February 2011 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Re: [Utah-astronomy] End of the Planisphere?
by Canopus56 27 Feb '11

27 Feb '11

Planispheres are still useful, especially as teaching devices for children between the ages of 5 to 9. I still use and carry one in the car in preference to a digital option. (But, I also own an astrolabe and have not purchased a computing device class cell phone.) For adult users in light-polluted environments, IPods and handheld-computing device cell phones (like the IPhone) are a better option but the lighted screens of those devices are inherently incompatible with use at a true dark sky site. The lighted displays destroy night-vision. The more significant change that handheld-computing device cell phones (as they evolve towards a communicator Star Trek-like tricorder device) is your communicator will deprecate the traditional GOTO scope handbox controller. Future GOTO scopes will no longer include a handbox. Rather the purchaser will be told that there is ``an app for that too,'' and the scope box will only contain a software disk and a connection cable. Considering how much power can go into a modern primitive tri-corders (I mean cell phones), that is probably a good change. The bulky, power-hungry laptop can be left at home, but you will still have an on-site, convenient digital sky chart coupled to a telescope GOTO driver. Clear Skies - Kurt

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Winter Star Party at Great Basin National Park
by Kelly_Carroll＠nps.gov 27 Feb '11

27 Feb '11

Joe, I have two - a 60 and 75 amp hour - which should power a laptop all night. --kelly Kelly Carroll Great Basin National Park http://www.nps.gov/grba/ Experience your America Hi Kelly, Thanks! I have a generator but it would be annoying to anyone else at a star party. Do you think the batteries could power my laptop all night? I have other batteries that I use for other needs, but it's the laptop that's an electrical hog. I think I have an inverter too, but if not I could buy one. Best wishes, Joe

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Solar Sail Imaging Contest
by Jay Eads 27 Feb '11

27 Feb '11

Between now and March 7th, WITH the weather's permission of course, you can see NASA's Solar NanoSail as it flies over the U.S. at various points and times. NASA has a page dedicated to this located at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/smallsats/nsd_tracking.html If your looking for something different to do and can image it then NASA has partnered with SpaceWeather.com <http://www.spaceweather.com/> to encourage observations of NanoSail-D. Spaceweather.com is offering cash prizes for the best images of this historic, pioneering spacecraft in the amounts of $500 (grand prize), $300 (first prize) and $100 (second prize). Here is the link at Spaceweather.com for the contest: http://nanosail.org/ Here's the gallery that has been submitted so far: http://spaceweather.com/nanosail/gallery.php?PHPSESSID=mn4vk9omehklbq8noki0… At this site you can see where the Solar Sail is on a Google Map: http://www.n2yo.com/?s=90027 Finally, here is a list of visible passes: http://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=90027&lat=0&lng=0&loc=U… I hope one of the fantastic imagers here in Utah wins the contest and gets some extra cash money for themselves. -- Jay Eads

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Winter Star Party at Great Basin National Park
by Kelly_Carroll＠nps.gov 26 Feb '11

26 Feb '11

Just a reminder that next Saturday March 5 is our annual Winter Star Party here at Great Basin National Park in Baker, NV. The event starts at 5:30PM at the Lehman Caves Visitor Center and observing can continue the whole night. We will keep the visitor center open as a warm room and hot beverages will be provided. Hope to see you all here! Kelly Kelly Carroll Great Basin National Park http://www.nps.gov/grba/ Experience your America

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Radio Meteor Observing Report for 2010
by Canopus56 25 Feb '11

