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

Collimation notes
by Chuck Hards 14 Mar '11

14 Mar '11

After a thorough collimation of one of my reflectors using a laser and Orion precision centration adapter, I noticed that I couldn't get a good star-test pattern without further tweaking- much more than is usually needed before I got the centration device. It turns out that eyepieces then used without the centration adapter are not truly centered, so of course the diffraction pattern was off-center. This tells me that if you want dead-on collimation, either DO NOT use the centration adapter, or use it WITH your eyepieces and camera afterwards. And if the adapter itself is a sloppy fit in the focuser drawtube, you may be chasing your tail. Some focusers are overbored more than others, so YMMV. It may or may not be a problem with your particular scope.

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Free microwave
by Patrick Wiggins 13 Mar '11

13 Mar '11

My 20+ year old microwave oven is taking so long to heat anything up that I'm going to retire it. But before I toss it I thought I'd mention it here in the event some tinkerer/ATM on the list my have a use for the oven's various pieces and parts. Any takers? If so I could have it at Tuesday's SLAS meeting or at an upcoming star party. patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Tsunami coming to Hawaii
by erikhansen＠thebluezone.net 13 Mar '11

13 Mar '11

>The worse news is that 4 Nuclear Reactors where damaged to the point of possible melt downs. The news also reported there is fault line due to slip of the west coast of the US that could be bigger than this mag 9 earthquake. Seems most of damage on west coast was because it was not taken seriously, I imagine Hawaii does take it seriously. Joe, I am not sure the depth of the bay matters other than the bigger the wave the more water is sucked from the coast before the Tsunami hits. If the sea suddenly recedes run for high ground. > > Siegfried and Bill Cowles. > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Patrick Wiggins" <paw(a)wirelessbeehive.com> > To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2011 6:38:49 PM > Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Tsunami coming to Hawaii > > On 12 Mar 2011, at 11:46, Joe Bauman wrote: > >> I went to Emon Beach (on the island of Kwajalein, Marshall Islands) to >> see the tsunami that followed the Alaskan earthquake of 1964. > > Y'all need to ask Siegfried about his experience with the 1964 earthquake. > Â He was right in the thick of it. > > 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://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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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Tsunami coming to Hawaii
by Canopus56 13 Mar '11

13 Mar '11

Rob, I hope you and your neighbors all come through it well and unscathed. How big was the wave? - Kurt

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UFO?
by Stephen Peterson 12 Mar '11

12 Mar '11

This is indeed strange. From my astronomy log book October 8 2006 20:40 local time: "Binos 80X15- saw strange object(s) intensity ~ background stars (not bright) Arc like, Many lights. Est 1/4 to 1/2 degree radius heading SSE. No sound, No flashing, steady lights Tracked for 40 sec - 1 minute" Sounds very similar to what Richard saw. Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 21:00:13 -0800 (PST) From: Richard Tenney <retenney(a)yahoo.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> Subject: [Utah-astronomy] UFO tonight Message-ID: <944582.84416.qm(a)web161207.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 I'm actually a little shaken up as I write this. ?I was outside in my front yard with the 6" newtonian, showing my daughter and her boyfriend the orion nebula and the moon (as well as an excuse to try out the 9 nagler Debbie sold me last week :). ?We were standing there talking about the night sky, when my daughter, looking toward the big dipper, shouted, "oh my gosh, what is that?!" I quickly looked up, and saw something very strange. ?It looked like a "V" shaped object, faint and shimmery, dotted with 6? faint lights, moving ESE. ?I (you didn't hear me say this) had my laser in my hand, and hit it with the laser, and said, "you mean that?", ?No reflection, so it was some distance up, rather large, and it was moving faster than any aircraft I know of, and completely silent -- absolutely no engine noise. ?Way too fast angular momentum to be a conventional aircraft (and the fact that the laser didn't light it up, meant it wasn't an owl or something close flying over my house). ?I've never seen anything like it. ?It was about 9:30 p.m. Thoughts...? Steve P

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] UFO tonight
by Canopus56 11 Mar '11

11 Mar '11

ESA Cluster II FM7 Samba http://heavens-above.com/satinfo.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&alt=0&loc=Unspecified&TZ=… ESA Cluster II FM7 Salsa http://heavens-above.com/satinfo.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&alt=0&loc=Unspecified&TZ=… These go up to 19,000km but dip down to low orbit at perigee. The last few orbit plots for passes over London shows them going ESE. (Patrick, I did not rerun the overpasses in Heaven's Above for a SLC observing point). I don't know if these are visbile during low-Earth orbit perigee passes. - Clear Skies - Kurt

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alien fossils?
by Joe Bauman 11 Mar '11

11 Mar '11

Hi friends, here's my latest blog, about new claims of the discovery of alien bacteria fossils in meteorites. Your comments are much valued. Thanks, Joe http://www.deseretnews.com/blog/47/10011606/Nightly-news-astronomy-Alien-Fo…

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Daytime running lights and SPOC.
by Daniel Holmes 11 Mar '11

