Forum der Vereinigung der Sternfreunde

During the 2015 Potsdam conference on Wolf-Rayet stars a small team discussed a new ProAm campaign on WR stars.

The professional team
Team members have been Tony Moffat and Nicole St-Louis (Montreal), Andy Pollock (Sheffield), David Huenemoerder (MIT), Lidia Oskinova (Potsdam) and me. A number of other professionals are also on board. They are i.a. Tomer Shenar (Potsdam), Andre-Nicola Chené (Hawaii), Mike Corcoran (Goddard Spece Flight Center), Gloria Koenigsberger (Mexico) and Stephen Ro (Toronto). Others will certainly join the campaign later.

The goal
As some of you remember, our last WR campaign at Tenerife had been highly successful. Within our data Emily Aldoretta not only could monitor Corotating Interaction Regions (CIR) in the wind but also discovered that CIRs come and go with a period of about 40 days (about 18 cycles of the 2.1 day stellar rotational period). The respective poster can be downloaded at http://www.astro.umontreal.ca/~emily/CA ... er2015.pdf. sThese rotating shock-fronts (see picture) are the only straigth-forward prope for the stellar surface being hidden behind an optically thick stellar wind. From Emily‘s results new questions arise. For instance:
• What is the reason for this interesting long-term behavior? Can it be hot and bright surface spots, resonances in non-radial pulsations or strong but local magnetic fields?
• Do other WR stars show this behaviour?

Please note that these questions can only be addressed with such a long run. For detecting periodic variability of the order of 40 days one can not observe the star for only three weeks. Therefore, such physics are a real domain of amateur spectroscopy at a very good site with excellent long-term weather conditions.

Targets and time
To answer these and other questions we decided to observe four WR stars for a very long time. We will apply for six consecutive months (!) at IAC80 on Tenerife to obtain Echelle spectra of the following WR stars: WR 6 = EZCMa (prime target), WR 22 and WR 24. As additional target we will go again for the periastron passage of WR 140 but now for other lines with the Echelle (see Mons campaign in 2008/09). Because of the location in the sky and WR 140 periastron we focus on the period November 2016 – April 2017.
Except WR 140, all targets are located close to the celestial equator so that our SASER colleagues in the southern hemisphere (New Zealand, Australia, Brazil) could contribute.

Observer teams at Teide and costs
If we really obtain six months at IAC80 we would split the entire run into 12 two-week blocks with maximum two observers. We hence need 24 people who are willing to donate their time for this extraordinary run. As we already have some experience from our last two Teide campaigns we can estimate the costs to be about 1200 Euro each (including flight, rental car, accommodation).

We herewith ask who is interested in this campaign and would probably go to Tenerife for two weeks somewhere in this period. We also ask for support observations from private and professional observatories. They are highly welcome.

The next steps
a) The professionals will soon write a scientific proposal for Tenerife. It is open for discussion who will be the scientific prime investigator (PI) for the different targets and who will reduce the obtaiend data (scientists, PhD or master students).
b) I will be the campaign manager for Teide and the amateurs.
c) I intend to go to Tenerife soon to talk to the local people in charge so that they can see how we manage the run and how we want to avoid potentially upcoming problems with such a big team.
d) In contrast to the last two Teide campaigns this time we will organize a „pre-campaign“ meeting so that every team member is able to learn the most important procedures and to meet other members in person. I will do that to avoid potential misunderstandings with respect to the campaign and specific responsibilities (everybody will pay the same for such a meeting wherever it will be).

Please think about your participation in this extraordinary campaign and please think about going to Tenerife. If you are not sure I recommend to talk to members of the last campaigns. They will certainly confirm that such observations at a professional observatory is a unique experience. By experience, the procedures at the telescope are simple and easy for everybody, even if you are still in a spectroscopic learning process. The discussion is open!

Cheers, Thomas

Hello Thomas,
I want to participate in this campaign. Even on the holidays end of the year,
i have no preference.
I could organize a preparatory meeting in
Cologne or Essen. I can seek an affordable room in a Hotel.

bye Rainer

WR 22 & 24 are in the Carina Nebula at RA ~ 12h, DEC ~ -60d, so not
observable in the north. We will try to find other stars that are closer to
the equator, although probably not WR, which are rare in the zone of the sky
along with WR6, our prime target. Perhaps we should put most of our efforts
in just WR6?