25 Feb '11

> I'm surprised there isn't more activity shown during the Quadrantids and Geminids. Patrick. My plot is a pretty normal pattern for a radio meteor year except there is also a equipment-operator error for the December counts. You can see how the last half of Nov and Dec are abruptly more faint than the rest of the chart. But the December-January Quadrantids and Geminids, along with the entire period between October to March, are relatively more quiet than the summer. There are also more showers during the summer. There also is a breadth of shower component. The Quadrantids and Geminids are relatively compact and have a full-width half-height duration of only two days or less. The summer meteor showers have a broader full-width half-height duration sometimes lasting a week. See the column labeled "D" in the "Table of Meteor Showers" in your RASC 2011 Observers Handbook. (It's around page 250). June to September counts are generally elevated due to the anti-helion (ANT) region activity, with the Persids capping everything off. This chart may help or confuse things but you can see how the Quads and Gems are relatively more compact showers even though they have high ZHRs: http://sonotaco.jp/img/SN_SWR2009A.png These are radio meteor counts. Radio reflections count smaller grain sized meteors than visual observing, that is radio meteor observing sees to a fainter limiting magnitude than visual observing. So there is not a one-to-one correlation between your years of experiential knowledge of the relative intensities of meteor showers gathered from visual observing showers and radio meteor observing intensities. Clear Skies - Kurt IMO ANT stream description: "The Antihelion Source (ANT) is a large, roughly oval area around α = 30° by δ = 15° in size, centred about 12° east of the solar opposition point on the ecliptic, hence its name. It is not a true shower at all, but is rather a region of sky in which a number of variably, if weakly, active minor showers have their radiants. Until 2006, attempts were made to define specific showers within this complex, but this often proved very difficult for visual observers to achieve. IMO video results from the last decade have shown why, because even instrumentally, it was impossible to define distinct radiants for many of the showers here! Thus we believe currently it is best for observers to simply identify meteors from these streams as coming from the ANT alone. At present, we think the July-August α–Capricornids (CAP), and particularly the δ–Aquariids (SDA), should remain discretely-observable visually from the ANT, so they have been retained on the Working List, but time and plenty of observations will tell, as ever."

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Sy Liebergot - Apollo 13 EECOM
by Dale Hooper 25 Feb '11

25 Feb '11

Here at SDL, since we are associated with the university we will occasionally get to hear talks from people as they are passing through. Yesterday, we were privileged to hear from Sy Liebergot. He served as a flight controller (EECOM) with Apollo 13 as well as many other missions. I love hearing from these guys. He described the loneliness and pressure he felt when Apollo 13 experienced the quadruple failure. He explained to us how his training as a systems engineer would usually let him work a problem backwards to the point of origin so that it could then be resolved. But, with this one there were so many things going wrong that it was initially almost impossible to really tell what to do. He said that for two weeks after it happened he would have the same recurring nightmare of things going wrong. Then one evening during the dream he was able to perform every step flawlessly and the disaster still happened. At that point he realized that it wasn't his fault - so he never had the nightmare again. He said that his fellow controllers would rib him about the fact that he initially called it as an instrumentation problem. Sy also spoke to us for awhile about the culture at NASA. Sadly, he doesn't think that "NASA" will *ever* send another astronaut to the moon. He said in the old days that people felt equal with their supervisors and would "tell it like it is". He explained that now they are more interested with "climbing the corporate ladder" so they will sometimes withhold information that may be useful. He also said that NASA has such an aversion to risk that it really makes it difficult for them to envision anything beyond low earth orbit. He did spend a bit of time hawking his book, "Apollo EECOM: Journey of a Lifetime", which can be found at Amazon.com. I think it would be a worthwhile purchase especially since it includes a CD with four hours of audio from the initial, "Houston we have had a problem". There is a short right-up about his talk today in the Herald Journal (aka "the 5 minute newspaper") at http://news.hjnews.com/news/article_5128b18e-4088-11e0-88d1-001cc4c03286.ht… Clear skies, Dale.

