April 2010 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Finding M51 and M101 in the Coma Sculptor Galaxy Group
by Canopus56 18 Apr '10

18 Apr '10

Looks like I get to eat some astronomical crow. My two prior posts on finding M51 and M101 errorenously list them as members of the more distant UMa Galaxy Group. They are in fact part of the much closer Coma Sculptor Galaxy Group. 3D Chart of the Coma Sculptor Galaxy Group Z-Y galactic plane view http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=3244 Color coding - Dark Blue Local Group Red Coma - Sculptor Cloud Green - dark Leo Cloud Green - light Leo Spur Purple Triangulum Spur Teal Virgo Cluster and Southern Extension Yellow - dark Fornax Cluster and Eridanus Cloud Yellow - light Dorado Cloud Black Not coded in this view My apologies for the error. - Kurt

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concrete
by Dale Wilson 18 Apr '10

18 Apr '10

Now that I have the email address correct, I can start blabbing again. Last Saturday, I poured the concrete pad for my new (remodel) observatory. Bruce Grim came over to help...again, thank you. It turned out pretty well. http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=3221 Of course, irony had to play its card. I had just done the final finish. It was really starting to set up. I went in to relax and not five minutes had passed when a kid knocked on my door to say that he had kicked a ball over the fence...you guessed it. Right in the middle of the pad. I was barely able to smooth it out. I wanted to bury the kid in the pad too. Since then, I poured the pier and have framed the exterior walls (pics to come). I am hoping to get the framing finished and the roof trusses up by weeks end. I am doing a bit of redesigning to the height, so that may set me back a bit. Say "no" to sucker holes, Dale

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Rush Valley Site
by Lowell Lyon 16 Apr '10

16 Apr '10

Hello: I went out last night to check out what many SLAS folks now call "Pit-N-Pole". When I went out there many years ago, we just called it the Rush Valley site. I noticed that the roads were all much improved over what they used to be. I think a regular passenger car will be able to get to the site without any significant problems. My only real concern were the motorcycles and ATVs in the area kicking up dust. Is the humidity still a factor as I remember it many years back? I recall that dew shields came in handy. I'm also curious as to how much the lights from Provo/Orem affect viewing these days. Thanks. Lowell Lyon

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planispheres (SLAS interest only)
by Joe Bauman 16 Apr '10

16 Apr '10

Another thought about the board meeting: rummaging through the synapses, my recollection is that we were going to buy 500 planispheres with ZAP funds and 500 with Harmons funds. Anyone else remember that, or am I having a nice '60 flashback? Thanks, Joe

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SPOC Sun parties?
by Patrick Wiggins 16 Apr '10

16 Apr '10

Views of the Sun today through the Bogdan refractor with the Daystar HA filter were really great. Exquisite detail all around the limb. Lots of prominences. And lots of surface detail including a small sunspot in the middle of what resembled a lunar crater with ejecta rays. Using the scope with the Daystar was such that Bruce and I were thinking it probably would not be good for groups of public but would be ideal for moderate sized groups of folks who know their way around a telescope. So now we're thinking of maybe an occasional Sun gazing outings for SLAS members and guests on weekend afternoons. Any interest in such things? In addition to looking we also tried some photography. Never did get it to work with attaching the camera to the filter but not too bad using the afocal method (maybe better with practice). Also not bad for terrestrial imaging (in effect the refractor is a 3,360mm telephoto lens). Here's a couple of afocal shots of the Sun: http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/SUN01.JPG And one of the KSL installation on top of the Oquirrhs: http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/KSL01.JPG patrick

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Solar prom 4-14 Wed
by Canopus56 15 Apr '10

15 Apr '10

When I checked the Sun out at 10:30am MDT 4-14 Wed, there was a nice large prom on the northwest limb (setting) - class B fan-shape with a 1 or 2 arcmin height. - Kurt

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Solar prom 4-14 Wed
by Canopus56 14 Apr '10

14 Apr '10

> a very nice tree shape Patrick, It sounds like we are talking about the same animal. - Kurt

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Knolls, 4/13
by Michael Vanopstall 14 Apr '10

