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SLAStrofest Map Link in Nova...
by David L Bennett 15 Jul '04

15 Jul '04

It was just brought to my attention that the map link to Wolf Creek in the latest NOVA is bad by one letter. The correct link is: http://homepage.mac.com/dlbennett/PhotoAlbum4.html If you know of anyone who's going to SLAStrofest, please pass this on. There should be a mass mailing to all SLAS members with this correction if all goes well. Thanks, Dave > A more concise rundown on SLAStrofest is now available through the > latest online Nova at: > > http://www.slas.ws/Nova/NOVA07082004.htm > > dlb

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Fwd: [Utah-astronomy] SLAStroFest (2nd try)
by Richard Tenney 15 Jul '04

15 Jul '04

Sorry, the Xmission list configuration didn't forward the attachment first go. Here it is: --- David L Bennett <dlbennett(a)mac.com> wrote: > Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 12:23:45 -0600 > From: David L Bennett <dlbennett(a)mac.com> > To: utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com > Subject: [Utah-astronomy] SLAStroFest > > Just a quick reminder for SLAS members that > SLAStroFest is being held > this weekend at Wolf Creek. Great fun and > information for both > beginners and old hands. A copy of my map to Wolf > Creek can be found > at > http://homepage.mac.com/dlbennett/PhotoAlbum4.html > > More info from the online NOVA > (http://www.slas.ws/Nova/nova05062004.htm) > > > * * * * * * * * * * * > > Third Annual Salt Lake Astronomical Society > SLAStrofest > > From Lowell Lyon > > Friday, July 16th, > > Arrive at the camping/observing area at your > convenience Friday > afternoon. You are responsible for your own meals > on Friday. > Stargazing will begin at dusk. > > Saturday, July 17th, > > Sleep in from the night before! > > 9:00 AM Noon Lectures/presentations > > Noon 1:30 PM bring and prepare your own lunch > > 1:30 PM 5:00 PM Lectures/presentations > > 6:30 Dusk Star-B-Q group dinner/activity > > Dusk until ?? Stargazing > > Topics of discussion for lectures/presentations to > include: > > Telescopes & equipment > Celestial coordinates and star charts > Star clusters / Star forming regions > Keeping records of your observing sessions > /observing program > Beginning astrophotography / CCD imaging > Planetary nebulae > Double stars > Star magnitudes > Deep sky search > Galaxies > > Throughout SLAStrofest, the unofficial card game of > amateur > astronomers, Spaced Out will be available to > experience. > > What is it? > > An event designed to help us enjoy our hobby even > more! There will be > daytime lectures/presentations followed by evening > stargazing to > practice what youve learned during the day. Topics > are listed above. > Saturday evening will be the annual club Star-B-Q > group > dinner/activity for all to enjoy! > > Where is it? > > Wolf Creek observing area off Utah highway 35 east > of Woodland in the > Unita Mountains. At the summit of highway 35, exit > at the Wolf Creek > Camp-ground. Follow the dirt road to your right 2.5 > miles to see > > the camping/observing area. The road is suitable > for 2-wheel drive > passenger vehicles. Directional signs will be > posted. > > When is it? > > Friday evening, July 16th and Saturday, July 17th, > 2004. Stargazing > will take place both nights. Activities and > lectures/presentations > will be on Saturday. > > The camping/observing area will have portable > out-houses provided by > the club for the convenience of families. Please > bring your own > camping equipment and water. If you are interested > in participating, > please contact Lowell Lyon at (801) 699 -7283 > (cell), or Joan Carman at > (801) 943 -4192 (cell) to sign up. > > > _______________________________________________ > 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.utahastronomy.com > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

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Fwd: [Utah-astronomy] SLAStroFest
by Richard Tenney 15 Jul '04

15 Jul '04

Note: forwarded message attached. The Salt Lake Astronomical Society is hosting a two-day event at Wolf Creek this weekend. See the forwarded attachment for details. Directions can be found on the UVAA website: http://www.uvaa.org/sitedirections/WolfCreek.html There will be a number of presentations on Saturday during the day (see the schedule). Pray for clear skies! Rich __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

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Scouter needs star party help this summer
by Great Auntie Sheilah 14 Jul '04