Tony

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Eversberg
Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2015 1:03 PM
To: fg-spek-admin@vdsastro.de
Subject: [fg spektroskopie] A new Teide campaign

Link zum neuen Beitrag:
http://spektroskopieforum.vdsastro.de/v ... 334#p26909

During the 2015 Potsdam conference on Wolf-Rayet stars a small team
discussed a new ProAm campaign on WR stars.

The professional team
Team members have been Tony Moffat and Nicole St-Louis (Montreal), Andy
Pollock (Sheffield), David Huenemoerder (MIT), Lidia Oskinova (Potsdam)
and me. A number of other professionals are also on board. They are
i.a. Tomer Shenar (Potsdam), Andre-Nicola Chené (Hawaii), Mike
Corcoran (Goddard Spece Flight Center), Gloria Koenigsberger (Mexico)
and Stephen Ro (Toronto). Others will certainly join the campaign
later.

The goal
As some of you remember, our last WR campaign at Tenerife had been
highly successful. Within our data Emily Aldoretta not only could
monitor Corotating Interaction Regions (CIR) in the wind but also
discovered that CIRs come and go with a period of about 40 days (about
18 cycles of the 2.1 day stellar rotational period). The respective
poster can be downloaded at http://www.astro.umontreal.ca/~emily/CA ...
er2015.pdf. sThese rotating shock-fronts (see picture) are the only
straigth-forward prope for the stellar surface being hidden behind an
optically thick stellar wind. From Emily‘s results new questions
arise. For instance:
• What is the reason for this interesting long-term behavior? Can it
be hot and bright surface spots, resonances in non-radial pulsations or
strong but local magnetic fields?
• Do other WR stars show this behaviour?

Please note that these questions can only be addressed with such a long
run. For detecting periodic variability of the order of 40 days one can
not observe the star for only three weeks. Therefore, such physics are
a real domain of amateur spectroscopy at a very good site with
excellent long-term weather conditions.

Targets and time
To answer these and other questions we decided to observe four WR stars
for a very long time. We will apply for six consecutive months (!) at
IAC80 on Tenerife to obtain Echelle spectra of the following WR stars:
WR 6 = EZCMa (prime target), WR 22 and WR 24. As additional target we
will go again for the periastron passage of WR 140 but now for other
lines with the Echelle (see Mons campaign in 2008/09). Because of the
location in the sky and WR 140 periastron we focus on the period
November 2016 – April 2017.
Except WR 140, all targets are located close to the celestial equator
so that our SASER colleagues in the southern hemisphere (New Zealand,
Australia, Brazil) could contribute.

Observer teams at Teide and costs
If we really obtain six months at IAC80 we would split the entire run
into 12 two-week blocks with maximum two observers. We hence need 24
people who are willing to donate their time for this extraordinary run.
As we already have some experience from our last two Teide campaigns we
can estimate the costs to be about 1200 Euro each (including flight,
rental car, accommodation).

*We herewith ask who is interested in this campaign and would probably
go to Tenerife for two weeks somewhere in this period. We also ask for
support observations from private and professional observatories. They
are highly welcome.*

The next steps
a) The professionals will soon write a scientific proposal for
Tenerife. It is open for discussion who will be the scientific prime
investigator (PI) for the different targets and who will reduce the
obtaiend data (scientists, PhD or master students).
b) I will be the campaign manager for Teide and the amateurs.
c) I intend to go to Tenerife soon to talk to the local people in
charge so that they can see how we manage the run and how we want to
avoid potentially upcoming problems with such a big team.
d) In contrast to the last two Teide campaigns this time we will
organize a „pre-campaign“ meeting so that every team member is able
to learn the most important procedures and to meet other members in
person. I will do that to avoid potential misunderstandings with
respect to the campaign and specific responsibilities (everybody will
pay the same for such a meeting wherever it will be).

Please think about your participation in this extraordinary campaign
and please think about going to Tenerife. If you are not sure I
recommend to talk to members of the last campaigns. They will certainly
confirm that such observations at a professional observatory is a
unique experience. By experience, the procedures at the telescope are
simple and easy for everybody, even if you are still in a spectroscopic
learning process. The discussion is open!

Cheers, Thomas


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

_________________
Tony Moffat

OK, Tony, but they are observable from Teide, although located at the horizon. But indeed, some more degrees to the north would satisfy observers from the north AND the south.

Cheers, Thomas

Hi all! Until now five people have declared their interest to join the Teide group. They are

Emily Aldoretta, Rainer Borchmann, Thomas Hunger, Reiner Hopfer & Gerhard Lehman.

