Hi res echelle spectra of the filly dot habitat bulb, neon candle bulb, stroboscope xenon light, plasma ball
I made a high SNR and high resolution spectra of a filly lamp, dot model, with lines of argon, xenon and neon inside. It is very usefull to calibrate low and high res spectra specially in the blue domain. I was needing it for my own low resolution spectra work.
Also a spectra of a flame bulb, candle like, not a lot of lines, only neon.(20111211_200329_flamme_60x60s_TGarrel)
Calibatrion is made on thorium argon lines, eshell spectroscope, rms cal is better than 0.01A, Resolution is 10000, exposure time is 120X60s with a ST10XME ccd camera.
Enjoy !
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| De Observatoire |
Fit file: 20111207_181238_fillydots_120x60s_TGarrel
Dat file: 20111207_181238_fillydots_TGarrel
Delta sco HeII calibration method with a filly lamp (C.Buil) http://astrosurf.com/buil/isis/He_calibration/method.htm
(C.Buil) Dot filly lamp
Update: Two other sources of calibration:
A plasma ball, a mix with neon and argon with lightning inside. A lack of lines in the middle of optical domain make it not a good source of calibration. But it"s still funny and nice.
20120109_162430_plasma_15x60s_P_1C_TGarrel
A stroboscope xenon projector. Well you usually met this stuff in night club. It may be interesting in observatory too with a very rich spectra full of calibrations lines on the whole optical spectrum. 15 euros, a good alternative to the dot filly lamp cause lines are more intense and may be able to illuminate the full aperture of the telescope.
Note: a continnum is present in this lamp and lines are quite large.
fit: 20120109_155701_stroboscope_20x5s_TGarrel
dat: 20120109_155701_stroboscope_20x5s_TGarrel
Deux sessions d'observation en 6mn
Je m'amuse toujours avec la camera ultra grand champs. Des angles differents, pendant de longues heures d'observation sur deux nuits pour epier le ciel et le télescope.
WR 134, HeII 5411
Following the HeII4686 and the HeI5876 here is the study of the HeII5411 line of the wolf rayet star WR134.
I present a time serie of three spectra taken during a total exposure of 2H40, with 2X1h spectra and 1X40minutes for the last one.
small active absorption features are readily visible at the top of the line and transient emission line appears at Vr 2200km/s.
SNR of a 3600s exposure is around 110 at 5471A, Resolving power is 12000, dispersion 0.1A. All spectra are corrected from instrumental response on a A type star (Vega), as usual, classical pre processing and data reduction with Audela.
Overall summ of the three spectra, 9600s total exposure
Zip files with Fit spectra 20111212_193424_WR134__HeII5411_TGarrel
I will join the campaign with my echelle setup only if these spectra present an interest to the Convento campaign. Submission to a professionnal advice is welcome.
Ref: Moffat 2000,
Update: Here is a comment from Thierry Morel, another Thierry, who is a PI in WR star from a long time; So it seems that the data are in the range on what to be expected from this campaign. I will join it.
"Hi (the other) Thierry,
Very nice spectra. Difficult to tell by eye whether there are indeed
significant variations between the three exposures at the top of the line.
Concerning the feature at 2200 km/s, to me it looks as an artifact. The
fact that the profile is highly asymmetric is likely to be due to CIRs.
The profile does not seem to evolve much during the ~2-3 hrs of
observations because this only corresponds to 0.04 in phase (period ~ 2.25
days). I am pretty sure that if you observe it once again within the next
few days then the profile will be substantially different. To me obtaining
such high-quality spectra over a long time span is exactly what this
campaign is about and so I would warmly encourage you to carry on!
Cheers,
Thierry "
THIERRY MOREL et All, 1999
Test of a new home made skycam
I made a sky cam with a DMK31usb camera and a 24mm f1.8 Zuiko lens.
First light during a whole observing session, about 8h of video, 1 image every minutes. The aim is sky monitoring during observation, detection of cloud and in the future, detection and photometry of transient phenomena.
Note, a possible evolution is to use this cam as a large field camera, with astrometry refinement to point faint targets. We will see...