14 Jul '04

Is this the Kerry Rasmussen that graduated from BYU with a Masters Degree in Chemical Engineering? If so, then hello from Las Vegas. If your not the son of Paul and Della Mae then just ignore this e-mail. If your are, then I hope you and your family are doing well. An Old Friend, Sheilah

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Astronomer David Levy at SL Library Saturday 10th at 7:30 pm
by Richard Tenney 09 Jul '04

09 Jul '04

I'm listening to the rebroadcast of Doug Fabrizio's interview today with David H. Levy (of comet Schumaker-Levy fame) as I write this, and David will be speaking tomorrow, Saturday 10 July at the Salt Lake City public library at 7:30 on "Joining Science & Literature: Shakespeare, Eclipses & Changing Ideas of the Cosmos". If you missed the interview on KUER's "Radio West" (FM 90.1) you can hear it here: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kuer/news/news.newsmain?action=article&AR… __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

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Star Party Last Night
by John and Lisa Zeigler 03 Jul '04

03 Jul '04

Thanks to everyone who came out to the star party last night. It was great. We had only about 40% obscured sky from cloud cover. Jupiter was visible to the west and the summer triangle to the east. We were able to see everything to the south. Scorpius and Sagittarius were particularly clear. We were able to pick out M4 and M8, small globular clusters in Scorpius. M6 and M7, open star clusters between the two constellations, M6 the butterfly cluster was particularly beautiful and it does look just like a butterfly. We were able to see quite a few double stars, even a glimpse of Mizar in the handle of the big dipper, and Epsilon Lyrae, the double double. Unfortunately it was a full moon, so nebulas and galaxies close to the moon were difficult to find. We were able to see M21, an open cluster above Sagittarius, but the Trefid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula right next to this were not found. The moon was beautiful rising with a patch of cloudiness on the horizon in bright orange and yellow colors. When it was past the cloudy patch it seemed to attain a beautiful slightly lime green color I had never seen before. We were able to see all of the surface features of the moon in high contrast, it was a fabulous night to moon gaze. Lisa Zeigler www.johnstelescopes.com <http://www.johnstelescopes.com/> www.mirrorkits.com <http://www.mirrorkits.com/>

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Star Party Tonight!
by John and Lisa Zeigler 02 Jul '04

02 Jul '04

We have had requests for the GPS coordinates to the Pit n' Pole. We believe these are the coordinates below. WGS84 latitude: 40.20728 N longitude: 112.26733 W height: 1546 m It looks like tonight may turn out to be the clearest night this weekend. We hope to see you tonight! If you have any questions, please let us know! Lisa Zeigler www.johnstelescopes.com <http://www.johnstelescopes.com/> www.mirrorkits.com <http://www.mirrorkits.com/>

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Star Party Tonight
by John and Lisa Zeigler 02 Jul '04

02 Jul '04

We have a star party group going out to the Pit n' Pole tonight. 9 pm to midnight. Would love to have any of you there! Lisa Zeigler www.johnstelescopes.com <http://www.johnstelescopes.com/> www.mirrorkits.com <http://www.mirrorkits.com/>

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Eyepiece comparison
by Jim Gibson 28 Jun '04

