CAMPAIGN.md

@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ actual bill, and treat any not-yet-observed scope's card rate as +/-60%.
 | 749230 | T8 | 26 Jul | 21:35-23:55 | catspaw-t8.txt | ~146 (25% moon disc.) | still booked |
 | 749302 | T32 | 21 Jul | 18:50-21:50 | cena-t32.txt | ~350 (x1.6 rate, 25% moon disc.) | COMPLETED, billed 160. EVENING slot: T32 has a 35 deg elevation floor and Cen A culminates ~17:10 before dark, sinking to 11 deg by the old 00:35 slot (which could never have run). Ran 18:50-21:16, finishing 34 min early (plan complete, not a fault); images landed under /images/qisback/T32/NGC5128 |
 | (id not captured) | T8 | 22 Jul | 21:45-00:45 | cra-t8.txt | ~250 | booked + MySummary-verified 2026-07-21 11:45 UTC. This is queue #2 finally placed: see the resolution note below. Runs 11:45-14:45 UTC 22 Jul |
-| (id not captured) | T32 | 22 Jul | 18:50-19:50 | hdrcore-t32.txt | ~25 | booked + MySummary-verified 2026-07-21 13:30 UTC. HDR core set for the 21 Jul Cen A data, whose nucleus is saturated: see the note below. Runs 08:50-09:50 UTC 22 Jul, immediately before the T8 run that night |
+| (id not captured) | T32 | 22 Jul | 18:50-19:50 | hdrcore-t32.txt | ~25 | **CANCELLED 2026-07-21 ~15:00 UTC, never ran, 0 points spent.** Booked to fix a saturated Cen A nucleus; the nucleus is not saturated (see the correction below). Deleted from MySummary with the other three reservations verified intact afterwards; quota back to 6:05/8:00 |
 | 749314 | T33 | 21 Jul | 00:05-00:50 | ngc104-test.txt | 0 (free) | booked + grid-verified 2026-07-21 08:55 UTC. 47 Tuc first-light retry, third attempt. Runs 14:05-14:50 UTC 21 Jul. Reschedule flag again No (free scopes never rebook) |
 
 The T33 first-light test is now on its THIRD booking (749314); the two prior free
@@ -103,24 +103,34 @@ Verify every booking via Edit.aspx?id= probing (sequential ids), NOT the grid.
 | 5 | GRAS008 | 2026-08-08T02:35:00 | 2026-08-08T06:05:00 | 2:35 AM | 6:05 AM | smc47tuc-t8.txt | ~390 |
 | 6 | GRAS032 | 2026-08-09T03:05:00 | 2026-08-09T06:05:00 | 3:05 AM | 6:05 AM | tarantula-t32.txt | ~365 |
 | 7 | (T70, blocked: server unreachable) | night TBD before 5 Aug | ~2.5h | | | scorpius-t70.txt (in scratch, re-upload needed) | ~238 |
-| 8 | BOOKED 2026-07-21 for 22 Jul 18:50-19:50 (see table above) | | | | | hdrcore-t32.txt | ~25 |
+| 8 | WITHDRAWN: booked then cancelled 2026-07-21, premise was wrong (see below) | | | | | hdrcore-t32.txt | 0 |
 
-### Short-exposure core sets are now part of the campaign
+### CORRECTION (2026-07-21): the Cen A nucleus was never saturated
 
-The 21 Jul Cen A data came back with a saturated nucleus: a single 300 s
-luminance sub reads 65313 ADU in the core, so the deep stack is clipped there
-and no amount of processing recovers it. plans/hdrcore-t32.txt is the fix, an
-exposure ladder (L 8x60s, 8x15s, 8x5s, RGB 5x30s, all BIN2 to match) that
-blends in under the clipped core. It costs about 25 points, roughly a sixth of
-what the deep run cost, and the same trick applies to any bright target.
+An earlier entry here claimed the 21 Jul Cen A data came back with a saturated
+nucleus, and booked a short-exposure core set on that basis. **The claim was
+wrong and the booking has been cancelled without running, at a cost of zero
+points.**
 