Update, new cam, full moon
New upgrade, All Sky cam with a 2.8mm f1.8 C-CS lens, crescent moon rise
New All sky camera with three UFO captured on the west horizon. Observed with binoculars, it was in fact Chinese lanterns. I did not make any spectra to confirm it :-)
WR 134, HeI 5876
Following the study of HeII4686, here is the HeI 5876 extracted from an order of an eshell spectrum of 9600s exposure and sampled to 3600s and 7200s for comparison.
SNR is better than in the blue region, normal with the better sensitivity of the ccd, SNR50 around 5972A.
Straight absorption are Na-D interstellar absorption, with a bump inside. "The bumps in the core of the NaI D-lines is due to two present components. One forms in our spiral arm, the other one forms in the next spiral arm. Typically this is a sign of a distant object, unless there are many interstellar clouds in the line of sight. But in this direction, this means that the object is located in the Perseus arm, i.e. at least 1.5-2.0 kpc from the Sun." by A.Miroshnichenko
I'm not a specialist of WR star spectra and i'm very surprise by this profile.
Note there is no intensities variations, observed in previous study on HeII4686, during the 9600s exposure. Continnum not normalized, just rescaled to 1
blue 3600s, green 7200s, light blue 9600s
Bess Fit format spectra:20111212_173246_WR134_HeI5876_TGarrel
WR 134, HeII4686
Here is a study of the HeII4686 profile variation depending of the exposure time of WR134, a wolf rayet star subject of a 2013 pro am campaign from the Convento group
The SNR requirement on 1hour exposure for this campaign is about 200. The resolution must be better than 1A, R5000 at HeII4686.
Here is an individual order of an echelle spectra taken during the night of Dec, 12th. The sky conditions were excellent and the object was at 80° high at the beginning of exposures. 2H40 exposure were taken, under good seing and transparency.
Resolving power is 10000 and dispersion 0.1A. Unfortunately a SNR of 200 cannot be reach with my principal instrument (0.35m f5 schmidt cassegrain, fiber feed eshell spectroscope, ST10XME camera) in one hour. The snr of my best spectrum is about 20 at the position 4733A.
Note the evolution of the intensitie for the longuest exposure, same date. Spectra are not normalized but rescaled to fit the continuum at 1.
Standart pre processing (Bias, Dark, flatfield) and spectra reduction under Audela Calibration on a thor arg lamp
Blue 3600s, green 7200s, Light blue 9600s
Spectra fit files 20111212_173246_WR134_HeII4686_TGarrel
An active V442 and outburst
In 2010, August, i discovered an outburst of the Be star V442 and. That was my 2nd discovered outburst during 2010 on a total of three up to date.
Unlike the others, this outburst occurred during a period of nine month, between two observations, and last for less than 6 months. It was very short for a Be outburst.
The star return to quiescent stage recently these days. It gave some of the most animate Be spectra i have never done.
Below are animations of my raw spectra, telluric lines removed animation spectra and finally equivalent width on 6550 6675.
More analysis would coming soon
All spectra are available on Bess
Update:
Hi resolution échelle spectra of SN2011fe
I've finally managed to catch an échelle spectra of SN2011fe with my C14 spectrograph equipment (calling DeNise in the memories of my grand mother) observatories
This spectra is the sum of 15 exposures of 900s taken in two nights, September 22 and 23. As seen here http://www.astrosurf.com/aras/surveys/supernovae/sn2011fe/obs.html the overall shape of the spectra doesn't change in this period. The SN was at 10.5 Vmag and low over the horizon.
The échelle spectrograph is an Eshell model from Sheliak Instruments (http://www.shelyak.com/rubrique.php?id_rubrique=7), fiber feed from a F5 14" schmidt cassegrain telescope on an Altaz mount. The slit is a hole of 50µm and the ccd is a Sbig ST10XME with a pixel size of 6.8µm and a read out of 8.8e- (http://www.sbig.com/ST-10XME-C2.html).
Spectral coverage is about 291nm from 4440A to 7352A at a mean resolution of 10500 and a dispersion of 0.1A/pix. Data reduction of order 31 to 49 was made under Audela environment uising the eshell spectra reduction pipeline (http://whttp://www.audela.org). The spectra was dark current corrected and tungsten(2700K) flat field divided. An instrumental response with a correction of atmospheric extinction in relative flux to the continuum was made with a low resolution spectra from françois Teyssier (http://www.astronomie-amateur.fr/feuilles/SuperNovae.html).
