from last night, which will be quite useful for definitely identifying tonight's event.
Between all of the observatories we will have two full rotations, so even thought it might be painful, I believe we will be able to stitch together a full dataset for comparison.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Dec 26th eclipse
Attempts were made from Bulgaria and Armenia (on Christmas night!), but complete cloud cover prevented any telescopes from opening.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
