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

Re: [Utah-astronomy] Webcams at Cern collider
by Wayne Sumner 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

I cant't wait to show this to my high school astronomy class. We've been talking about the LHC and the controversy surrounding it. I'm pleased to say that I'm sure they will "get it". Wayne A. Sumner Math/Physics/Astronomy/Engineering Boy's Tennis Coach Northridge High School Davis School District (801) 402-8610 >>> Josephine Grahn <bsi(a)xmission.com> 09/19/08 7:38 AM >>> Our son-in-law sent this, and, given the discussions of a few days ago, I thought this group might like seeing it in action, quite nice. Live webcams from the new LHC at CERN: http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html _______________________________________________ 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://gallery.utahastronomy.com Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Ogden?
by Gary Vardon 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

It's a good museum. Sincerely, Gary Vardon -----Original Message----- From: Julie Chorley Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2008 8:12 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Ogden? That sounds like fun.. too bad I have to work! Julie On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 1:55 AM, Patrick Wiggins <paw(a)wirelessbeehive.com>wrote: > A few SLASers with a affinity for trains (Bruce, Roger, Nate, me and > maybe Bill and Quintin) are planning to take the train (Frontrunner) > from SLC to Ogden for lunch (and possibly touring the railroad and > other museums at the Ogden station) the afternoon of Friday 3 October. > > Leaving SLC around 1 p.m. and returning around 5 p.m. > > Any closet train lovers here on Utah Astronomy that would care to join > in? > > patrick > > _______________________________________________ > 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://gallery.utahastronomy.com > Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com > -- Julie Chorley _______________________________________________ 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://gallery.utahastronomy.com Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com

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Nuclear Rocket
by Gary Vardon 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

Did you know that at one time NASA had a program to build nuclear reactor powered rockets?. Through 1971, two dozen reactor and rocket engine tests were conducted. Nixon killed the program. A nuclear powered rocket, had it been available. would have made space travel significantly faster facilitating manned exploration. Sincerely, Gary Vardon -----Original Message----- From: Julie Chorley Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2008 8:12 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Ogden? That sounds like fun.. too bad I have to work! Julie On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 1:55 AM, Patrick Wiggins <paw(a)wirelessbeehive.com>wrote: > A few SLASers with a affinity for trains (Bruce, Roger, Nate, me and > maybe Bill and Quintin) are planning to take the train (Frontrunner) > from SLC to Ogden for lunch (and possibly touring the railroad and > other museums at the Ogden station) the afternoon of Friday 3 October. > > Leaving SLC around 1 p.m. and returning around 5 p.m. > > Any closet train lovers here on Utah Astronomy that would care to join > in? > > patrick > > _______________________________________________ > 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://gallery.utahastronomy.com > Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com > -- Julie Chorley _______________________________________________ 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://gallery.utahastronomy.com Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com

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Help needed for school star party in Lindon, Oct. 3rd, 8 pm.
by Richard Tenney 18 Sep '08

18 Sep '08

Timpanogos Academy in Lindon has a star party scheduled for Friday, October 3rd, 2008. We are planning to start at 8:00 pm and finish no later than 10:00 pm. I would like to ask if there is anyone who would be willing to help with providing telescopes and such for the evening. I personally have two scopes but we expect close to 200 people that evening. I would also like to know if there is someone who would be interested in doing a 20 to 30 minute presentation at the beginning of the event. I would really like to have someone talk about the LHC however, I am completely open to suggestions of other topics. Please contact me at jmremy(a)timpacademy.org if you are able to help. Thanks in advance! Jennifer M. Rémy Middle School Science Timpanogos Academy jmremy(a)timpacademy.org 801.785.4979

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Ogden?
by Patrick Wiggins 18 Sep '08

18 Sep '08

A few SLASers with a affinity for trains (Bruce, Roger, Nate, me and maybe Bill and Quintin) are planning to take the train (Frontrunner) from SLC to Ogden for lunch (and possibly touring the railroad and other museums at the Ogden station) the afternoon of Friday 3 October. Leaving SLC around 1 p.m. and returning around 5 p.m. Any closet train lovers here on Utah Astronomy that would care to join in? patrick

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post
by klover101＠comcast.net 18 Sep '08

18 Sep '08

Hi, My name is Klover and I live in Pleasant Grove. Love the stars and so do my darling daughters. I am looking forward to getting to know you all! Klover G.

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P.S. - Thanks to Rodger on a great Mars geology talk last night
by Canopus56 17 Sep '08

17 Sep '08

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Thanks to Cynthia Blue
by Canopus56 17 Sep '08

17 Sep '08

Thanks to Cynthia Blue for many years of wonderful volunteer service in running the former gallery. Haven't met you, but if I run into you, I and every other SLAS member owe you a beer. - Kurt

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Gallery update
by Patrick Wiggins 16 Sep '08

16 Sep '08

The latest on the UA Gallery is that it's almost certainly not coming back. The machine it was on suffered a catastrophic hard drive crash and is not recoverable. Cynthia thinks that she has at least some of the images on another machine and is going to try to find them. She will then burn the surviving images to a DVD that will then be sent to SLAS webmaster Ken Warner. Ken has agreed to adapt the picture gallery part of the existing SLAS web site to work like the UA gallery worked (i.e. once logged on SLAS members will be able to post and modify to their personal albums.) Note that while only SLAS members will be able to post images anyone will be able to view the images. As for when all of this will happen, that's an unknown. All of this will be done using volunteer labor. Comments? Questions? Fire away! patrick

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Backing up files
by Patrick Wiggins 14 Sep '08

14 Sep '08

I just spoke with Cynthia about the gallery. More on that in my next email but my talk with her reminded me of a thread that developed here a while back about archiving files. Coincidentally, just today I received a post from the International Occultation Timing Association's listserve referring to an online article about the subject. See it here: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10235132?IADID=A0 While I routinely back up data files on my Macs (and store those backups in 2 and sometimes 3 places) I've only recently started giving serious thought to backing up stuff on the old Windows box I had to get to run the Paramount. After reading the above I'm giving it even more thought but the article has me a bit spooked. And so I turn to the computer whizzes here on UA for opinions. With drives becoming so cheap I _was_ going to just get an external hard drive to back up to and continue to back up to DVDs. But the article refers to hard drives crashing and DVDs becoming unrecoverable. Over the years I've accumulated a veritable museum of Macs going back to my first (a MacPlus) from 1984. They all still work fine (though, admittedly, I only turn on the oldest one every now and then just to see if it still works). Even the Windows box I bought from Super Dell in '99 still works (albeit maybe a bit slowly) and it gets used many hours every week. So, my questions to the computer gurus on the groups are: Is the article being overly pessimistic or have I just been lucky? And, what do you do to protect files you plan on keeping for a very long time? Your thoughts? Many thanks, patrick the paranoid p.s. The above has nothing to do with the problems discussed in the previous UA thread about new machines not being able to read files created on old machines.

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