Primary image, reducted to 40% 
Low res overall spectra Jpg(spcAudace) 
Zip package with full resolution Fit 1D orders, and order table 20110922_190023_SN2011fe_15x900s_TGarrel
Juste a look to 3s exp of the guiding cam (Lodestar) 
It was an exiting experience to dispersed the light of such a far object from my garden.
SN2011 fe
New observation and firstime supernova for me ! A light coming from 20 millons Ly !
At V mag nearly 10.5, this SN is in the range of both low and high resolution amateur spectroscopy. Cause of the doppler broadening effect, the spectral lines are very large and oversize my spectral domain, here around HeII 4686A.
But tiny lines in the spectrum maybe insterstellar and intergalactic (!) absorption useful to calculate the extinction of the supernova and then the true brightness and distance (Diffuse interstellar bands (DIB): co-planar doubly excited He and metal atoms embedded in Rydberg Matter http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.3179).
An international amateur campaign is covering this extraordinary event http://www.astrosurf.com/aras/surveys/supernovae/sn2011dh/obs.htm
an insteresting website in doing spectroscopy on the SN http://www.stargazing.net/david/spectroscopy/SN2011fe.html
The spectrum was taken with a CN212 telescope (212mm F/D10) and a LhiresIII spectrocope with a 2400 l/mm grate and a 35µm slit, The calibration was made on a Filly lamp with four Xe lines, resolution calculated on the calibration lines is around 8000. The spectral domain is center on 4686, HeII line without doppler effect. The spectra was dark current corrected and flat field (tungsten 2700°k) divided. No instrumental response was applied. A cosmetic correction, due to cosmic rays, was applied between 4671.349A and 4673.693A.
Next step is for me to use my echelle spectroscope and SC14 to capture the whole spectrum at an average resolution of 10000.
Guiding cam and spectra capture during the night :
Spectra 2D, reduction by Spc_Audace (http://bmauclaire.free.fr/spcaudace/)
Final profile, relative flux instensity rescale at 1 around 4680
Fit file spectra: _SN2011fe_4686_20110920_795
IAC 80 Video
Some youtube videos of our Team, Telescope and Teide observatory.
IAC80, a mission on delta scorpii at the Teide
For nine nights i have been there in good compagny. http://www.iac.es/eno.php?op1=3&lang=en
This mission was about the peri-astron of delta scopii and was a real success.
We have got in nine nights 30 Halpha spectra, 30 HeII 4500, 4686 and one H gamma. All taken with a LhiresIII 2400gr/mm and ST10XME camera. Exhausting sometimes...
Two articles in english are ingoing. One for Sky and telescope, relating this fantastic adventure, and one on a referee journal concerning the scientific facts. One other in a french journal
The blog of the mission http://deltascorpii2011teideiac80.blogspot.com/
I want to thanks all the peoples who suppport us, technicals, ingeniors, operators and director of the observatory. Specials thanks to Johan Knappen, from IAC, who gave us ten night and José Ribeiro who has perfectly planned the mission.
Members were :
Primary Investigator, Anatoly Miroshnichenko http://www.uncg.edu/~a_mirosh/
The boss, José Ribeiro http://astrosurf.com/joseribeiro/Eindex.htm
The pilot and photograph Alberto Fernando
The liberty statue, me
The story is not finished...
end of 2010, early 2011 behavior of the H-alpha line of epsilon Aurigae
In 2010, November the red wing of the HII shell around the supergiant F star has reappeared, uncovered by the secondary object. This return make the inside bottom Ha bump disappeared and some unexpected bumps appeared in the sodium doublet in December, January and February. The photometric data shows a decrease of the luminosity in January and February 2011, as the red wing get stronger and stronger. Now Eps Aur is at the lesser magnitude ever observed during this eclipse. That was unexpected.
Have look to the newsletter #21 of the campaign, by J.Hopkins http://www.hposoft.com/EAur09/NL09/NL21.pdf
A possible veiling effect observed in my data series on the red part of the continuum ? At the same moment the continuum on the red part of Ha get noisy. Much more noisy than before during early egress phase. A veil effect by an unexpected extended dust shell could explain the behavior of the photometric data as well the behavior of the Na doublet. A possible flow of matter may be in line of sight. Another eps Aur surprise ?
