Thank god for summer. The low tonight is 60˚F! That is pleasant as hell. The mosquitos aren’t too bad yet either. I’ve been looking at new RR Lyrae stars again, trying to figure out the period, type, amplitude and other parameters through brute-force observing. The star I am looking at right now (GSC 3196-641) has a period of around 0.75 days, or about 18 hours. With the short nights of summer, I get less than 1/4 of the light curve on a given night. Given that the period divides evenly into days (4 cycles in 3 days), one can get unlucky and sample the same parts of the light curve over and over. So it probably takes 8 to 12 nights to cover this star and I am on night #3. Ah, the joys of amateur astronomy.

 

Even though I don’t put my eye up to the telescope much anymore, I do end up looking at the night sky naked-eye a lot while the CCD camera clicks away in the dome. I never get sick of looking up at the stars.

 

lush warmth of summer

a gentle rain of photons

from beyond the sky