------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 3149 2016 Feb 29 16.03UT Ed:Guy M Hurst, 16,Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise, Basingstoke, Hants, RG22 4PP,England.Telephone/FAX(01256)471074Int:+441256471074 INTERNET: GUY@TAHQ.DEMON.CO.UK Backup: gmh@wdcc1.bnsc.rl.ac.uk WORLD WIDE WEB http://www.theastronomer.org ------------------------------------------------------------------- MARS IMAGING FOR THE EXOMARS2016 LAUNCH Mark Kidger: Europe's Mars lander - ExoMars 2016 - will launch at 09:30UT on 2016 March 14 from Baikonur. The Schiaparelli lander is scheduled to land in Meridiani Planum (Sinus Meridiani) after a 6 month traverse. The ExoMars 2016 team at ESAC would be very interested to have current images of Mars to show at the launch event there for press and scientists. Either images of the landing site itself (if visible), very close to the Opportunity rover, or of Mars as it appears close to the time of launch are of interest. Given the small size of the Martian disk at the time of launch and its low altitude from the northern hemisphere, we are also interested in showing just how hard it is to get good-quality imaging from the ground! MASTER OT J084140.94+722732.6 (=NSV 4186) Further to TA E-Circular 3147 and ATEL 8725, a further note on 'The Astronomer's Telegram 8731 by Roberto Nesci (INAF/APS) relays aperture photometry on all the Palomar survey plates (12) available from the MAST archive to get an indication of the star colour. The star is positionally coincident with NSV 4186 , first detected in 1926 by F.E. Ross (ROSS 166, AJ 37, 91, 1926) and is listed in the GSC 2.3.2 catalog as N7TV002683. Photometry was made with IRAF/apphot using the stars in the GSC 2.3.2 catalog down to V= 18.8 as comparison sequence within 6 arc-min (62 stars). A linear calibration from instrumental magnitudes into catalog ones worked well for non-saturated stars (fainter than V=15.6). plate band mag err date quick V 18.19 0.16 1984-02-06 quick V 17.80 0.15 1983-11-05 possI E 19.05 0.17 1955-01-25 possI E 18.95 0.19 1953-02-18 possII R 19.41 0.14 1995-02-03 possII R 18.62 0.12 1997-02-10 possII N 18.40 0.13 1996-12-19 possII N 18.38 0.09 2000-04-09 possI O 18.66 0.22 1955-01-25 possI O 18.74 0.24 1953-02-18 possII B 19.24 0.15 1997-11-28 possII B 19.17 0.13 1996-12-07 It is clear from this historical data that the star was always detected in quiescent states. In the colour plots (B-V vs V-R, and V-R vs R-I) the star is the bluest in the field, as expected for a dwarf nova. This finding supports its identification as the actual counterpart of MASTER OT J084140.94+722732.6 Guy M Hurst