14 Apr '10

I'm sure most people know about the Knolls OHV area, and many have probably observed there. I'm also sure that in the summer and on weekends it may not be so great a place. But I went last night for a few hours, and it was excellent. To get there: Take exit 41 off I 80, go S and get on the frontage road heading W (there are signs). I set up in "Parking Pad 1", which had vault toilets (with no exterior lights!!). I-80 is visible. Wendover looks like zodiacal light (I think they were combined yesterday). But it's very dark. And unlike my last trip out, I had no dewing problems, and didn't come home with all my stuff covered in dust. Also, I assume this has to do with Dugway, but some funny stars appear (about magnitude -5) and disappear from time to time... All observations done with a f/5 6" equatorially mounted reflector at 30x, except for verifying p.n. at 75x. Got there with some twilight left. Used Venus to align my finder (which didn't need aligning). Looked at Mercury at 150x, because it was there. Not so interesting. Looked at M42 at 75x with a UHC filter. The UHC brought out more of it. Double cluster was naked eye, so I pointed the telescope at it as well. Incidentally, an awful lot of stuff was naked eye -- the usual Beehive, Auriga clusters, etc. I want to say that I saw NGC 2506 naked eye, but I can't be sure. I pointed the telescope at what I thought was a fuzzy patch of sky, and NGC 2506 was there... Tried for NGC 891 next. Went 1/3 of the way from Algol to Almach -- this is where M34 is. Realized I was measuring the wrong way, and hunted all around about 1/4 - 1/3 of the distance from Almach to Algol. Failed. Wrote it off to some clouds in the NW and that it wasn't fully dark. But I came back two times later and couldn't find it either. Strange, because I found edge-on NGC 4236 in Draco, which I assumed would be harder. Went over to Cassiopeia and got NGC 663, 654, and for the first time, 559. Then it got cloudy, so I moved to Monoceros. Found the cluster in the Rosette nebula, but couldn't see the nebula at first. I blinked the UHC filter in front of the ep and saw the nebula; then I could see it without the filter. Looked at a couple of open clusters: NGC 2360 and the Tau CanMaj in Can. Maj. Oddly, I couldn't see the Messier OC there naked eye. Went back to Perseus. Found Perseus A, at least according to my charts, but it still looked fairly stellar to me at 75x. Down to Cass. for the Phi Cas cluster. Over to Cepheus: NGC 188 (also a first for me), the galaxy NGC 6946 (a satellite flew by while I was looking). Found the p.n. NGC 40 in Cepheus, but failed to find some other nebulous spots I looked for there and in Auriga. Even with UHC and OIII. Tried to figure out where Camelopardalis is. Figured out enough to find NGC 2403 (the bright one) and IC 342 (I think this is my first find from the IC; this was one of the highlights of the night). Followed this up with another highlight: NGC 2419 in Lynx. I think this is very nice looking. Looked at the Cat's Eye in Draco. This was the last time for the night that I was patient looking for planetaries. A subsequent try for NGC 3242 in Hydra was quickly abandoned. That one should have been easier; I just don't like high power. While in Draco, I pointed at M81/82, because I like to. I was a little off and found a very bright galaxy I hadn't seen before about 2 degrees W. I still haven't looked up what it was. All the Messier galaxies in Leo (and the third member of the trio) were just awesome. The pair NGC 3607/3608 with 3626 nearby was very nice. I looked up a few more galaxies: one in Cancer, one in Sextans, the Antennae, and a non-Messier Virgo galaxy. I had seven more Coma/Can.Ven. galaxies I wanted to find, but I needed to get some sleep, so I thought I'll go back again sometime. Next time I'll wait until Sagittarius comes up... What a great place. The overall take for about three hours was over 20 non-Messiers, and quick looks at a number of Messiers nearby the evenings targets. The drive from 5400 S & 1000 W was under 1 1/2 hours. I don't know what Lakeside is like, but this is only a little bit farther. Also, despite all the rain, it wasn't muddy. ---- Rev. Michael A. van Opstall Department of Mathematics, University of Utah Office: JWB 313 opstall(a)math.utah.edu

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Some Simple Things to Share
by Jay Eads 13 Apr '10

13 Apr '10

No eye splitting image, or great visual report but I thought I would share two links in case someone may read the email posts and not respond. The first one is a template for printing out a business card (and I think up to 4x6 card) of the moon phases by month for 2010. Here's the site. http://ghonis2.ho8.com/2010MoonPhaseCalendar.html I've did this in January and have handed them out at a couple of school star parties so people know when the best time to view is. Second is a site that I like for anyone doing an Astronomical League Program or just wanting something fun to do. I haven't looked at many in depth but I do like the format. I used this for my Messier. http://www.astronomylogs.com/booklets.html You can download the booklet via Word or as a PDF. Hope someone gets some use out of either.

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Entering the UMa Galaxy Group - finding M51
by Canopus56 13 Apr '10

13 Apr '10

Another bino practice target for Realm of the Galaxies are using asterims to locate M51 in the UMa Galaxy Group at the celestial north of the Virgo Supercluster. (I've skipped over CVn.) Locator asterims for M51 consist of two V-wedges anchored by SAO4462 and SAO44590: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=3218 If your skies are too faint to fully see the triangle-wedge anchored by SAO44642, don't worry about M51. Your skies are too light polluted to pull out the galaxy. To begin, start at Alkaid (eta UMa) and use your binos to find the optical double anchored by 24 CVn. Use these two stars to sweep celestial south until you see the triangular asterisms. M51 is located just southwest of SAO44642. Practice finding the first triangle asterism using binos from a semi-light polluted sky is useful to reduce finding time at the next available DSO dark sky weekend. I do not not have any good suggestions for locating M106 by star hopping. A near right ascension sweep (5.5 degs) can be had from chi UMa (SAO43886, 63 UMa HR4518, HD102224, v3.7). A 5 deg right-angle slew is available off of HR4846 (SAO44317). - Clear Skies - Kurt

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