Clouds
[Orig: March 9, 2018]
Hello everyone,
Unfortunately we didn't get any data last night. The wind speed was too high at TFN, so no observations were attempted. On the other hand, we did take data both at ELP and OGG, but the transparency was poor. The sky transparency is important in astronomy, and even the thinnest layer of cloud cover can affect measurements, even if you can still "see" the stars. To give you an idea of what that looks like, I have posted 3 images below. These were taken with the r' filter with a 30 second exposure time, and KIC 8462852 is marked with a red target near the center. The first is from a night earlier this week with clear skies. The next one is an example of when the transparency is poor but you can still see some stars in the field. The transparency in the last one is worst, where you can barely see the brightest of stars. Unfortunately there is no way to extract anything useful is the transparency is at all compromised.
More later,
~Tabby and team
PS: These observations are happening because of the wonderful backers of our 2016 Kickstarter project. The Kickstarter campaign has ended, but we are still accepting donations to purchase additional observing time on the LCO 0.4m network. Thanks in advance for your support!
