From: "milton_aupperle" <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: October 17, 2011 2:53:01 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Asteroid Budrosa Light Curve

Hi Folks;

Turbulence wasn't good (+/- 6 arc seconds), but I managed to capture the light curve data for Mag ~12.5 asteroid Budrosa (#438 - M type about 63 km in diameter) over a 4 hour period. Here is first draft graph and stars used for the measurement (5 constant stars C0 to C4, and once check star V1).

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/Other/Budros20111016_MJA.png

I captured 360 frames at 40 seconds per frame intervals binned 2x2 with the Grasshopper 16 bit mono camera (cooled to -7°C) at 1625 mm focal length with the 201 mm AT8RC scope. As usual, Astro IIDC 4.07.01 B4 was used for guiding (GPIO to ST4 port on HEQ5 mount), image capture, darks, flats, field de-rotation and data reduction.

The condo blocks off my view to the west, so I came up 36 minutes short of capturing the entire expected 4.6 hours rotational period. My results shows the peak to peak time is 2 hours 18, minutes which is exactly 50% of the expected 4.6 hours. However the change in brightness was less than expected (0.04 mag versus 0.06 to 0.41 mag) from the literature.

Note that a 0.04 mag difference over ~ 2 hours is into the Exoplanet detection realm.

If the sky gods remain happy, I may try to image Exoplanet Wasp 50B (0.022 mag drop)and Exoplanet Was p 10B (0.0394 mag drop) over the next few days.

TTYL..

Milton Aupperle