Re: [APML] ST-4 and the Northern lights

["Stuart Heggie" <stuart.j.heggie@sympatico.ca>]

John and John, I'm no expert but how about this: can the ST-4 see the aurora
and it was utterly confused by the signal it was getting? I know from film
that the aurora you see, great as it is, is often equalled by aurora that
you never noticed until the film was developed. So, maybe there was
something the ccd chip was seeing that your eye could not?

Stuart
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Boudreau" <jeboud@comcast.net>
To: "Discussion of Film Astrophotography" <astro-photo@seds.org>
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 12:30 PM
Subject: Re: [APML] ST-4 and the Northern lights


> That does sound pretty strange John, that your ST-4 failed during those 2
aurora storms.
>
> But I was in Rangeley, Maine on the night of Sept 7/8, 2002 during that
big aurora display.
> http://home.comcast.net/~jeboud/aurora_1.htm
>
> Since I had already set up for photography before sunset, during a lull in
the aurora I calibrated my ST-4 and began a 90 minute exposure. The aurora
came back to life minutes later, but I let the exposure finish. It was of
course badly fogged, but the guiding was perfect.
>
> But I was running the ST-4 off of a 12v marine battery. So I'd think that
your guess about an AC power problem in your case would be more likely than
an ST-4 problem itself
>
> John Boudreau
> http://home.comcast.net/~jeboud/astro.htm
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Lanoue" <johnlanoue@hotmail.com>
> To: <astro-photo@seds.org>
> Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 10:30 AM
> Subject: [APML] ST-4 and the Northern lights
>
>
> > Greetings,
> >
> > I know I'm not imagining this...
> >
> > So last night I was preparing for an all night imaging
> > session when the northern lights flared up (in Bedford, NH),
> > so I rushed up to an open field, snapped about 30 or so photos
> > over the course of an hour, then went back to my observatory
> > to continue with my setup procedure.
> >
> > When I finally got on my target (NGC7K) and acquired a guidestar
> > with my trusty ST-4, I went to do a calibration and nada, nothing,
> > the guidestar wouldn't move (thus the x,y readout didn't change).
> > I fiddled with cables, reboots, etc... for about another
> > hour before giving up, I just simply couldn't get that x,y
> > readout to change (I could get it to change manually by using
> > the keypad on the lx200).  Flustered, around midnight, I went
> > back to the observatory to retry, and whaddyaknow, the calibration
> > worked fine.
> >
> > Now a similiar failure happened sept 7th, 2002, the night of the
> > last big aurora here in the northeast.  I know that the ST-4 is
> > finicky about power draw and I know auroral activity can wreak
> > havoc on power grids... is this just coincidence that the two
> > times my ST-4 has let me down were nights with auroral activity
> > or is the inability to calibrate a manifestation of 'dirty' AC
> > power?
> >
> > Puzzled in Bedford...
> >
> > john
> >
> >
> > John Lanoue
> > Principal Software Engineer
> > Bedford, NH
> > http://www.geocities.com/johnlanoue/
> >
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