January 2007 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Palma occultation of 32 Lynx
by Patrick Wiggins 26 Jan '07

26 Jan '07

From here near SPOC, 32 Lynx disappeared and reappeared right on schedule. Star started to fade at 09:46:51.04396 UT First frame of "totality" 09:46:51.05397 UT Last frame of "totality" 09:47:05.03533 UT Star back to full bright at 09:47:05.04534 UT Although scientifically valuable, the event was not as visually impressive as those of grazing lunar occultations but seeing the star wink out so quickly and completely caught me by surprise. All-in- all, fun stuff on a frosty morning. Video: http://utahastro.info/temp/palma/PALMA26JAN2007.AVI (3.1 MB) http://utahastro.info/temp/palma/PALMA26JAN2007.MOV (4.2 MB) pw

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Way to go, Joe!
by Michael Carnes 26 Jan '07

26 Jan '07

Hard to disagree with this one. http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,655191302,00.html

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Meade/Coronado PST problems.
by daniel turner 25 Jan '07

25 Jan '07

Any list members having coating issues with the lenses of the PST? I've been following this for a while and it doesn't seem to be dying down. I know a lot of club members own them and that SLAS owns a couple of these. It's starting to morph into a Meade customer relations/product support discussion. DT ____________________________________________________________________________________ Don't pick lemons. See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos. http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] 1961 and friends
by Tyler Allred 24 Jan '07

24 Jan '07

Patrick, That is an interesting galaxy with a very unusual shape. Thanks for posting the image. Tyler _____________________________________________ -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces+tylerallred=earthlink.net(a)mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces+tylerallred=earthlink.net@mailman.xmission.co m] On Behalf Of Patrick Wiggins Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 2:44 AM To: utah astronomy listserve utah astronomy Subject: [Utah-astronomy] 1961 and friends I just have this thing about spiral galaxies. NGC 1961, 5 three minute exposures stacked. C-14 @f/5, ST-10XME, -10°. Auto guided. Shot early Monday morning. http://utahastro.info/temp/NGC1961.JPG I'll leave it posted for a few days before tossing it. pw _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com

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1961 and friends
by Patrick Wiggins 23 Jan '07

23 Jan '07

I just have this thing about spiral galaxies. NGC 1961, 5 three minute exposures stacked. C-14 @f/5, ST-10XME, -10°. Auto guided. Shot early Monday morning. http://utahastro.info/temp/NGC1961.JPG I'll leave it posted for a few days before tossing it. pw

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Trojan glows
by Chuck Hards 22 Jan '07

22 Jan '07

While perusing the minor-planet sections of NASA's Website, thanks to Patrick's asteroid, I came upon this text, written by Paul Schlyter. It is concerned with debris "clouds" at the Trojan points of the lunar orbit. If you've seen the Gegenschein and zodiacal light, here's the next goal. The best search strategy would be to look when the Trojan point is in a relatively barren part of the sky and not near the anti-solar point or zodiacal light itself. Any Milky Way extensions would make it impossible to identify the Trojan glow. Anybody seen this phenomenon? Schlyter wrote: "In addition to ephemeral satellites there are two more possibilities. One is that the Moon had a satellite of its own -- but despite several searches none has been found (in addition it's now known that the gravity field of the Moon is uneven or "lumpy" enough for any lunar satellite orbit to be unstable -- any lunar satellite will therefore crash into the Moon after a fairly short time, a few years or possibly a decade). The other possibility is that there might be Trojan satellites, i.e. secondary satellites in the lunar orbit, travelling 60 degrees ahead of or behind the Moon. Such "Trojan satellites" were first reported by the Polish astronomer Kordylewski of Krakow observatory. He started his search in 1951, visually with a good telescope. He was hoping for reasonably large bodies in the lunar orbit, 60 degrees away from the Moon. The search was negative, but in 1956 his compatriot and colleague, Wilkowski, suggested that there may be many tiny bodies, too small to be seen individually but many enough to appear as a cloud of dust particles. In such a case, they would be best visible without a telescope i.e. with the unaided eye! Using a telescope would "magnify it out of existence". Dr Kordylewski was willing to try. A dark night with clear skies, and the Moon being below the horizon, was required. In October 1956, Kordylewski saw, for the first time, a fairly bright patch in one of the two positions. It was not small, subtending an angle of 2 degrees (i.e. about 4 times larger than the Moon itself), and was very faint, only about half as bright as the notoriously difficult Gegenschein (counterglow -- a bright patch in the zodiacal light, directly opposite to the Sun). In March and April 1961, Kordylewski succeeded in photographing two clouds near the expected positions. They seem to vary in extent, but that may be due to changing illumination. J. Roach detected these cloud satellites in 1975 with the OSO (Orbiting Solar Observatory) 6 spacecraft. In 1990 they were again photographed, this time by the Polish astronomer Winiarski, who found that they were a few degrees in apparent diameter, that they "wandered" up to ten degrees away from the "trojan" point, and that they were somewhat redder than the zodiacal light." ____________________________________________________________________________________ No need to miss a message. Get email on-the-go with Yahoo! Mail for Mobile. Get started. http://mobile.yahoo.com/mail

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] Fame in our midst
by Ken Harris 22 Jan '07

22 Jan '07

Absolutely right, Ann! Hear, hear!! Ken Harris Great Salt Lake Shipmodeling & Research Society NRG member Salt Lake Astronomical Society > [Original Message] > From: Ann House <ann(a)annhouse.org> > To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Date: 1/21/2007 10:38:03 PM > Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Fame in our midst >

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Fame in our midst
by Ann House 22 Jan '07

22 Jan '07

Kudos to our very own Patrick Wiggins who as of today has an asteroid named after him! Check it out on the web page below: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=4099 How exciting is that? He is most deserving as he has discovered two in his lifetime, and perhaps may yet discover more. This particular one was discovered in 1988, but the powers that be decided that this un-named asteroid should be named after someone who has given much of his life to astronomy education. Congratulations to Patrick. We are honored to have you as part of our Utah group. Thank you for all you do to promote space science and for keeping all of us energized. -A

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Shameless self-promotion
by Chuck Hards 22 Jan '07

22 Jan '07

http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=5361689&site=0&ver=LCA080805… And thank you for looking! ;o) ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get your own web address. Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL

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Brightest Comet Ever Observed by SOHO
by Patrick Wiggins 21 Jan '07

21 Jan '07

This will be in Tuesday's News but I thought folks here would want to see if sooner: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=40529 pw

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