We hope that more colleagues are willing to join the team so that a six month campaign can be reasonably performed by amateur observers with IAC80 at Teide. If we do not find enough colleagues out of the VdS section Spectroscopy I will also announce the campaign in the VdS website, in the VdS journal and in Sterne und Weltraum so that not only spectroscopists can take this opportunity.

BTW: The attached picture shows our prime target WR6 and its surrounding nebula.

Cheers Thomas

Hi Thomas,

No. 6: Ulrich Waldschlaeger

Regards,

Ulrich

Hallo Thomas,

vielleicht sollten wir die anderen Fachgruppen in der VdS ansprechen. Möglicherweise gibt es auch dort Interessenten, die das Arbeiten an einem professionellen Teleskop in einem kompetenten Sternwartenzentrum wie am Teide gerne kennen lernen möchten.

_________________
Herzliche Grüße / best regards

Lothar

https://lotharschanne.wordpress.com/

Hallo Lothar,
ich habe das am 20.6. zum Jahrestreffen der FG-Speaker gemacht.
Sicherlich wird das nicht sooo durchkommuniziert werden, wie vielleicht nötig.
Aber im Laufe geht ja das VdS-Forum online, da können wir nochmals
dazu aufrufen. Ansonsten sehe ich noch das VdS-Journal als Mittel zum
guten Zweck an. Wenn gewünscht kann ich einen Text dazu einreichen.

Hand
Rainer

Hi Lothar!

Please stick to English, this is an international approach!
That was my initial idea! But I'm not sure if that's a good idea. In the other sections the perception of the scientific approach is not too high. That makes it potentially difficult. There is basically no time for watching the sky. In terms of discipline and reliability our section is certainly a good choice but already reached the performance and discipline limit. I'm not very keen on the idea. I have already informed Tony Moffat. He should better wait with the telescope proposal. I remember that eleven hands had been raised in Freiburg for the campaign and we are now five. We cannot apply for six months(!) at 80. The professionals in Tenerife would laugh at us if it should fail due lacking observers.

Hallo Rainer!
That's only to be expected. They certainly have no enthusiasm for it (see missing scientific approach).

So I will not do that with an external section majority because that would bring a massive extra effort with it. With less than 10 colleagues from our section I do not do it. Even 10 from our section would mean everybody must be willing to take section externals into each team out of two. I and especially the professional colleagues need focused, reliable and dedicated observers. We do not do hobby observations but state-of-the-art science (just to make it clear). We would indeed again apply for satellite measurements and other ground-based observations. If Teide IAC80 cannot be safely and stably carried out by 100%, I prefer to leave it.

Cheers, Thomas

Hi Thomas,

I think there should be a deadline. November 2016 is more than a year away. So I feel that I am not late in raising my hand in January 2016. But I will do it now. As far as i know number seven.


guenter

_________________
Im längsten Frieden spricht der Mensch nicht so viel Unsinn und Unwahrheit als im kürzesten Kriege. (Jean Paul)

Very well, Günter, number seven (sorry for my bad counting). But January 2016 as the deadline for our section is far too late. We need to realize that a lot of preparation work has now to be done but not after January (the team already started a month ago in Potsdam). And the highly challenging proposal needs to be perfect otherwise we never get 6 months. Best would be a decision within the next weeks. If a deadline is required I would set it end of September. But even that is hard because we then need to announce it to other groups which also requires some months. We need to settle the whole campaign team in January. I can not tell Tony and the other pros to start working without at least an idea of how many observers come from out section. And then imagine we do not find enough colleagues from other sections...

Cheers, Thomas

Hi all

I would like to participate and I think there are several other Danish amateur astronomers that is very interested. In agreement with Thomas, I have sent out invitations to colleagues and posted it on a couple of astro forums. With a little luck, we have a few team from the north. After the holidays, they will probably say hello here.

Have a great summer.....

_________________
Lars Zielke

Hi all,

If help is needed, I would also like to participate in the campaign.
Franz Bolduan

Hi Franz, thanks for your enthusiasm. I put you on the list. Presently we are only nine observers, though. This is by far not enough for the campaign.

