March 2003 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Big sunspot
by Chuck Hards 13 Mar '03

13 Mar '03

The current sunspot is large enough to show motion when viewed visually. In only a ten-minute period, a small "tail" on the eastern (trailing) edge of the spot went from a gentle curve, to a sharp kink, then a branch forked-out forming a crude "Y". Little intrustions, or "bays", of the penumbra scallop-out the edge of the umbra. This spot is a good candidate to see a white-light flare, if you are lucky enough to be at the eyepiece at the right time. Use at least 100X, more if your local seeing will permit it. Don't set-up on or near pavement if it can be helped. A driven scope will make following the spot easier, but 100X isn't too bad for hand-tracking. Just watch the spot carefully, and you'll notice changes within a few minutes. I find the motion much more difficult to see with my glass TO glass filter, than the Baader material, which provides a white solar image and better contrast. C. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - establish your business online http://webhosting.yahoo.com

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The Mother of all comets
by Chuck Hards 13 Mar '03

13 Mar '03

Well, not really a comet, and not even in our solar system, but mind-boggling nonetheless: http://skyandtelescope.com/news/current/article_900_1.asp C. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - establish your business online http://webhosting.yahoo.com

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] C9.25 F/10 SCT
by UTAHDEB＠aol.com 12 Mar '03

12 Mar '03

Dave, Do you have the dovetail plate for your C9.25"? I'd like to put it on my Losmandy GM-8 mount sometime when I'm up in Utah County. I went to the Anacortes website and looked at some of the reviews on the 9.25". It said that the GM-8 mount would be okay for visual but for astro-photography, it requires the bigger G11 mount. It also said to dump the diagonal and finder. It really needs a TeleVue Everbright diagonal or an Astro-Physics MaxBright to get the full potential of that scope. I have the Everbright diagonal but I need the SCT 2" adapter from TeleVue so I can use most of my eyepieces on my 8"SCT. I'd really like to take a look through your scope on planets and DSO's. If you want to get together and try my mount, let me know. It would be interesting to see how that scope performs on my mount. Clear Skies, Debbie

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Lumicon returns
by Chuck Hards 12 Mar '03

12 Mar '03

http://skyandtelescope.com/news/current/article_898_1.asp Good news for the filter crowd. C. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - establish your business online http://webhosting.yahoo.com

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Boosting bino power
by Chuck Hards 12 Mar '03

12 Mar '03

In his classic "All About Telescopes", Sam Brown talks about using a simple lens as a "piggy-back" power booster. The idea is to place a lens over the eyepiece to increase magnification. What is acutally happening, of course, is that you are modifying the eyepiece by adding another element and thus shortening the focal length. I did this some years ago, during my poor student days when I couldn't afford an entire set of eyepieces. It worked well with the simple eyepieces of the day. I have resurrected the idea for binoculars. During my testing of the Apogee 20x80mm binos, I have used them side-by-side with the 15x70mm units for a comparison. While I can't say that one gives superior views to the other, each object having it's own aesthetic, I can say that on the moon and sun the higher magnification gives more detailed views. Tiny sunspots seen in the 20x units are invisible in the 15x unit. Small craters at the edge of detection in the 15x unit are obvious in the 20x. I have several lens pairs that I plan to try at night in both binos. Daytime tests are promising. The only hurdles are finding lenses with the optimum focal length. Magnifications can be boosted about 1.5X before unpleasant abberations are introduced, so this isn't like a full range of eyepiece focal lengths, but it should give the user of fixed-power binos a bit of magnification leeway. It also decreases eye-relief, so shouldn't be used if your binos have short e.r. to begin with. It will also accentuate any mis-collimation present in your binocular. So far I've just held the lenses in place in the eye-guards, but plan to turn some little snap-on cells in the mini-lathe soon. Has anyone else tried this? C. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - establish your business online http://webhosting.yahoo.com

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Project Morpheus
by Dale Hooper 12 Mar '03

12 Mar '03

A project that I've heard a bit more about is Project Daedalus. This was a plan developed by Alan Bond et al in the 1970's to send an unmanned probe to Barnard's star within about a 50 year time period - using existing or readily obtainable technology. It's a pretty intriguiing project. Here are a couple links if you're interested: http://www.angelfire.com/on2/daviddarling/Daedalus.htm http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/PAO/html/warp/ideaknow.htm The last link mentions Project Orion, Daedalus and some other interesting ideas. > -----Original Message----- > From: Patrick Wiggins [mailto:paw@trilobyte.net] > Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 11:14 PM > To: utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com > Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Project Morpheus > > > cyanics(a)xmission.com wrote: > > > > Does anyone know anything about a "project morpheus"? > > Oddly enough, this was on Space Daily today: > > The Case For Orion > > "Orion" was the project name of a spacecraft design study so > absurd that it > stood absolutely no chance of success from the very outset. > The drive mechanism > was to be an atomic bomb machine gun. Ridiculous as the idea > seems it was still > given a shoestring budget and a team of top scientists to > work on it. The > results of that research which ended about two generations > ago are still largely > classified, but what is known raises some startling questions. > > http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclearspace-03h.html > > > Patrick > > _______________________________________________ > Utah-Astronomy mailing list > Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com > http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy >

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Project Morpheus (not the software)
by cyanics＠xmission.com 11 Mar '03

11 Mar '03

All, First off.... First submission (ye ha). Secondly, I realize that this is an avenue for astronomy, and not necessarily astrophysics (which this question pertains to) Does anyone know anything about a "project morpheus"? I ask, because I was watching the Learning Channel a few nights ago, in which the discussion was interstellar or intrastellar travel. One of the possibilities that they discussed was this project morpheus. It used a solar-sail type array, which in its envelope a low-yield nuclear weapon is detonated. The force of the explosion is caught in the sail, and accelerates the spacecraft to speeds (as they said) of "several hundred thousand miles per hour" While I accept that this velocity is achieveable, I found the technology laughable. So I ask the question. Does anyone know of an avenue which I can follow that might have more information (beyond a basic google search) regarding this project? Thanks in advance James Helsby. cyanics(a)xmission.com

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(no subject)
by karen vanderhule 11 Mar '03

11 Mar '03

Hey gang,, I have been out tonight and Jupiters red spot is very prominent. Seeing is excellent here in Layton. Gotta go back out now..... Ron

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Fwd: 15th Annual International Dark-Sky Association Meeting and Conference Reminder
by Richard Tenney 11 Mar '03

11 Mar '03

Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - establish your business online http://webhosting.yahoo.com

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ADA mount
by Greg Taylor 11 Mar '03

11 Mar '03

Recently someone posted a message on the astromart forums asking for ideas on making a mount for a disabled friend. Would it be possible to get some pics of our ADA mount so that I can post them on the forum? Greg __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - establish your business online http://webhosting.yahoo.com

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