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

Lunar halo
by Kim Hyatt 18 Feb '11

18 Feb '11

Just went outside to let the dogs out and there is an unusually bright lunar halo visible, at least from my home in Mt. Pleasant. If anyone is up, go check it out. Kim

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Photo of Bill for Nova?
by Patrick Wiggins 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

Anyone have a photo of Bill Kelley for inclusion in the nest issue of Nova? patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Class "X" Solar Flare and Massive CME
by Canopus56 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

Jay, The way to read the POES satellites composite plot is if the yellow area extends down to Nebraska, then you are good to go. The blue area isn't significant. The most northerly aurora I have observed was telescopically when the yellow area extended down to just south of the Montana-Canada border. From Little Mtn, a faint auroral curtain - like you see in those pictures from Alaska - could be seen using binoculars. The curtain was low over the horizon. Basically, to see aurora in Utah, the planetary kp magnetic field has to get up above 6. http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/Aurora/globeNW.html The blue line at this website plots the observed and predicted values of the planetary kp: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rpc/costello/pkp_15m_24h.html You can also watch the three hour planetary kp value here: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/today.html#satenv Unless the observed kp starts getting up to 5, I don't get too excited. This CME is pretty big, and I can't rule out an anomalous blast that might spike. But personally I'm not planning on staying up. Clear Skies, Kurt

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Class "X" Solar Flare and Massive CME
by Rodger C. Fry 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

The large Class X Solar Flare this week is expected to produce a significant CME late today or tonight. Is anyone thinking of going out to watch for the Aurora? Rodger Fry

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Set up at Home
by Dave Gary 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

Joe, Do you set your scope up much at home, or do you always go out to a selected site to observe? Dave

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Moonset
by Chuck Hards 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

I watched one of the most dramatic moonsets I've ever seen early this morning, as a big, yellow Luna descended behind the GSL. Breathtaking. A great way to start one's day.

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Society for Astronomical Sciences meeting registration and abstract dates
by Jerry Foote 16 Feb '11

16 Feb '11

All, There are two parts to this message. Please take a moment to read each one carefully. PART I - On-line Registration Now Open On-line registration for the 2011 Symposium on Telescope Science is now open. http://www.socastrosci.org/membershipregistration.html There is a link on that page to take you to the on-line registration form. Payment is with your credit card via PayPal. You are -not- required to have a PayPal account to register on-line. REMEMBER THAT YOU MUST MAKE HOTEL RESERVATIONS SEPARATELY. If/when you call the Northwoods, please be sure to make it clear that you're attending the "astronomy" or "Society for Astronomical Sciences" meeting. They may not know what "SAS" is. PLEASE READ ----------- The registration form is self-validating. If you click the submit button and are returned to the form, required data are missing and/or invalid. A double red asterisk appears before the label of each field that did not validate. You cannot enter a $0 order. Special instructions will be sent to our special guests whose costs are being covered in full or part. If the form passes validation after hitting submit, you are taken to a page where you confirm your selection. If that is OK, click the Submit button, which sends an email to SAS with your registration information and presents you with a button that will take you to PayPal. YOU ARE NOT FULLY REGISTERED UNTIL SAS RECEIVES NOTIFICATION OF PAYMENT FROM PAYPAL. If you have any questions or problems with the registration form, please send an email to webmaster(a)SocAstroSci.org PART II - Abstract Deadline --------------------------- This is a friendly reminder that abstracts for papers/talks are due on March 12. You'll find more information at http://www.socastrosci.org/symposium.html Final papers are due April 16. This allows us plenty of time to edit the full proceedings and have them printed before the Symposium. If you have any questions, please direct them to program(a)SocAstroSci.org This assures that at least one person sees your message and that you'll get a reply. This is our 30th anniversary. We're looking forward to a successful symposium and hope to see you in Big Bear. Jerry Foote Program Committee and Trustee Society for Astronomical Sciences www.socastrosci.org/ jfoote(a)scopecraft.com

