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Re: [Utah-astronomy] ALCON/SPOC2 Star Party
by ELyrae＠aol.com 29 Jul '02

29 Jul '02

Hopefully many telescopes will be set up for this event. I will be bringing the Clark refractor. I'm planning on being there in time to set up in daylight. I would encourage all who have the time and inclination to support the star party and/or the convention. Siegfried

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Aurora?
by Chuck Hards 29 Jul '02

29 Jul '02

I watched the sky from about 11:00 pm until midnight last night, and didn't see a hint of auroral activity. I did notice two bright, sporadic meteors, however. Did anyone notice any auroral activity? C. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Aurora?
by Kris Jones 29 Jul '02

29 Jul '02

I was up and watching for them, didn't see anything. The view south was nice though, very clear view of the milky way and it's subtle knots. So it was time well spent. :-) Kris >>> chuckhards(a)yahoo.com 07/29/02 09:45AM >>> I watched the sky from about 11:00 pm until midnight last night, and didn't see a hint of auroral activity. I did notice two bright, sporadic meteors, however. Did anyone notice any auroral activity? C. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy

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CONTOUR not seen
by Patrick Wiggins 28 Jul '02

28 Jul '02

Looks like we may not get to see CONTOUR make it's burn next month after all. Here are the results of a burn that just happened: CONTOUR's OCM6 maneuver took place as planned at 12:02 UT yesterday, July 27. Doppler residuals of the spacecraft's radio signals during the burn, analyzed at JPL's Multi-Mission Navigation Center, showed that either the burn delivered 1.8% more delta-V than expected, or if its size were perfect, then there was a 0.3 deg. pointing error, both quite reasonable and good performance for such a burn. We'll learn what the errors were once a good post-burn orbit is determined from the tracking data, and compared with the pre-burn orbit. However, nobody on the ground saw the burn. Gordon Garradd, at Loomberah, N.S.W., Australia, made astrometric CCD observations of CONTOUR, reaching to about mag. 16 with his exposures, and recorded the spacecraft, at about mag. 14.5, for several minutes around the time of the maneuver, and saw no noticeable brightening during the burn. The fuel is designed to burn cleanly, leaving few byproducts that would ionize in sunlight, so the relatively small (two 5-pound) thrusters apparantly just were not bright relative to sunlight reflected from the spacecraft.

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CONTOUR
by Patrick Wiggins 28 Jul '02

28 Jul '02

Hi, Here are the viewing circumstances for SPOC and SLC for this coming Saturday morning's burn of the CONTOUR spacecraft's propulsion system. The satellite itself will be in darkness and therefore invisible. However, the burn could be visible with telescopes and maybe even binoculars. CONTOUR FROM SPOC Time MDT Az El RA Decl Range DOW MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS Deg Deg Hr Min Deg Min km Sat 08/03/2002 01:15:00 214.6 71.9 19 47.7 +25 10.5 20396.05 Sat 08/03/2002 01:15:30 214.3 72.0 19 48.6 +25 09.8 20516.70 Sat 08/03/2002 01:16:00 214.1 72.0 19 49.5 +25 09.0 20637.12 Sat 08/03/2002 01:16:30 213.8 72.0 19 50.4 +25 08.3 20757.32 Sat 08/03/2002 01:17:00 213.5 72.0 19 51.2 +25 07.5 20877.29 CONTOUR FROM SLC Time MDT Az El RA Decl Range DOW MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS Deg Deg Hr Min Deg Min km Sat 08/03/2002 01:15:00 215.6 71.6 19 47.3 +25 07.7 20405.89 Sat 08/03/2002 01:15:30 215.3 71.6 19 48.2 +25 07.0 20526.49 Sat 08/03/2002 01:16:00 215.1 71.6 19 49.1 +25 06.3 20646.86 Sat 08/03/2002 01:16:30 214.8 71.7 19 50.0 +25 05.6 20767.01 Sat 08/03/2002 01:17:00 214.6 71.7 19 50.9 +25 04.8 20886.94 For those wanting to make the calculations themselves, here are the satellite's TLEs. CONTOUR 1 27457U 02034A 02199.75000000 +.00000000 +00000-0 +00000-0 0 00134 2 27457 030.1915 192.4247 8916057 337.7130 001.6441 00.58031961000004 And if you're not in the SLC or SPOC areas and don't want to do the calculations yourself, just email me your longitude and latitude (the more accurate the better) and you elevation in meters and I'll do the calculations for you. Note that the above could change between now and Saturday. If it does, I'll post updates as needed. Let's hope for good weather Saturday morning. Cheers! Patrick :-)

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Science or Sci-Fi?
by Patrick Wiggins 26 Jul '02

