KBO encounters Options

[xtruel]

Hi,

I’m regular follower of NH and I’m also interested in the 2nd leg of the mission, i.e the 2016+ KBOs encounters. Does anyone know when operations about this leg (starting with searching objects of interest with HST or some other earth-based means, I suppose) are expected to begin ?

[hendric]

I figured the black star centers was because of a "perfect" subtraction, ie 255-255=0, and the outside stays white because the gaussian applied to the PSF isn't exact.

tfisher,
I also saw those same parallel lines. I think it's caused by a bad CCD in the array. It doesn't quite seem perfectly horizontal though, it seems like it slants down one direction.

I have seen some giant hot pixels, hence my previous "binary" questions. I was pretty excited about seeing two move in the same direction until I saw the same two objects in a couple of images. Is it sad that I can now recognize parts of the CCD based on the hot pixels? I'm not sure if I should mark the hot pixels as blobs, since they meet the criteria, but I think I can notice them now since the KBOs seem fuzzy-edged but the hot pixels are hard-edged.

Sample of the hot pixel images. (animated gif)


Also, seen something a few times that is either a rapidly changing dust/gas cloud, or shmutz on the CCD. Seen something similar in the same spot a few times, but only got one screen cap of it, so my money is schmutz.


Here's my best example of what looks like ringing.


And my favorite bunch of blobs so far.