-**Apply this to the rest of the queue.** NGC 6744 (already shot, 19 Jul) has a
-bright nucleus and probably needs the same treatment; 47 Tuc and the SMC
-(queue #5) certainly will, since a globular cluster core saturates fast. Before
-each remaining bright-target run, budget an extra ~25 points and an hour of
-reservation quota for a matching short set, and cut the ladder from the deep
-plan's exposure rather than guessing: shortest sub = deep sub / 60 is what was
-used here.
+The 65313 ADU figure came from taking the maximum pixel inside a 300 x 300 px
+box centred on the frame. That measures the brightest thing near the middle of
+the image, which is not the same as measuring the galaxy: it was a foreground
+star 128 px (69 arcsec) from the nucleus, sitting inside the box. Median
+filtering the inner 800 x 800 px to remove stars leaves the galaxy peaking at
+**1944 ADU**, about a thirtieth of the clip level, with **not one star-free
+pixel above 30000 ADU**. The core looked blown in the first processed image
+because of the display stretch, whose white point was set by field stars, and
+re-rendering the same data with a second tone curve scaled to the galaxy
+recovered it fully.
+
+**The habit that IS worth keeping, in corrected form:** before booking extra
+time to fix a saturated core, *measure whether it is saturated* - median-filter
+the inner region to remove stars first, and check where the frame's bright
+pixels actually are. The check costs a minute. 47 Tuc and the SMC (queue #5)
+may still genuinely saturate, a dense cluster core being the fastest thing there
+is to clip, so run the same measurement on their data before assuming either
+way. plans/hdrcore-t32.txt stays in the repo (and on T32) as a ready-made
+ladder if one of them turns out to need it.
 
 ### Session 2026-07-21 ~08:55 UTC (booking round run early, before Cen A ran)
 

state/TODO.md

@@ -42,11 +42,24 @@
   two prior free reservations (749228, 749229) expired unused with reschedule=No;
   if 749314 also fails to run, stop rebooking and either walk it in (POST
   plan.asp per plans/README.md) or drop the free objective.
-- HDR core set on T32 runs 08:50-09:50 UTC 22 Jul (plans/hdrcore-t32.txt, ~25
-  pts). Verify after 09:50 UTC, then download and blend it under the saturated
-  core of the 21 Jul Cen A stack. The processing pipeline for that stack lives
-  in the user's Downloads\NGC5128\20260721\stacked\scripts folder, not in this
-  repo, with METHODS.md alongside it.
+- The T32 HDR core set (plans/hdrcore-t32.txt) was booked and then CANCELLED on
+  2026-07-21 without running: the Cen A nucleus is not saturated, the earlier
+  claim having measured a foreground star. See the correction in CAMPAIGN.md.
+  Zero points spent. The plan file remains available on T32 if a genuinely
+  saturated target turns up.
+- The 21 Jul Cen A data has been fully processed off-repo, in the user's
+  Downloads\NGC5128\20260721\stacked folder: masters, plate solution (0.27
+  arcsec on 237 stars), an LRGB composite, a globular cluster survey (289
+  candidates, 62% catalogue-confirmed, density falling 10.5x outward), surface
+  photometry (Sersic n = 4.27, Re = 400 arcsec, total G = 6.56, which matches
+  the catalogued brightness and so validates the photometric chain), and a
+  transient/moving-object search (both null, with measured limits). METHODS.md
+  there documents the lot. Nothing from that analysis needs to come back into
+  this repo, but two results affect FUTURE sessions and are recorded here:
+  **(a)** measure saturation properly before buying short subs, and **(b)** the
+  faint outer halo in that stack is limited by the sky-plane subtraction
+  (-17.9 ADU/px of real halo light absorbed), not by exposure time, so more
+  integration alone would not have gone deeper.
 - CrA on T8 runs 11:45-14:45 UTC 22 Jul. Verify after 14:45 UTC: images under
   /images/qisback/T8/ on t8.itelescope.net:8008, then the actual bill from
   account/history.aspx into the ledger. This is the first T8 bill, so it also