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

weather curse
by daniel turner 20 Jun '11

20 Jun '11

Kurt: I disagree. Counter-clockwise is the direction of rotation for a low pressure cell which bring the rain. We need to spin up a high pressure cell by turning clockwise. Also it works better is the spinners have a large surface area to catch more wind. So lets get all of us large people up and spinning. Of course it's the opposite for the southern hemisphere. Also I know the curse is started by someone buying a new telescope. Can we reverse the effect if some one sells a telescope to someone out of state? That should more the curse to a different local. Or maybe BUILDING a telescope intensifies the curse. If that's the case then it's all Mark's fault. DT

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ATM
by Jay Eads 19 Jun '11

19 Jun '11

I couldn't make it to the ATM at Mat's house today. Mat, I apologize. My father in law has Alzheimer and has a roommate and the roommate has been aggressive and this morning the roommate attacked my father-in-law. We are moving my father-in-law to a new room so this won't happen again but it is taking some time. One thing I want to do and I am going to stop by Radio Shack on the way home is to build some dew heaters for my Telrad, Finder, eyepiece holder and perhaps my secondary. This site is the one a couple of friends recommended I use: http://www.dewbuster.com/heaters/heaters.html Anyone else have suggestions? -- Jay Eads

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] ATM
by Canopus56 19 Jun '11

19 Jun '11

Jay wrote; > Now if someone could just invent a cloud buster I just > might be able to be in business. More of you need to join me in my anti-rain dance. It's just like the rain dance but you circle counter-clockwise instead of clockwise. Fortunately, the official start of summer is just two days away! Happy Father's Day to the group. - Kurt

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The Progenitor of Supernova 2011dh/PTF11eon in Messier 51; Observing Sat. June 25th
by Jay Eads 19 Jun '11

19 Jun '11

Here is the paper released by D. van Dyk et al. on the progenitor star that exploded into 2011dh in M51. I found it interesting and thought for a rainy Sunday morning some here may enjoy it. Go to the link, it is to the Cornell University Library and was submitted on June 15th, 2011. http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.2897 Interesting and I would love to discuss some of its points if anyone is interested. On a side note it hardly ever rains from June 15 to June 30th and we have a strong storm over us dumping 1" to 1.25" in the valleys and 1 foot or more of snow above 8500 feet. Oh how I want the summer high pressure to develop and start clearing us out. On a side note next Saturday is looking really good with good clear skies (for this far out). If so I am willing to go to either Lakeside or the Pit n Pole area to observe. Their is a waning crescent moon that rises officially at 1:57a.m. so about 2:30a.m. with the mountains. That would work for me. If it is clear anyone interested? -- Jay Eads

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] ATM
by Canopus56 19 Jun '11

19 Jun '11

Jay, Another other necessary part of the setup is a heater controller. The strips alone just suck power out of the battery and can become too hot for the atmospheric temperature. http://www.scopestuff.com/ss_dnot.htm - Clear Skies, Kurt P.S. - Only three more days to summer!

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Tuesday and Wednesday
by JayLEads 18 Jun '11

18 Jun '11

Steve, I would go in a heartbeat except I'm still teaching . . . will be until the 1st of July. Then two weeks of 8 hour days of taking two intense classes and then time for school to start up again. This summer I'll be a weekend only observer unless I take a day off here or there. I may try to get out next Saturday evening . . . Thursday and Friday are out due to this thing called an anniversary. I guess if she is still putting up with me after 23 (yes, I know that is short for many of you) years I better spend some time with her. On 2011-06-17 21:48, Steve Fisher wrote: > > > > > Good afternoon everyone! With the cancelation of the speaker at next weeks SLAS meeting I started looking at the forecast for Great Basin National Park and Baker Nevada for next Tuesday and Wednesday night. Looks great with the exception of a little moon to deal with. The park has public outreach on Wednesday nights. I'm going to make plans now to head out. Anyone else?Steve

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Tuesday and Wednesday
by Steve Fisher 17 Jun '11

17 Jun '11

Good afternoon everyone! With the cancelation of the speaker at next weeks SLAS meeting I started looking at the forecast for Great Basin National Park and Baker Nevada for next Tuesday and Wednesday night. Looks great with the exception of a little moon to deal with. The park has public outreach on Wednesday nights. I'm going to make plans now to head out. Anyone else?Steve

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Awesome
by Steve Fisher 17 Jun '11

17 Jun '11

That was awesome! http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=4391

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More about ALCON food registration
by Joe Bauman 17 Jun '11

17 Jun '11

Hi all, just to make sure everyone going to ALCON knows, the actual deadline to sign up for the two dinners was last night at midnight. But apparently they can still take new orders if done quickly. Also, there was some confusion about banquet registration. The dinner has two entrees, but the price does not include two people. Here's a note I received from an ALCON official, Terry Mann, clarifying that: Hi Joe, In our case, two entrees mean that one person may have two different entrees ( we wanted to give people a choice of what they would like to eat) and everything else that is on the buffet. See you soon! Thanks, Terry -- best wishes, Joe

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ALCON dinner registration
by Joe Bauman 16 Jun '11

16 Jun '11

Just by chance I decided to take care of our registration for the dinners at ALCON tonight -- we want to go to both the Star-B-Que and the last-night banquet. I was told earlier that we could do this upon arrival at ALCON, and frankly that's what I planned to do because of money considerations. But when I went onto the ALCON site tonight I discovered that June 17, tomorrow, is the deadline to sign up for the dinners. So if you want to eat with the group those nights, you'd better get moving. Thanks, Joe

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