Cheers, Thomas

Dear colleagues, I just sent an email to the professional team highlighting our serious troble with missing Teide observers. The mail is attached. Cheers, Thomas

______________________________________________
Hi all!

As you remember, in Potsdam we started establishing a new very long-term pro-am campaign over 6 months on some WR stars including WR6. The announcement can be found in the German VdS forum of the ProAm ConVento Group at http://spektroskopieforum.vdsastro.de/v ... =32&t=4334. Presently 14 professionals are involved. They are

Tony Moffat, Noel Richardson, Nicole St-Louis, Andy Pollock, David Huenemoerder, Lidia Oskinova, Tomer Shenar, Emily Aldoretta, Andre-Nicola Chené, Mike Corcoran, Gloria Koenigsberger, Stephen Ro, Aliz Derekas, Johan Knapen

For the 6 months run at Teide IAC80 we need about 24 observers (two week teams out of two) but after our announcement in the VdS forum we have only 11 interested Teide amateur observers until now. They are

Thomas Eversberg, Rainer Borchmann, Thomas Hunger, Reiner Hopfer, Gerhard Lehman, Filipe Dias, Günther Gebhard, Franz Bolduan, Lars Zielke, Ulrich Waldschläger, Marc Trypsteen.

I just want to highlight our problem because we need to set a deadline for participation at Teide. From my point of view this deadline should be end of September 2015 because we need to write the proposal and prepare other technical and administrative things for the run from November 2016 to April 2017. If we do not find more observers, our campaign will die. So, what can we do now? I suggest, that somebody will explain the present situation in the VdS forum from the professional side for making more amateurs interested in this spectacular challenge.

Cheers, Thomas

We (I) can make this project publicized in other forums, such as in the Amateur Forums
(Germany, Switzerland, Austria) What do you think about it?
Bye Rainer

Not yet, Rainer, we need to wait for an answer from the pros. In addition, we can not take any risk with participants who are not familiar with the demands of a professional run. We do not do hobby observations!

Thomas

Hi all! I obtained very good news from our Danish colleagues. Frank R. Larsen, Nicolaj Haarup, Rudi Bjørn Rasmussen, Kim Lang, Lars Lindhard, Lars Malmgren, Lars Zielke and Leif Hugo Kristensen will join our Teide observers group. That means we are now 17 people in the Teide team. Three of the new members can only go for one week. Hence we now cover 17 weeks (~4 months at Teide). The Danish gang will register in our forum to participate in the preparation discussions. The schedule will be arranged much later. First the pros need to prepare the telescope proposal and get in touch with the IAC people on Tenerife.

Long live Danmark, Thomas

Hi
very good news ! Thank's to the danish gang !

_________________
Herzliche Grüße / best regards

Lothar

https://lotharschanne.wordpress.com/

Hi Thomas et.al.

As part of the Danish "gang", I consider it an honor to be presented with such an opportunity.
Its true that I am one of the observers that can only commit myself to one week - family constraints - BUT depending on the schedule, 2 weeks is possible for me also, IF one week coincides with Danish vacations so that my family can have one week at the beach or Pool. They are however completely aware that I will only be present a few hours every day.

A few words about me:
41 years old. I have a Master of Science Degree in (Electrical) Engineering. Since 16 years I have developed software, electronics and optics for vision systems used in demanding agricultural environments. As a specialty I master Unix/Linux programming including shell-scripting and python. This may become valuable for automating some of the procedures for the Teide Campaign - for instance data quality estimation and documentation. I noticed that the Portuguese team did similar stuff at the last campaign.

2006 I had the opportunity of being allowed 10hours of observation with the Nordic Optical Telescope at iac's La Palma observatory together with Lars Malmgren and another danish amateur. The observation run included long-slit spectroscopy of a galaxy for meassuring its rotation profile. This gave us at lot of insight into the demands and challenges there can be with observing at a professional site. Codewords was preparation and foresight and stick to the plan!!, These words are still a mantra for me when doing photometry and spectroscopy at night.

2011 I participated in the one week Steller Spectroscopy Workshop at the Carl Fuhlrott Gymnasium, in Wuppertal.

So far I have not been able to attend the 2 or 3 workshops that Lothar Schanne has held in Denmark. I hope there will be a new possibility in the near future.

As an amateur astronomer I have since 8 year been working with photometry and spectrography - lack of funding has forced me to build my own equipment which gives good insight to error sources. I am am by no means an expert, but I have a practical aproach and tries to keep it simple. Equipment built, ranges from low resolution classical over fiber fed Echelle to Helio spectrograph's with R~27000. I have also built a simple active beam deviator for keeping stars on slit or fiber for optimizing system througput on my mediocre telescope mount.