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Video projector talked about at Advanced Training
by Patrick Wiggins 16 Feb '11

16 Feb '11

Here's the device I was talking about at tonight's Advanced Training. Seems like something that could be used at SPOC. http://www.youtube.com/mvisvideo#p/u/0/Z6Dhj_mQgK4 patrick

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Lakeside nights
by Michael Vanopstall 14 Feb '11

14 Feb '11

To chime in on the discussion on recent observing: I wasn't as brave as Jay, and waited to go west until the temperature came up a little. I did two nights at Lakeside this week. First was Wednesday early morning. That was the colder one, but hand and toe warmers did the trick. The haul was 41 objects in two hours. It was a little humid, but not unbearable. When I went to pack up, everything was frost-covered. The second night was last night. I just got back. I woke up at about 2:30 and it was cloudy. Weather said cloudy in the west too. I decided to go anyway. I had incorrectly estimated moonset, so I arrived at Lakeside at 3:45 under 70% cloud clover with the moon still up. I set up all the same, because Rho Virginis was visible, and that was the area I wanted. In all, I maintained the utterly undignified pace of one object per minute for 70 minutes. It was a lot of fun to see the old Messier friends from Virgo and notice the half dozen other galaxies in each field that were new. It was dripping wet humid; temp about 25 F. The little patch around Virgo and Coma stayed clear, and eventually the sky cleared up, contrary to Weather Channel predictions (I try to average their entries for Dugway and Dugway Proving Grounds for Lakeside; CSC is often not updated, even though their forecasts seem more accurate). So I'm done with the H400. And I think it's time to take a break from observing until camping season starts... ---- Rev. Michael A. van Opstall Department of Mathematics, University of Utah Office: JWB 313 opstall(a)math.utah.edu

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Windows 64 bit compatability and LPI cameras
by Canopus56 12 Feb '11

12 Feb '11

I purchased and received an Orion Starshoot IV LPI camera - the only LPI - light weight guiding type camera that I could find advertised on the market as certified full Windows 64 bit compatible. This post just contains some quick initial notes on this LPI. The Starshoot IV driver installed as a true 64-bit device and operates like historical LPIs. The camera came with a "64-bit" version of the AmCap capture software, which in fact installs as 32-bit software. My 32 bit AmCap software from 2001 was also installed on a Windows 7 Professional OS and it also connects and reads the 64-bit Starshoot. The Starshoot IV communicates with PHD. I have not yet installed K3CCD but anticipate that it will see the Starshoot without problems. I have not yet taken any images with the Starshoot. It's a functional camera, but I'm not impressed with its design. The Starshoot IV has the chip embedded and inaccessible almost a full 35mm inside the camera housing instead of at the more typical 11mm behind the camera housing. The Starshoot IV has an integrated and unremovable IR filter. (The IR filter sits in a sealed barrel sticking up out of the camera. A "fake" 1 1/4 inch barrel screws around the outside of this inner barrel.) This design means in some applications it will be difficult to match the plane of the CMOS chip with the focal plane. It also means that when used parafocal with a small flip mirror, the eyepiece will have to sit on an extender at an absurd height above the flip mirror. Murphy's law governs such things, and of course, the camera was delivered with a knick defect on the inside of the IR filter. Finally, the advantage of the more expensive full 1 1/4" IR filters is that when they get dirty and scratched, you can replace them. With the StarShoot integrated filter design, you get to throw out the camera. Presumably this integrated IR filter design, which is only 1/4" in diameter, was meant to lower production costs by only using a mini-IR filter. Finally, the integrated IR filter lowers the camera's utility as a guider camera with PHD. For guiding applications you pull out the IR filter to make the camera more sensitive and get a little extra limited magnitude reach. But at 1.3M bytes on the CMOS chip and a $100 price point, it will be interesting to see if the planetary images are improved over my circa 2004 Celestron NexStar. Clear Skies - Kurt

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