Once we were finally calibrated and synchronised onto Denebola, we turned our attention to our target star. It took a bit of time to find this, aided in no small part by the finder charts. The telescope hand controller was decidedly temperamental, to the point where the display went crazy, as if one of the keys had become engaged and stuck that way. This increased how long everything took, and it was only due to Ian's timely intervention that things got going.
Eventually we found ourselves with our target star and a reference star on screen together, and dodging the cloud, we started to make 60 second observations. Towards the end of the set of 50 exposures, we had an issue with condensation. Norman ended up on the small step-ladder with the hair dryer provided, to gently remove it. It cost us a couple of exposures, but if we'd carried on without clearing, many more exposures would have been unusable.
Towards the end of the sequence of 50, we were dogged by cloud cover. The set of 50 finished, so in order to attempt to maximise the telescope time, I set another sequence of 50 x 60 second exposures going.
When mine and Norman's turn came, it was quite nice to get into the warm for a bit. The temperature was dropping very rapidly, and even with my thick SPA fleece, I was starting to feel cool, although not unpleasantly so.
Inside the cafeteria, Anne-Marie was walking around with a bottle of Cava, giving people small (plastic) cups of Cava. This too was a very pleasant surprise. All week the message has been to avoid alcohol before observing, and that alcohol must absolutely not be consumed whilst observing. This seems pretty reasonable to me - the telescopes themselves cost around $8000, and the special astronometrical CCD cameras fitted onto where there would normally be an eyepiece are apparently even more expensive. I certainly wouldn't want anybody to find themselves having to explain why alcohol played a part in an accident, not to the observatory, to the OU or to their insurers.
Armed with some bread, ham and slices of (plasticky) cheese, I found myself in a conversation with Kirsten and Roger O'Brien. She asked an interesting question, the gist of which was what happens to the number of virtual particles found in the universe overall as the universe expands? Kirsten's sticking point was that whilst the universe was expanding, surely we couldn't have a situation where the number of virtual particles simply kept on increasing, and if so, where was the energy for this coming from?
Roger pondered this momentarily, and started to explain. Part of his answer was that we didn't have to be worried about where the energy came from to produce additional numbers of virtual particles. The whole point with them is that they can only exist for a limited amount of time, costing a known quantity of energy to do so, however when they wink back out of existence, this energy is paid back, resulting in zero energy outlay.
By the time this conversation had run its course, I felt I might have been away longer than intended . So, I walked briskly back to the Tycho dome, to find cloud cover still present, and it rapidly became clear that no more useful observations were going to be done tonight.
Needing to hand over observational activity in the telescope to the other sub-team (Roy, Derek, Angelika and Pete), we began to make plans, and before long, we were in the PC lab.
There was a long and wholly unnecessary (but well-meaning) fifteen minutes of Roy explaining what work had been done on analysing the archive data as instructed. Roy meant well but it was so noisy in the computing lab, and I just wanted people to sod off frankly and leave us to it. There was no sign of Norman, which made me cross, because at one of our group meetings this week, Derek had made a rare good point about people doing just that. However, it's impossible to sit more than two people around a PC effectively, so it turned out not to be a problem.
To cut a long story short, our fortunes began to change. Steve was evidently beginning to feel increasingly unwell (although it is clear to me that Steve has Parkinson's Disease, his issue tonight was a headache and strong nausea), and I was beginning to work on the data analysis unaided.
Without having someone to be my second pair of eyes, I made a mistake and ended up analysing only around half of the data. It was my own fault, but I felt really cross about this. We then ran into problems with the PC running out of memory, and I realised with increasing annoyance that 90 minutes of work had been for nothing.
I ended up having to draft in Pete to help me out, as I had to take a quick break away from the screen, before it was hastily hurled out of the window.
Pete was extremely helpful. Whilst he was doing that, I went and had a chat with Ian, to explain what had gone wrong, and to show him what we'd been doing. I didn't want to turn up to the briefing at 3.45am empty-handed, but in hindsight it was clear that Ian wanted me to bugger off, take a chill pill and not get flapped. I, on the other hand, was very conscious that tonight was the formally assessed night, and I wanted to explain properly what we'd done.
When I returned Pete was in full swing, and he had managed to extract the necessary data to produce a magnificent light curve of the star:
Together with the work that Angelika had done on some numerical analysis, it was clear that the star had a period of about 6 hours, with an error margin of about 30 minutes. We were able to identify the type of binary star system it was (Type EW), and also to derive some information about the relative masses of the two stars, pretty amazing stuff from a bunch of grainy astro photographs.
When the briefing was over, I thanked Ian profusely for all his help, without which the evening would have descended into chaos. He waved it aside with his customary modesty. He really is a completely charming man.
As we stood in the car park waiting for the coach, we started to reflect back on the week, in particular that our small quorum (me, Paul, Kirsten, Roy plus Pete) had now spent two entire weeks in each other's company, without so much as a cross word. You can't ask for much more than that. I look forward to seeing Kirsten and Paul again on SXR207 in the late summer.
Kirsten made a barbed but horribly accurate comment about Titch (Tracey), who has spent the week walking around on metal crutches, accompanied by the peculiar thudding noise as crutches hit the ground. She has nicknamed her 'Alien Insect', which had us all practically falling about with laughter, and of course unable to explain to anybody else what was so funny.
Paul and Kirsten relayed a number of Titch's medical stories that she has told people this week, and it was increasingly and worryingly obvious to me that Titch has Munchhausen Syndrome. At least it's not by proxy I suppose, it would be harder to have any sympathy for someone putting their kids through all that crap.
As the coach finally pulled into the car park, we realised that it was the nicknamed 'Ferry Coach'. We've been calling it this because out of the two coaches that have been used this week, this one has poorer suspension, and a tendency to rock left and right gently, in the way that a cross-Channel ferry does.
As we headed back to Santa Ponsa, the fun-poking at the Ferry Coach took on a serious note. About half-way through the journey on an almost empty dual carriageway, the coach began to rock increasingly from left to right, to the extent that people were being almost thrown out of their seats. When I looked at the road through the windscreen, I could see that the coach was veering wildly from the left to the middle lane and back again. Whatever was happening, the driver had lost control, the vehicle was out of control, probably from going too fast, and the only thing to do was to hope that as he slowed down, control would be regained.
The vehicle slowed and fortunately the driver regained control, although people were evidently quite shaken. Kirsten later told me without a hint of melodrama, "I thought we were all going to die in that coach."
The rest of the journey home was uneventful but very subdued. Paul and I talked about some of our colleagues, and he showed me some of the photos that he has had taken with his mascot this week. Apparently it is his daughter's little toy, and every time that Paul goes away, he takes the mascot with him and has photos taken.
We arrived back the hotel, and said our goodnights. I intended to do some more work on the project data analysis, but I was quite literally falling asleep at the keyboard. Reluctantly, I had to shut down the laptop, and go to sleep.
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