Tzec Maun Foundation

Schools, planetariums, and research groups can apply as a team/group. Please review the following criteria to make sure your organization qualifies to use our scopes. read more…

If you are an individual who wants to use our telescopes, you must meet the following criteria: read more…

Minor Body Observations
One discovered asteroid - 2009 KE2

Recovery of 4 comets by ROCOT project (http://www.astrogalaxy.ru/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2524)

169P/NEAT
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09K35.html

169P/NEAT

43P/Wolf-Harrington
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09K72.html

43P/Wolf-Harrington

89P/Russell 2
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09K72.html

89P/Russell 2

126P/IRAS
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09K65.html

126P/IRAS

MPECs
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09J49.html
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09K15.html
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09K16.html
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09K18.html
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09K35.html
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09K65.html
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09K68.html
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09K69.html
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mpec/K09/K09K72.html

Variable stars
I’m first confirm new Nova in Cen.

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iauc/09000/09043.html
http://www.aavso.org/publications/specialnotice/158.shtml
http://www.aavso.org/publications/alerts/alert396.shtml

We continue study a few variable stars and prepare articles for it.

Data submitted by team leader, Leonid Elenin

This was our first month using the telescopes provided by the Tzec Moun
Foundation.  During this month, our team was able to get a basic idea of how to use
the software provided for telescope control, as well as get a feel of how to operate
the telescopes.  read more…

AstroSpace Update

July 2009

Gathered by Don Lynn from NASA and other sources

New standard candle - Type Ia supernovas are the most reliable standard candle used for determining larger distances in the Universe. Since we know how bright these are, and we measure how bright one appears, we can calculate how far it must be in order to appear that bright. Since Type Ia’s are not exactly the same brightness, the color and the timing of its rise and fall in brightness must be measured to determine exact intrinsic brightness. The resulting distance is still good only to about 8-10%. A new way of sorting out exact brightness of a Type Ia has been found which is simpler than watching the rise and fall for weeks, and is a little more accurate (about 6% in distance). A study of 2500 spectra taken of 58 different Ia supernovas has determined that the intrinsic brightness can be calculated from the ratio of the brightness of two lines in the spectrum (642 and 443 nm). This is independent of when the spectrum is taken, of the level of heavy elements, and how much dust is blocking our view, all problems that have to be dealt with performing the classical distance determination. read more…

1. Began learning the concepts of controlling the Tzec Maun telescopes remotely. I sucessfully mastered the beginning scopes taking some images of Southern Hemisphere objects. (~2 hr) read more…

W Corvi is an eclipsing binary star system which has the two stars either in contact or very near so.  I have been following the light curve for about 30 years now, and have found that it changes in two major ways.  The first is that the period changes at the rate of about ¼ second per century.  The second is that the O’Connell effect (see below) seems to disappear occasionally, and then reappear. read more…