It is probably clear now, that I also talk to much

_________________
Kind Regards / Grusse

Frank Larsen,
Denmark

Thanks for your introduction, Frank. And even more thanks for your willingness to join us. Indeed, "preparation and foresight and stick to the plan" are the key skills at the summit. Other expertises might help, though.

Cherio, Thomas

Hi All

I am also one of the danes, 62 years old, amateur astronomer and have been observing since 1966. I have my own observatory, several telescopes, ccd and al lot of stuff (”way too much”, says the wife).

I have no special knowledge of spectroscopy but will catch up with at least the basics before we start. (I hope…)

This is a great opportunity to do something of scientific value, so I look forward to participate.

_________________
Best Regards/Grüsse
Lars

Hallo sternfreunde,

My name is Lars Malmgren and I'm yet another one of the Danes
I'm a good friend of Frank and joined him and a third amateur on the NOT campaign in 2006 where we had the 2,5 m telescope for 1 night.
This sparked my interest for more scientific observations. But so far I have mostly done planetary photography from my garden.

Also I'm an amateur telescope maker, mostly trying to grind a decent mirror (failing so far ).
Though I'm quite fascinated by the spectrograph and i would like to build one at some point.

I'm familiar with the basic theory about spectroscopy but I'm so far not very experienced with the data-reduction.
However i did attend a danish workshop about it last year (i think it was).

I'm very excited to join this campaign!

_________________
Grüsse
Lars Malmgren

Hi Lars & Lars, as for all others: Welcome to the team! It seems that the Danish gang is perfectly aware of the working circumstances and conditions. Quite frankly: I am very happy to see you all with us. And it will potentially boost the Danish spectro community.

Cherio, Thomas

Hi all! Just a short information about the present status. The science PI team (Nicole St-Louis, Noel Richardson, Tony Moffat) just sent a request to Artemio Herrero and Sergio Simon-Diaz (both IAC Tenerife) asking if they are interested in a campaign collaboration and how to proceed with proposing for telescope time and what needs to be done in general.
Cheers, Thomas

And we already got a positive answer which sounds highly promising!!!

Although we already have 19 observers we are still open for more participants. As you know, we need at least 24 observers for two week periods out of two people each to cover six complete months. In addition, there are three amateurs who can only go for one week. So, it would be good to find additional colleagues who are willing to join us at Teide. If this remains impossible we could shorten our run to, say, five months. In any case, I consider our present observer situation plus the positive reply from IAC as a present “Go” for the campaign. Fingers crossed for the next step.
Cheers, Thomas

Hello colleagues

I kindly request to join the team for next Teneriffa campaign

Greetings,
Sebastian

_________________
Sebastian

Alle Spektren in voller Auflösung auf
www.sebastian-hess.eu )

Great news, Sebastian! You are number 20. Thanks for joining us. Cherio, Thomas

Hallo Sebastian,

vielleicht weißt Du, dass ich den echelle von shelyak an einem C14 betreibe. Für Weiteres versuche ich Dir eine PN hier zu schreiben........

Herzlicher Gruß
Berthold

Dear Teide afficionados! Hi all! I received the following message from Artemio Herrero at IAC Tenerife. Unfortunately our proposal would be rejected if we officially would apply for time. A Teide 2016/17 campaign will not take place. I wish to thank all professional and amateur team members for their interest and particularly for their already invested efforts in this campaign. Cheers, Thomas



Von: Artemio Herrero
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 14. Oktober 2015 16:38
An: Nicole St-Louis
Cc: Anthony Moffat; Noel Richardson; Eversberg, Thomas
Betreff: Re: Proposed collaboration -- bad news

dear friends,

I have bad news concerning the proposed collaboration. The main difficulty for the project… is that there is a new agreement between the IAC and the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitivity (that includes Science issues) for the use of the IAC80. According to this agreement, the IAC80 will dedicate most of
its time to a project that has been agreed between both institutions. This leaves no more than one week per month available. Thus we should share this remaining time with other projects. The project with the Ministry will run until end of 2017, with the possibility of renewal (very likely, we have been told).

Thus in this moment the possibilities are rather limited in terms of the project requirements (maximum of one week per month, normally less as other projects will also be considered). Under these conditions we think that
we have to reject the collaboration, at least for the moment.

We are really sorry to have such bad news, particularly after having answered positively to your first approach. We really do not want to create a bad spirit among us or give the impression that we are closed to any collaboration. If conditions change in the future (for example, when the agreement for the use of
the IAC80 finishes) we will be open to restart the project.

I hope there will be more chances in the future, with best wishes, Artemio