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Radio Meteor Observing Report for 2010
by Canopus56 25 Feb '11

25 Feb '11

In Utah Astro Gallery - http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=4153 Summary Radio Meteor Observing Report for 2010 Fisher SLC Station This chart graphically shows the hourly recorded rates of radio meteor reflections at a Salt Lake City station during 2010 at 55.250MHZ. The scale is red at a maximum of 1,000 counts per hour to blue at about 15 counts per hour. The maximum daily count was 2,400 on the 217th day of 2010. My station went offline in February 2011 due to interference from newly reallocated digital TV frequencies. Local digital transmitters now makes a nice window shade grid through the middle of the meteor reflections that I capture off a Mexican TV station signal. I am currently exploring using the Air Force Space Surveillance emitter at Gila River, Arizona on 216.97MHZ as the new ``parasitic'' emissions source from which to record reflections. Hopefully, the station will be back up by the summer. Clear Skies - Kurt

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New/old images
by Kim Hyatt 22 Feb '11

22 Feb '11

All: I added a couple of images to my gallery album. This link (http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=4147) is my first “astro” photo, taken as I was leaving Italy after having finished my service as an LDS missionary in 1976. The view is over Italy’s Lago Maggiore, one day before May’s full Moon. I took a single time-lapse image with a manual 35mm camera, using Ektachrome film, but other details are lost to memory. I guessed on the exposure but lucked out. This link (http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=4150) is a pic of the lunar halo that was visible from our home last Friday morning (Full Moon). Sorry y’all missed it. Kim

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Student essay: Doomsday 2012: Truth or hoax?
by Patrick Wiggins 22 Feb '11

22 Feb '11

Nice piece written by a local high schooler debunking the whole 2012 hoax. http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/51253952-80/2012-believe-calendar-sh… And in other news. From the Sunday funnies: http://www.arcamax.com/redandrover/s-838127-605281 And from today's EPOD here's one that's not exactly astronomical but if you look close you can see evidence of the Sun's movement and position in the sky throughout the year. http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2011/02/a-year-from-a-window-in-oslo-norway.html Be sure and watch the videos.

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] University Optics
by erikhansen＠thebluezone.net 22 Feb '11

22 Feb '11

> I think Televue has discontinued the Wide Field line and replaced them with the Pan Optics. Better performance but pricer and heavier. You might find some used ones but I think people hang on to those, they are good eyepieces. I have a 27mm Pan Optic, I like it a lot. The next step up is a 35mm and it is very big and too heavy for my taste. Anybody tried the 32mm TeleVue Wide Field? 40mm is too wide for a f/4.5 > scope. I don't want anything too heavy for the dob either. > > Debbie > > On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 12:24 PM, <erikhansen(a)thebluezone.net> wrote: > >> > The University 38mm seems interesting to me, the 40mm Televue Wide >> Field >> (and the 24) is one I think Televue should bring back. Their >> replacements are much too heavy. >> They are not the same. They are Chinese-made, and even on-line Jan >> > Seyfried admits that the fit and finish are "approaching" Japanese standards. The old UO line was exclusively made in Japan by the same shop that used to make Unitron optics. "Updated" is perhaps the wrong >> > term. Also the new one is a 30mm, not 32. I can tell that these are identical to other company's imported eyepiece lines. >> > That said, I'm sure they will provide a good view. >> > >> > I used to have UO exclusively. I still have my old, original 40mm 7/70, as well as the "Limited Edition" 55mm plossl- only 500 pieces were produced. IIRC, my serial number is something like 150. >> > >> > Quite a while ago, I sold my 28mm Pretoria when I bought the old Lumicon universal coma corrector (a great little item for fast Dobs). >> > >> > But the eyepieces I've bought from them recently are just their branded version of the same Chinese stuff everyone else is selling. >> > >> > On 2/11/11, erikhansen(a)thebluezone.net <erikhansen(a)thebluezone.net> >> wrote: >> >> Hi All, >> >> >> >> Unlike I relayed, University Optics does offer updated versions of >> there >> >> old wide field eyepieces. >> >> They are a good deal. >> >> >> >> http://www.universityoptics.com/2inch.html#WS7080 >> >> >> >> Erik >> >> >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > 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.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> 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.slas.us/gallery2/main.php >> Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com > _______________________________________________ > 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.slas.us/gallery2/main.php > Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com >

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