March 2014 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Cosmos
by jcarman6＠q.com 10 Mar '14

10 Mar '14

Ahh, now for the criticisms. And good points well made. Regarding the ads, yes, they were poorly placed. E xcept for the Noah ad, that was just very funny . A 13.5 billion year old Cosmos is in the mind and then confronted by the b iblical, i.e. six day/six thousand year Cosmos. Wonder if Fox did that on purpose - a little cya with their native audience. Or the advertisers were sauvy enough to realize the potential audience for the program and so bought time . Thank you Noah for supporting Cosmos 2G :) Regarding the computer graphics - point well made. But the main audience is Generation X , most raised on computer graphics. Eight year old kids have iphones, pads and tablets. Twenty-somethings have been raised on the Simpsons, Southpark and the Family Guy and computer generated movies like Star Wars 1, 2 and 3 . That's all they know. T hose images of the planets weren't originally computer generated . The images of Uranus and Neptune had to be from Voyager and the sun images were perhaps from SOHO. All the planetary images had to originally come from explorer spacecraft, but they were woven into a seamless 6 minute travel log through the solar system by way of the computer. The Bruno cartoon was weak, our generation would have insisted on hiring actors to portray the characters. I would certainly have enjoyed it more , but think of the cost. At least the cartoon got the story right and that's the important point. Nitpicking criticisms: Regarding the formation of the earth/moon. There are those who believe one of those early collisions created the Pacific Ocean and the piece that was early Earth was the foundation of the moon, not mentioned. Does that mean the theory is discounted? Yeah, that's a real nit to pick When Tyson stood by the medieval cell - was that really Bruno's cell? Would have been nice if Tyson had said it specifically. Sagan walked into the actual catacomb remains of the Alexandria library. I never forgot that moment. Made it so real.

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Organic Matter and the Moon, by Carl Sagan 1961
by Dave Gary 10 Mar '14

10 Mar '14

The pdf files are free for download. An old paper by Carl. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18476&utm_medium=etmail&utm_source… National Academies Press&utm_campaign=Cosmos+Premiere+2014.03.08&utm_content=&utm_term=

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Cosmos
by Joe Bauman 10 Mar '14

10 Mar '14

I thought it was halirous when Tyson was whacking away at religious b.s. and then the ad comes on about the ludicrous Noah movie. ------------------------------ On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 8:39 AM MDT Seth Jarvis wrote: >Agreed. Whoever was placing ad breaks seemed to not care a whit about what it did to the segment they were breaking up to hawk Samsung. > >Otherwise, I thought it was a very promising first episode and I'm looking forward to the next dozen segments. This is definitely a DVD set I'll be buying when it's released. > >Seth > >-----Original Message----- >From: utah-astronomy-bounces(a)mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of M Wilson >Sent: Monday, March 10, 2014 8:30 AM >To: Utah Astronomy >Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Cosmos > >According the this Salt Lake Tribune story > >>snip< > >My only objection to the series is the placement of ads, or should I say the timing. They were always interupting an important thought line with those ads instead of waiting for a transition between thoughts. It was particularly irritating when the ads at one point were only 5 minutes apart. > > > >_______________________________________________ >Utah-Astronomy mailing list >http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy > >Send messages to the list to >Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com > >The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. > >To unsubscribe go to: >http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy >Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".

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Orion Nebula 3/8/2014
by Dave Gary 10 Mar '14

10 Mar '14

Quick and dirty B/W photo from last night. Blown out, but I had to move fast. I waited a little too long to set up and Orion was starting to set behind my house. One big disadvantage to a driveway observatory. http://www.flickr.com/photos/78046474@N06/13039423895/ Dave

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Cosmos
by Joe Bauman 10 Mar '14

10 Mar '14

Good point, Jared. ------------------------------ On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 10:19 AM MDT Jared Smith wrote: >I very much enjoyed the first episode. It took a while for me to >figure out what was unsettling about it though - for a show focused on >reality and truth, 98% of the show was CGI. I'm not sure there was a >single photo or video of celestial objects that was not computer >generated. Certainly we have many amazing real-life images of objects >they could have used. They didn't even use real photos of the sun, >moon, or earth. And some of the depictions (Saturn's rings, the >asteroid belt, etc.) were pretty far-fetched, thus supporting >misunderstandings many have about such objects. Of course these are >quite minor things, but I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with >its artificial depictions, especially of things that are directly >observable. > >Jared > >On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 8:30 AM, M Wilson <astro_outwest(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> According the this Salt Lake Tribune story >> >> http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment2/57608648-223/cosmos-fox-science… >> >> it has 13 episodes. Seth McFarland, the creator of Family Guy is also a producer which explains the cartoons about Giordano Bruno. >> >> My only objection to the series is the placement of ads, or should I say the timing. They were always interupting an important thought line with those ads instead of waiting for a transition between thoughts. It was particularly irritating when the ads at one point were only 5 minutes apart. >> >> >> ________________________________ >> From: Joe Bauman <josephmbauman(a)yahoo.com> >> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> >> Sent: Monday, March 10, 2014 12:35 AM >> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Cosmos >> >> >> 1st and 2nd gen! Yeah! >> >> >> >> >> >> On Monday, March 10, 2014 12:23 AM, "jcarman6(a)q.com" <jcarman6(a)q.com> wrote: >> >> If they are sticking to the original, there should be about 13 episodes. I'm not sure they have ever mentioned a number of episodes for Tyson's Cosmos. Did you notice in the opening credits "Executive Producer: Ann Druyan"? Ann is Sagan's wife/widow. Pretty sure she worked on the first generation Cosmos. Is that what we call it now Cosmos First Generation, Cosmos Second Generation? lol >> _______________________________________________ >> Utah-Astronomy mailing list >> http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy >> >> Send messages to the list to >> Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com >> >> The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. >> >> To unsubscribe go to: >> http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy >> Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options". >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Utah-Astronomy mailing list >> http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy >> >> Send messages to the list to >> Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com >> >> The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. >> >> To unsubscribe go to: >> http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy >> Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options". >> _______________________________________________ >> Utah-Astronomy mailing list >> http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy >> >> Send messages to the list to >> Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com >> >> The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. >> >> To unsubscribe go to: >> http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy >> Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options". > >_______________________________________________ >Utah-Astronomy mailing list >http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy > >Send messages to the list to >Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com > >The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. > >To unsubscribe go to: >http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy >Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Cosmos
by Joe Bauman 10 Mar '14

