P17: Observing Dwarf Planets?

Observing Goals:

There are five dwarf planets in our solar system, four of them in the outer solar system. Can any of these objects be observed from our Dark Sky site? What is the limiting magnitude of the telescope system? Useful Background and References: https://theskylive.com/haumea-tracker (this allows you to make finder charts, and find the coordinates. Check the date! Use the correct exinox in TheSkyX to point the telescope!)

Observation Planning:

  • Observation Time

    • You will be observing a FULL night.

  • Target Selection

    • https://theskylive.com/haumea-tracker is useful to create a finder chart of Haumea

    • Check that you are observing in the right place, but note that it is faint, so you might not see it in a single exposure!

  • Observations

    • Observe the location of the dwarf planet in a range of filters – be sure to include the broadest band filters possible

    • Maximise the signal-to-noise by increasing the binning level of your observations

    • You can dither the telescope between observations to allow you to better remove the background from the images

    • Take many observations, so that you can create the highest signal to noise image possible, so you can see if you find Haumea

    • Take standard star field images in the vicinity of your observations so that you can determine the magnitudes of your observations, or the limiting magnitude of the observing system

Data Analysis:

  • Data Reduction Basic Steps

    • Visit the page Data Reduction Cheat Sheet

    • Conduct the standard data reduction steps for your data

    • If you have dithered observations align and stack them appropriately to get the maxium signal to noise

  • Further for this project

    • Take steps to maximise your signal to noise

    • maximise your removal of the sky background and all instrumental effects

  • Further Analysis for this project

    • Perform photometry on your images and investigate the colour of the object

    • If the object is bright enough in individual frames, conduct photometry on individual frames to identify any change over time

Results:

Can you answer these questions with your work?

  • Q1: Can you observe this dwarf planet?

  • Q2: What are the limits of the observing system? What is the faintest that can be observed given the available conditions? Could it ever be observed given perfect conditions from this telescope?

  • Q3: What was the sky brightness at the time near the object? What factors contributed to this?

  • Q4: If you can observe Humea, what can you say about its properties? Is it larger than the point spread function of the stars, or is it still a point source in your images? Can you say anything about the colour of the object? Is it directly reflecting sunlight or has the colour change? Can you find any variability with time?

Presenting your results: