July 2008 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

C2008 J1 Boattini 7-21-2008 continuing
by Canopus56 19 Jul '08

19 Jul '08

(Based on a post from Cloudy Nights) Tonight I went up to 11th Ave to prequel the position of comet C2008 J1 Boattini. C/2008 J1 is a small mag 10.5 comet that is traveling between bet Cep and gam Cep towards Polaris. Currently after sunset, it is at about 27 degs alt in the north-north-east sky but is washed out by the rising full Moon. In three or four days, the Moon will be rising a few hours later and around 11pm, there will be a short observing window between astronomical twilight and moonrise in which this comet should be visible. Some resources for C2008 J1 Boattini are: Finder chart of the comet's position through July 27: http://gallery.utahastronomy.com/main.php?g2_itemId=11672 Ephemeris: http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Comets/2008J1_1.html Yoshida's light curve and charts: http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/2008J1/2008J1.html According to Yoshida's light curve and charts, this comet will be with us and above mag 11 until the first week of September. - Kurt

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Saturn/Mars/Regulus alignment of July 5th
by Wilson Family 18 Jul '08

18 Jul '08

Here's the picture I took out at SPOC of the straight line asterism of Saturn, Mars, Regulus and the Moon that took place on July 5th http://gallery.utahastronomy.com/main.php?g2_itemId=11657 Unfortunately, some pixelation problems occurred when I had to reduce the size of my 10 megabyte photo for the Utah Astronomy server to accept.

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Comet C/2007 W1 (Boattini) 7-17-2008 obs rep
by Canopus56 18 Jul '08

18 Jul '08

Joe B wrote: > Thanks for the report, Kurt! After my latest experience at > Little Mountain, I decided to give up going there because > of the light pollution. I had waited until the moon set, > but then the seeing was barely any better. I think the light pollution > is much worse than it was 20 years ago. -- Best wishes, Joe I also have mixed results at Little Mtn depending on the season and (as you noted in your post a few weeks ago) the considerable public "bozo" factor from the Friday to Sunday night drinking and make-out kid crowd. But I still find Little Mtn a useful and enjoyable site for a quick evening insomnic drive during the week and after 1am on the weekends. In recent summers, that observing point has been more degradged due to pollutant aersols, e.g. photochemical smog from the valley and California wildfire particulants. The aersols reflect more of the light pollution from Salt Lake. When the aersols clear, the limiting magnitude drops to the east and northeast back to something closer to what you remember when the Salt Lake Valley had a population of 700,000 in 1987 or 550,000 in 1977. In 2007, the Salt Lake Valley had a population of about 1,000,000 that has sprawled due to westside freeway expansion. Sprawl development disproportionately increases per capita urban center light pollution. Aersols are a topic that is discussed in the new August issue of S&T and that I am in the process of drafting a note-post on. - Kurt Soapbox P.S. - IMHO, the club developing a relationship with the City Water District in order to obtain a club gate key and to develop a formal star party site past the water plant remains something to consider for the near and long-term future when the valley's population increases to 1.5 million in 2030. At that point, Little Mtn will be your Harmons-like urban astronomy site. That's something perhaps left for next year after the current test assocation with This-Is-the-Place urban astronomy site passes.

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Comet C/2007 W1 (Boattini) 7-17-2008 obs rep
by Canopus56 18 Jul '08

18 Jul '08

Comet C/2007 W1 (Boattini) 7-17-2008 10:35UT, mag. 7.0+-0.5, Dia. 12', DC=0 to 3, no tail or coma detail seen under poor Moon washed sky I went to Little Mtn. (111W long, 40N lat) Utah east of Salt Lake City last night (7-17-2008 4:25 MDT | 10:25 UT) to try to catch a glimpse of Comet C/2007 W1 (Boattini). It was near full Moon, so I tried for a brief observing window between 10:25UT and 10:40UT in which the Moon was blocked by Little Mtn. low in the south-west-western sky but before the advance of the end of astronomical twilight. The comet was low in the east at altitude in a Moon washed, heavy aserol polluted sky at altitude 27 deg. An NELM of 3.7 was defined by the twin tail stars of Tau - chi and omi Tau - and gam Cet in the Cetus circlet. Using 8x35mm binoculars (2.5 deg TFOV), the comet was not visible at its suspected region about 2 degrees northeast of Cetus circlet star lambda Cet. Because of the washed out sky conditions, a pair of 20x70mm (1.5 deg TFOV) was tried and quickly resolved comet Boattini midway between mag 8.1 HD18973 and mag 8.0 HD19137. Because of the sky conditions, little or no detail could be seen in the 12 arcminute coma - yielding a degree of condensation DC=0 to DC=3. Visibility was improved by cupped the hands around the eyepieces inorder to exclude stray light. Again, because of the sky conditions, no tail was visible. Brightness was estimated with low precision at mag 7.0 +- 0.5. There were few useful reference stars within 2 degrees of the comet. Using the In-Out method, the comet appeared midway in brightness between mag 8.0 HD 19137 and mag 5.9 HD 18700 and mag. 6.0 HD 19698. The best estimated optimal magnification to view this comet is 40x. Due to time limitations I did not set up a small refractor but stuck with the binos. I was glad to catch a brief glimpse of this intriguing visitor under a quiet sky and briefing cool mountain summer air. Comet C/2007 W1 (Boattini) was interesting to me because of its unusual orbital path as it passed the Earth. The comet skirting just below the ecliptic but perpendicular to Earth's orbital path between the Earth and Sun. It is now on its outbound leg. It is problematic whether using this early-morning Moon-setting window will work over the next few days. The third quarter Moon will become progressively dimmer, but the Moon will come closer to the comet over the next week. The third quarter Moon will pass a few degrees away from Boattini on 7-26. Hopefully, the comet will not dim substantially as the visibility situation improves through the new Moon on August 1st. On the morning of Aug. 1, the comet will be next to pi Ari. - Kurt

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ISS overpass tonight 22h55h55s -3.5mag alt 53.3 az 326.8
by Canopus56 18 Jul '08

18 Jul '08

Friday 18 July 2008 22h55m55s -3.5mag alt: 53.3 Appears 22h51m07s -0.1mag az:242.5° Culminates: 22h55m55s -3.5mag az:326.8° alt: 53.3° elevation of sun: -18° - Kurt

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Comet C/2007 W1 (Boattini) 7-17-2008 obs rep
by Canopus56 18 Jul '08

18 Jul '08

To correct, in the prior post, I wrote: "The comet [skirted] just below the ecliptic but perpendicular to Earth's orbital path between the Earth and Sun. It is now on its outbound leg." Should have read "parallel" not "perpendicular" and also that: The comet skirted just below the ecliptic but parallel to Earth's orbital path between the Earth and Sun about 0.2 a.u. from the Earth. Now the comet is on its outbound leg moving from below to above the ecliptic plane of the solar system. See NASA JPL 3-D Orbit Diagram for C/2007 W1 (Boattini) http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=C%2F2007+W1&orb=1 As a result, Boattini's apparent motion on the celestial sphere relative to the ecliptic has changed. Over the next month it will appear to move perpendicular to the ecliptic, traveling from the Cetus circlet to Aries. Near July 28, Bottaini will cross the ecliptic directly in front of the Earth, about 1 a.u. distance, but essentially on the Earth's future orbit path. This raises the interesting speculation of whether we will see some enhanced meteor activity on August 27, when the Earth passes through that same point. On August 27, there will be a first quarter Moon. - Kurt

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Turning comments on UA gallery on/off
by Patrick Wiggins 17 Jul '08

17 Jul '08

To post a comment to the Utah-Astronomy picture gallery (as opposed to this Utah-Astronomy list) one must first pass a simple test to "prove" the poster is a human and not a web bot. Well, it seems either a pretty smart bot or a human with lots of time on their hands took the test and then posted a bunch of stupid comments on Rob's album. I've removed the messages and checked to see if anyone else's album had the same problem. None did so I guess Rob just attracts weird people <g>. While making those checks I saw that a few folks besides Rob have their albums set up to accept comments from those not logged on to the system. So I've come up with a checklist to help folks to either turn the option on or off. To set an album so it will not accept comments do the following. To set an album so it WILL accept comments (which the album owner can later delete) do the same as below except when you get to step 6 you will want to ADD "Add comment" instead of delete it. 1) Go to the Utah-Astronomy Gallery at: http://gallery.utahastronomy.com/main.php 2) Go to your album. 3) Login to your album using either of the "Login" buttons on the page. 4) Click on the "Edit" button at the extreme lower left corner of the page. 5) Go to the "Edit Album" section at the top of the page and click on the "Theme" button. 6) Read down through the lengthy list of options. Every place you see "Add comment" in one of the white boxes click on it and then click on the "Remove" button to the right. 7) Once you have changed all the setting you want, go to the bottom left corner of the page and click on "Save Theme Settings". If the system accepts your changes the words "Successfully saved theme settings" should show up in the upper left corner of the page. 8) To make sure the changes were what you want: a. Go to the upper right corner of the page and click on "Logout". b. Quit (do not just close) your browser. c. Relaunch your browser. d. Go back to the Gallery at: http://gallery.utahastronomy.com/main.php e. Go to your album but DO NOT login. f. See if the "Add comment" icon (looks kind of like a squarish voice balloon with an "x" in it's corner) appears anywhere on the page and/or near any of the images before or after you click on them. Questions? Comments? Please let me know. Carpe Noctem! patrick

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Hubble Kaleidoscope Finds Evidence Of Space Looking All Crazy
by smcfarland＠sltrib.com 16 Jul '08

16 Jul '08

smcfarland(a)sltrib.com recommends a page from The Onion. The recommended page is: <a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/news/hubble_kaleidoscope_finds_evidence?utm…">Hubble Kaleidoscope Finds Evidence Of Space Looking All Crazy</a> ************************************************************************ You are receiving this email because your friend at smcfarland(a)sltrib.com sent it to you. If you do not wish to receive emails like this, please contact your friend.

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LED name tag
by Chuck Hards 15 Jul '08

15 Jul '08

Some of you have seen my LED scrolling nametag. This item is perfect for those conducting star-parties or operating telescopes at SPOC on public nights. It allows people to see your name (or any other message you program into it) after dark, when your embroidered name on your vest is invisible. (No more "hey, Miss astronomer" or "hey, telescope dude") It's now on sale at American Science and Surplus. www.sciplus.com *Item number 36714 LED Name Tag regularly $19.75 on-sale $15.00 ea. (all items plus shipping)* A group purchase would save on the shipping costs. You can program up to six messages, of hundreds of characters in length. Scrolling speed is adjustable. I have programed the following into mine: 1. Chuck 2. Salt Lake Astronomical Society 3. Stansbury Park Observatory Complex 4. Harmon's Observatory 5. Star Party 6. Astronomers Make Better Lovers They can also be used to call attention to step ladders "STEP HERE", handrails "HANDRAIL", "CONTROL ROOM" "TRAINED PERSONEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT", "IDA ACCESSABLE TELESCOPE", "WATCH YOUR STEP", "ENTER HERE", etc.

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Car show or no?
by Patrick Wiggins 14 Jul '08

14 Jul '08

Last night the SLAS board set this year's Star-B-Q at SPOC for Saturday, 23 August. Included will be golf in the morning and a swap meet and food in the late afternoon. Observing to start at dusk. One thing that was not scheduled for sure is the much talked about car (and Bruce Grim suggested motorcycle) show since the board was not sure there was interest. Bob Moore said he'd bring his Model T, Ann will see about entering her race car, I've got my old Benz and Chuck Hards has said all along he'd be willing to bring his muscle car. And I think Barney B has offered his Benz. So the question is, would that be enough to qualify as a show? Chuck, Barney, can you commit to 23 August? If there is still interest here I'll put something in News to gage club interest as a whole. Thoughts? patrick p.s. BTW, the guy who's company restored my old Benz still has his 300 roadster for sale. All original and "only" $500k. :) I'm going to see him Tuesday before the SLAS meeting and see if he'd like to drive it out to SPOC for the show.

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