10 Mar '14

We no longer subscribe to S&T, so could you bring a copy to L&O, Chuck? And congratulations! ------------------------------ On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 9:12 AM MDT Chuck Hards wrote: >Yeah, but that's hardly the best article in the April S&T, Dale... ;-) > > >On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 9:08 AM, Dale Hooper <Dale.Hooper(a)sdl.usu.edu>wrote: > >> The April edition of S&T has an article about the new Cosmos. >> >> >_______________________________________________ >Utah-Astronomy mailing list >http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy > >Send messages to the list to >Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com > >The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. > >To unsubscribe go to: >http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy >Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".

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Cosmos
by jcarman6＠q.com 10 Mar '14

10 Mar '14

Tyson is standing on the shoulders of giants. The last couple of minutes of the first program got me teary. Sagan inspired so many, even many on this board, including a 17 year old kid. P.S. Way cool spaceship. We are in for one hellava ride :)

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Not enough backfocus
by Bruce Hugo 09 Mar '14

09 Mar '14

Thanks Daniel! I'll see about picking up the Suitter book. I was outside last night, attempting to collimate the scope using a star. I'm not well practiced at collimating. I got CLOSE last night before some high clouds started rolling in. The alignment is still not perfect. Here is a photo. Threw the Nikon D800 on the back of the LX200GPS 12" after playing with the collimation (and just before the clouds rolled though). This shot was a quickie 3 second photo @ ISO6400 of the Orion Nebula. https://www.flickr.com/photos/22238456@N04/13051356465/ I'll keep working at it. If I can't get the collimation correct, the next time I bring the LX200 to a SPOC star party, I may request some collimating tips and tricks from you guys. I'm not interested in star testing the scope. Just collinating the scope as well as possible. Bruce Hugo ________________________________ Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2014 13:05:05 -0700 (PDT) From: daniel turner <outwest112(a)yahoo.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Not enough backfocus Message-ID: <1394395505.95243.YahooMailNeo(a)web125001.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Bruce: Now I see what this device is all about.? You don't need to come to focus with it.? The defocused image is a doughnut and you collimate by centering the hole in the doughnut.? I can't comment on the usefulness of the tool but a defocused view on a real star will do just as good.? The book by Harold Suitter that I mentioned is a classic on the physics of the amateur telescope (by a physicist no less).? And it is well worth the time spend reading it.? When you mention "star test" or artificial star, many (older) amateurs think in terms of the concepts in his book.? His main emphasis is on evaluating the figure of the parabolic Newtonian reflector mirror.? You can do this with an artificial star but you have to move it out to a distance of several hundred meters depending to the size and speed of the mirror.? Doing the test at a short distance will make the image appear as if the mirror has a nasty amount of spherical aberration.? That's why warning flags go up when you mention a test star at a short distance.? Many good mirrors have been called bad either by mistake, or as part of a ploy to sell you on a refiguring service.? As a rule then, don't let someone "test" your telescope for you.? It's a good bet that they don't know any more about the subject than you do and it's so easy to be oh so wrong.? As similar warning goes for collimation.? An adequately aligned telescope in the hands of a helpful but incompetent stranger can be thrown so far off that the evening's viewing is ruined. DT

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I can relate...
by Wiggins Patrick 09 Mar '14

09 Mar '14

From today's funnies: http://www.gocomics.com/garfield#.Ux0khHn56cM patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Orion Nebula 3/8/2014
by Kelly Ricks 09 Mar '14

09 Mar '14

Dave, I love this photo. I've always had a soft spot for Black and White. Maybe it's because it's usually more true to what you can actually expect to see through an eyepiece. But truly, beautiful work! ~Kelly > Message: 2 > Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 12:48:26 -0600 > From: Dave Gary <davegary(a)me.com> > To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Orion Nebula 3/8/2014 > Message-ID: <834C7A9D-2CEF-490A-B1F5-0F1314383CA8(a)me.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > Quick and dirty B/W photo from last night. Blown out, but I had to move > fast. I waited a little too long to set up and Orion was starting to set > behind my house. One big disadvantage to a driveway observatory. > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/78046474@N06/13039423895/ > > Dave > >

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