T-6 days: Pluto, Wind, and Fire

[posted for Amanda S. Bosh]

The occultation star and neighbors,

within a field size of 70 x 70 arcsec.

Here’s a close-up view of the occultation star, taken on Sunday night. We’re doing astrometry tonight at the Discovery Channel Telescope near Flagstaff, AZ. I had to show you a frame from Sunday, because this is what our data look like tonight:

This is a photo of Pluto. Really. 

(Not all were that bad.) Tonight, we played hide-and-seek with clouds and smoke. Controlled burns north of the telescope periodically sent smoke our way, as the winds constantly shifted during the night. During one of these smoky periods, I went outside to see many flakes of ash floating through the air. These are damaging to the mirror coating, so we have to close the telescope when the smoke is on top of us, and we closed many times last night. The above photo is of the Pluto field, as Heidi was closing the telescope. Tracking was turned off, so the stars trailed.

One of the sources of smoke at the DCT 

Despite the near constant dance of opening—focusing—imaging—closing—waiting—opening, we managed to get some astrometric data at DCT last night, which we will be using to update our prediction for where to tell the SOFIA team to fly. Across town, Hugh Harris at the U.S. Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station didn’t have any smoke problems, so we are working through lots of data from him too!