11 Mar '11

So here's a question now that I'm thinking about this year's astronomy activities. How do we handle cars with DRLs that can't be turned off? My old car I could turn them off, but my new one, I can't...at least I haven't figured out how to. The DRLs kick on, as well as tailights. This is going to be an issue at Bryce and SPOC. Any suggestions? I know when I was in an unfamiliar car, I just shouted out that I was about to start up the car, and anyone who cared please close their eyes. Dan -- Daniel Holmes, danielh(a)holmesonics.com "Laugh while you can, monkey boy!" -- Lord John Whorfin

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] UFO's
by stormcrow60＠xmission.com 11 Mar '11

11 Mar '11

Richard, I know the exact feeling you may have experienced. In 1984, a buddy and me were on our last night of a 10 day backpack trip in King's Canyon Nat'l Park. We were just sitting around the fire and then walked out into a meadow so we could see the stars better. My friend pointed out a flashing light that zigzagged across the sky from horizon to horizon in about 15 seconds. Even though there were canyon walls which were fairly low on the horizon, the object moved along the length of the canyon from about due west to east. I visually picked it up about 30deg above the W horizon and watched it zigzag overhead and then move off to the E horizon. It was bluish-white in color, and flashed about once a second. You could actually see the zigzag pattern it made as it flew overhead. It was not a solid craft... just a flashing light, and it appeared to be extremely high in the atmosphere... almost like a satellite. As we watched it, we asked each other what the hell it was. But when it passed directly overhead, we stood there speechless, and then, I suddenly had a very strange feeling that it was intelligently controlled and it aware of us watching it. After it was gone, we tried to explain it away. I am a strong believer in science and I always try to explain these types of things with a logical answer. But there appeared to be no natural phenomena or man made craft that we could think of to explain what we saw. To this day, I still have not a clue what it was. Jon Richard Wrote: I'm enjoying the suggestions. My thoughts also ran to some kind of military stealth craft. I already dismissed the thought of birds -- it did not appear to be reflected moonlight, there were definite (albeit faint) lights visible. The speed really surprised me -- it was only visible for a few seconds. One of those interesting moments in which the 3 of us who witnessed it were completely baffled, and even a little freaked out. Quoting utah-astronomy-request(a)mailman.xmission.com: > Send Utah-Astronomy mailing list submissions to > utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > utah-astronomy-request(a)mailman.xmission.com > > You can reach the person managing the list at > utah-astronomy-owner(a)mailman.xmission.com > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Utah-Astronomy digest..." >

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Already fielded questions on “Supermoon”
by Canopus56 11 Mar '11

11 Mar '11

Repost - I had a paste and copy error in the first post. - K ---------- Yahoo.news has been circulating a story on this month's March 19 extreme perigee of the Moon quoting an astrologer making predictions of dire consequences from the pass. That entertainment news report has gained traction with today's Japanese earthquake. Here are some background facts to answer your non-astronomical friend's questions on the supermoon story. Looking at Meeus's Mathematical Astronomy Morsels, Sec.2, the distribution of extreme perigrees of the Moon are quite frequent. With the ``mean'' distance to the Moon at about 384,000 km, and Meeus tabulated the distribution and frequency of lunar perigrees for 80 years between 1960 to 2040. Extreme lunar perigees have nothing to do with the 18 year Saros cycle. Extreme lunar perigees occur as the Sun and Earth align to pull the Moon closer in conjunction with the lunar ``natural'' semi-minor axis. Curiously, unlike other natural phenomena, the extremes of perigees below 370,500 km are not normally distributed; they bi-modal. More perigees are grouped near the endpoints of 356,000 km and 370,500 km. Taking the lowest 10 percent of extremes between 356,000 km and 357,500 km, there are actual and predicated 181 perigree extremes between 1960 and 2040 (960 months). This implies an extreme perigee (in terms of the bottom 10 percent) occurs on average once every 5.3 months. There will be 82 extreme perigees between 356,500 km and 365,700 km, or about 1 extreme perigee every 11 months. Maybe the extra 133 kilometers between 356,577 and 356,700 km matter, but I doubt it. This astrologer predication is another in the category of overstated planetary alignments, e.g. - when three planetary bodies align (e.g. the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn), the astrologers issue ``death-from-above'' press releases. On a different note supporting this notion of volcanoes and extreme lunar perigrees, Donna O'Meara (Stephen O'Meara's wife), made a career from traveling around the world and photographing volcanos. Stephen O'Meara is known for claiming a possible relationship between the Moon's close passes, volcanoes and earthquakes, an association that Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait questions - http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2006/08/09/mooning-a-volcano/ Some of you may remember O'Meara's trip to a volcano in 2001 at a perigee to test this idea and great footage of the volcano starting to erupt as Stephen and wife were hiking up to the rim. It was covered in an old National Geographic TV broadcast - http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0215_020215_volcanohunter.h… Today's Bad Astronomy entry concerns debunking concerns that the ``supermoon'' caused today's Japan's earthquake. Phil Plait makes the common sense point that the Moon was nowhere near perigee last night - it was at apogee on March 6. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/ This notion of the close moon causing volcanoes to erupt also comes up in the news periodically with respect to an active Philippino volcano Mayon (in 2006 and Dec. 2009), e.g. - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-399776/Full-moon-spark-Philippine-v… In summary, these extreme perigees have happened many times through my some 50 plus years on this earth, and I haven't been killed by one yet. -:) Clear Skies - Kurt

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