Animation from 2010, Nov to 2011, mid Feb 
Animation of my overall 2009-2011 observation. eps Aur is alive !
Equivalent width curve, 6550-6570 A, nearly symmetric, with a out of eclipse noticeable period of 96d
Download all my 2009-2011 spectra of eps aur originaux_epsaur_T
Z cma outburst
Hello,
recently the pre main double star Z cma showed a stong photometric outburst according to the AAVSO special notice #232 http://www.aavso.org/aavso-special-notice-232
A new amateur international spectroscopic campaign has been designed to gather all amateur spectra observations concerning this outburst both in high and low resolution, visual and IR.
http://www.astrosurf.com/aras/surveys/prestars/zcma/
Coordinates (2000.0) : R.A. = 07h03m43.2s, Decl. = -11°33'06"
This star has a very spectacular spectra, showing spectral features of all types, emission, absorption, P_cyg, Doppler shift, broaden, jet under a nebular environment. Image capture during acquisition, 2D and 1D spectra in high resolution Ha
It would be an easy amateur target during winter, even at mV 8. If you want to join the spectroscopic campaign please send spectra to me or on the spectro-L list, under Fit format with a graphic JPG, PNG.
It's a clear spectacular object, so go ahead !
Campaign update:
Message on spectro-L Yahoogroup
Prendre des néons à distance avec un LhiresIII
J'ai expérimenté hier soir par ciel brumeux un système simple pour commander la prise des néons de calibration sans quitter le salon. Il s'agit d'utiliser une simple prise de courant télécommandée, servant par exemple à allumer une lampe de chevet à distance.
Mon observatoire se trouve à une quinzaine de mètres de la maison et la portée du signal radio s'est trouvée tout juste suffisante pour pouvoir allumer le transformateur qui alimente le néon interne du LhiresIII.
Sans placer la lampe devant la fente, comme il faudrait, le temps de pose de prise des images de calibration doit être portée à 1s au lieu de 0,3s. 
Aprés les correction géométriques classiques on obtient une image du spectre du néon totalement exploitable pour une calibration précise du spectre objet
Voici le spectre de epsilon aurigae, qui a servit pour la démonstration, calibré avec une précision sur les telluriques de 0.03A RMS, voir la superposition du spectre avec celui d'un spectre synthétique H2O.
Une précaution toutefois, ne pas prendre les néons avec l'étoile sur la fente sinon on obtient ça! 
On pourrait certainement interfacer logiciellement la prise des néons avec une mutiprise commandée par USB. Ça sera un efficace développement futur à ma paresse.
Ainsi, avec la monture goto et les néons télé-commandables à souhait et le génial loigiciel de prise de controle d'un PC à distance http://www.tightvnc.com/, il ne sera plus nécessaire de sortir dans le froids humides de nuits d'hiver.
UX ori
UX ori is an herbig type object, first of the UXors group. This pre main sequence star have spectrometric and phtotometric variation correlated and anticorrelated depending of the spectral domain..
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-basic?Ident=ux+ori&submit=SIMBAD+search
Gary Walker, Maria Mitchell Observatory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Mitchell_Observatory), has recently sent a call for Ha spectroscopic observation on the Spectro_L mailing list.
He said about this star: "Uxors are characterized by aperiodic dimmings of 1-4 magnitudes, it is thought that circumstellar dust clouds may be the cause. The class is not well defined, and the models do not account all of the data observed. THey do increase polarization when faint. This is what makes them interesting to us here at MMO, and we have observed them for 4 years. "
An intense survey of the Ha profile is interesting and show some correlation with photometric behavior. Another quest began.
The target star is not an easy high resolution spectroscopic object. Low spectral contrast, noisy continnum (Veil effect ?) would require a larger professionnal telescopefor a good SNR intead of inch'amateur one. Let try. Data at least !
Here is a first spectra gathered by a good night with my LhiresIII 2400gr R15000 slit spectrograph attached to a CN212 Takahashi telescope. CCD is a modest Atik 314L+ very suitable for spectroscopy works. What we see is activity inside Ha core, certainly due to a gas surrounding the star and a lot of cosmic ray (Straight strong lines)...
Edit: new spectra from Jan, 14th very different from the 12th one
Not sure that the first spectra is from UX ori. This one is more conform to what we found in the literacy, a Ha double peak and i was able to make a comparison of the field with the POSS. The night was better. Very noisy too. Not sure it is useful to continue.