28 Jun '04

When I first got interested in stargazing, I took a telescope making class from Brent Watson. In teaching us about the optic train Brent stressed how every piece of glass inserted in the light train has an effect on what we see and that we would be handicapping ourselves if we built a great mirror and then didnt get good quality eyepieces. In a short time of research on the web, right or wrong, it seemed apparent to me that the standard for comparison in many cases was the Tele Vue Nagler eyepieces. It seemed to me that most folks were looking for the same quality eyepiece but for a cheaper price as the Negalrs tend to be expensive. At the time I was using a 5 Meade that came with 0.96 no-named Japanese eyepieces that were cheapies in order to keep the price in line with Wal*Mart standards. I got a 1.25 adapter from Meade and my first real quality eyepiece was a 13mm type 6 Nagler. I will never forget the experience of my first view through the Nagler after having become used to the 0.96ers. In bringing the moon into sharp crisp focus I was immediately stunned with the image before me and all I could do for the longest time as my eye traveled across the detail of the moons surface was to say to myself, Wow! Wow! Wow! I have since joined the throng of those looking for the Wow experience for a cheaper price. In my pursuit I have heard some good things about many eyepieces like University Optic Orthoscopics, which I managed to pick up a few. I recently bought a 15mm (1.25) eyepiece form Seibert Optics (http://www.siebertoptics.com/SiebertOptics-1.25in-eyepieces-ultra.html#15mm) and I also bought a 15mm and a 19mm (both 2) from Russell Optics (http://www.citlink.net/~optics/products.html) that were very reasonably priced; on sale at the time for $60.00 a piece where as the Siebert was about $150.00 I then asked our own illustrious Chuck Hards if he would evaluate them, and he graciously accepted the challenge. Following is Chucks evaluation. Keep in mind Chuck is only commenting on his experience with these individual eyepieces. Smaller companies may tend to have a somewhat larger variation in the quality of their output than a big company like Tele Vue has. So if some of you have one of these other eyepieces and really like yours, you may have a good one. I dont know enough about either company to make a judgment as to whether these individual eyepieces are representative of the companies standard output or not. I do value Chuck's many years of experience and his perceptiveness in all areas pertaining to astronomy. > > Chuck Hards wrote: > > Hi Jim: > > > > OK, here goes, while it's all still fresh in my mind. > > > > I used the Orion 80mm ED scope, on the Weightless > > mount. Both 50mm finder and a red-dot sight, > > Williams Optics 2" diagonal. > > > > TV Nagler 13mm type 6: Great imagery, no detectable > > abberations out to the edge of the immense field. > > Short eye relief, cannot see entire FOV with glasses > > on. Magification is low with the little refractor > > and this eyepiece, but it looks like my 12mm Konig is > > just as sharp and maybe a bit sharper, at the expense > of half the FOV. But the Nagler is a "Cadillac" of > eyepieces and there's no denying it. Sweet. [Chuck next looks a the Seibert ultra wide 15mm] > > Silver Eyepiece (marked only "15 U") 1.25" OD:a > nice eyepiece, although not a particularly wide > apparent field. Well-corrected out to near the very edge, > > fair eye-relief, the fold-down eyeguard is a boon to > > eyeglass wearers and allows the entire FOV to be > > taken-in with glasses on. Requires a lot of "in" > > travel, I was worried I'd bottom-out on my secondary > > mirror's surface and slid it into the diagonal > > carefully. But this eyepiece performs well, > > mechanics aside. I'd keep this one in my box if I didn't > have an obviously better one at the same focal length. > > You can feel good about this purchase. [Chuck now looks at the two Russell eyepieces] > > 15mm "Super-Wide" 2" OD: This eyepiece was > obviously not in the same class as the first two as soon as > I focused it. What appears to be strong coma is > > probably severe astigmatism in this eyepiece. Stars > > are stretched-out beginning only 1/2 way to the > edge of the field. The test for astigmatism is to watch > > > it change from a vertical slash to a horizontal > > slash as you rack through best focus. In a comatic > > condition stars would have "wings", flaring away > > from the center of the field. > > Eye-relief was too short to use with glasses and > > even uncomfortable without them. But the distortion > alone makes this eyepiece a big loser. > > > > 19mm "Super-Wide" 2" OD: Same general complaints > as the 15mm, but to a much lesser degree: I could > > almost live with this eyepiece, say on a large finder. > But not for any kind of critical viewing. > > > > The 15 and 19 are Russells, aren't they? They just > > go to show you that wide-field is no good if it's not > > sharp too. Sell them on-line or at the next > > swap-meet. Is the silver one a Siebert? That one's not bad at all. > > > > Thanks again for letting me play with these, it was > > fun and enlightening. > > > > C. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!

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Moon Watch
by John and Lisa Zeigler 23 Jun '04

23 Jun '04

Is anyone interested in going out to do a moon watch in Rush Valley or elsewhere on July 2nd? I know - fourth of July weekend, but it would be an excellent night for seeing the full moon! I think we might announce it to our star party group, and if anyone else can come, that would be great! Lisa Zeigler www.johnstelescopes.com <http://www.johnstelescopes.com/> www.mirrorkits.com <http://www.mirrorkits.com/>

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