26 Jul '02

This will be going out as part of Saturday's News but I thought I'd give the folks here a sneak preview since you're probably more likely to have an opinion. The Museum of Natural History has asked me to do another Science Movie Night. In case you don't know that's where they do a free screening of some science or science fiction movie for the public and then hold a discussion about the movie after. I have a couple of possible movies in mind but would like to get other input. Anyone have an opinion? If it makes any difference, the screening will probably be the night of the Geminids. Patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Science or Sci-Fi?
by Kris Jones 26 Jul '02

26 Jul '02

Did I miss a recommendation for the recent movie Apollo 13? It would seem like a "safe" choice for a broad audience. Just throwing in my 2 cents. :-) Despite the "bad science" in Contact, the concepts there were very enjoyable to watch and thought provoking. Gotta watch out for those psycho Utah activists though ;-) Kris >>> bau(a)desnews.com 07/26/02 07:10AM >>> Hi friends. I have two thoughts (it's still early and maybe more will come into my little head later today). First, in reply to Patrick's note about movies: What about that clunker, The Black Hole? Or my favorite sc-fi flick, the original Time Machine movie? Or that fun old movie, The First Men on the Moon? Second, can I get one or two of you to write me a quick e-mail this morning about the ALCON conference, the speaker, your hopes for the event? I would like to include comments in the story I'm writing today, which probably will be in Monday's paper. Thanks, Joe Bauman _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] Monte Cristo
by David Dunn 26 Jul '02

26 Jul '02

I will have to give this a shot. I had always thought that increasing magnification would make the object dimmer. The BOB was probably running about double the magnification that I was running on the 10". We can try this out on 8/1 at Antelope Island. I am planning to bring both of my 10" scopes and if I can finish the second one before then I will bring two 8" scopes as well. My 10" f/10 is pretty easy to get magnification with. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Chuck Hards [mailto:chuckhards@yahoo.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2002 3:41 PM To: utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Monte Cristo --- David Dunn <david.dunn(a)albertsons.com> wrote: > I started looking for 3998 in > my 10" f/4.5. I saw two fuzzy stars and since my > Orion map only showed one > of them I decided to go and have Doug point BOB > (18.5") at them. In the BOB > we saw 3 galaxies. We looked at a more detailed map > (Sky Atlas 2000.0) and > identified which galaxies were which. > Friday night taught me a couple of things. One, I > need a bigger scope Dave, understand that the seeming disparity between the views in the 10" and the 18.5" is due not just to aperture, but image scale. The 10" has a faily short focal length of around 45", while the larger scope must be about twice that. I'll bet that if you had bumped the magnification up on the 10", you would have noticed more detail, and possibly made a positive ID. Increasing magnification is a way to increase contrast, up to a point -and- seeing conditions permitting. It can make a telescope seem like a much larger instrument when everything clicks. I have used this technique often on galaxies, and not just the small faint ones...sometimes the detail seen in objects like M31, M33, M51, etc., is surprising, at high powers. A 10" scope will support some gawdawful magnification if the seeing will allow; give it a try. Of course, none of this is any excuse to slow-down on the big scope- get busy! ;) Chuck __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] Science or Sci-Fi?
by David Dunn 26 Jul '02

26 Jul '02

Patrick, A movie I enjoyed watching as "Mission to Mars". You could also do Red Planet or Armageddon. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Wiggins [mailto:paw@trilobyte.net] Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2002 9:27 PM To: utah astronomy listserve Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Science or Sci-Fi? This will be going out as part of Saturday's News but I thought I'd give the folks here a sneak preview since you're probably more likely to have an opinion. The Museum of Natural History has asked me to do another Science Movie Night. In case you don't know that's where they do a free screening of some science or science fiction movie for the public and then hold a discussion about the movie after. I have a couple of possible movies in mind but would like to get other input. Anyone have an opinion? If it makes any difference, the screening will probably be the night of the Geminids. Patrick _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy

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Monte Cristo
by David Dunn 25 Jul '02

25 Jul '02

The Monte Cristo star party a couple of weeks ago turned out real nice. The viewing was great. I was out Weds. through Sat. night. The seeing was great Weds., Thurs. and Friday. By Friday night I was done playing with the Messier objects and decided to do some NGCs. I started looking for 3998 in my 10" f/4.5. I saw two fuzzy stars and since my Orion map only showed one of them I decided to go and have Doug point BOB (18.5") at them. In the BOB we saw 3 galaxies. We looked at a more detailed map (Sky Atlas 2000.0) and identified which galaxies were which. We then spent the next several hours touring around and looking at NGC galaxies with BOB. While we were in the area of M101 we took a look at it. I think this was the most impressive thing I saw the whole week. The spiral arms were clear and well defined. There were knots of stars visible in the arms. It was absolutely beautiful. The next night it was a fuzzy blob with the spiral arms barely visible. Friday night taught me a couple of things. One, I need a bigger scope and two, I need a Sky Atlas 2000.0 and maybe even a digital setting circle. I guess I better hurry and put the 16" mirror I finished into a scope. Thanks. David Dunn PS - How was Wolf Creek?

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