New spectra from Jan, 21. Still noisy, V/R ratio seems to have change.
Want an idea of the 2D spectrum ?
easy target isn't it ?
Compare to CI cyg, same Vmag, less exposure time, and at very low horizon altitude but much more easy !
epsilon Aurigae AAS 2011 poster
In 2011 January a Poster made by Robin Leadbeater, was presented at the January 2011 AAS in Seatle. This poster based on the epsilon Aurigae internationnal campaign spectra summarized in a wonderful manner the two thirds parts of the ongoing eclipse.
Thanks Robin for your impressive and talent full works !
Text version : http://www.threehillsobservatory.co.uk/astro/ASS217_poster_257_04.pdf
Poster version : http://www.threehillsobservatory.co.uk/astro/AAS217_poster_257_04_original.pdf
Thanks Robin for your impressive and talent full works !
OT gem outburst !
OT gem, HD58050, Be star, has ran in activities. Double Ha peak get stronger in my last spectra.There is not a lot of spectra available in Bess, but such activities were seen from 1996 to 2001 by Valerie Desnoux and Christian Buil. Intensives observations are needing to constrain a possible period of the phenomena.
http://arasbeam.free.fr/spip.php?page=beam_spectra&etoile=327
http://astrosurf.com/buil/becat/58050/58050.htm
It's always a great pleasure to observe such regain of a sleepy star. It's very exiting and very rare. That's why i do love spectral observation.
Edit: confirmation came from Valerie Desnoux frim and her new observatory in Paris on Jan 16Th.
That's the third outburst of a Be star that i had personnaly detected over 400 spectra covering one year of Be observations.
Epsilon Aurigae et le retour de l'Anneau
En ce mois de novembre, les spectres de epsilon aurigae montrent un brusque retour de la signature en émission de l'anneau d'hydrogène ceinturant la supergéante F.
Le disque obscur éclipsant ne couvre plus la partie R, s'éloignant de nous, de cet anneau. Comme l'anneau est pratiquement en contact avec l'étoile, le troisième contact de l'éclipse est proche. La photométrie permettra de le préciser par une brutale remontée de la luminosité.
Le quatrième contact et fin de l'éclipse débutera avec le retour de l'aile B, s'approchant de nous, de l'anneau. Le temps d'un transit du bord du disque obscur sur la surface de l'étoile supergéante et ce sera la fin, la prochaine dans 28 ans, pour d'autres amateurs.
Cherchez dans l'animation la signature du retour de l'Anneau !
Strange facts about ci Cygni
Symbiotic star ci Cygni is going on eclipse these last weeks with a Mv dropping to 11.4. The period of the system is about 853 days and maximum is awaited for mid November
At the same time the system has an ongoing outburst from the disk around the white dwarf whose began in July and certainly continue and repeated for months.
The conjunction of an outburst and an eclipse is a unique chance for probing the inner regions of this strange object composed by a M dwarf type star and a White dwarf.
The Aras group began a spectroscopic campaign, leaded by François Tessier, complementary from the AAVSO photometric campaign. http://www.astrosurf.com/aras/CICyg/CI_Cyg.html
If the beginning of the eclipse was without major surprise, we saw these last days unexpected striking changes. For my first spectra is this campaign i discover a bright Ha intensity surge, confirmed by laters obsevation from C.Buil and Ew calculation from F.Teyssier. The Ha region enter on an unexpected activity with every day change in Ha intesity and Ew. The ratio Ha/Hb change quickly too and the photometry follow the movement.
What could make Ha spectrum varying quickly ? In other eclisping symbiotic stars, AX Per for ex we knows somes geometric effects in relation with the orbital phase. But so major variaitions was unexpected.
One thing is that we explore inner region of the WD disk, perharps inhomogeneous, as ingress phase is near the november totality. Or it is a new activity of the system.
So the quest continue ! The cosmos is always moving.
All spectra are flat fielded corrected (2700°k), Instrumental response corrected (Altair), not normalized, continuum rescale at 1. 2H to 2H30 exposure with a LhiresIII 2400gr/mm and an Atik314L+ Reduction with AudeLa/Spc_Audace
Animation:
October eps Aur Ha facts
