April 2002 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

RE: [Utah-astronomy] Pre-Dawn Comet
by Phil Lowry 26 May '02

26 May '02

Pooh dooh!--BUT, I must admit I was unimpressed compared to the show I got at dusk at the Grand Canyon on April 7. It's definitely dimming. I was in Chesler Park, having run there in the dark for a pre-dawn 10-miler in The Needles, and I didn't pack my binos. Figured I could catch the comet from my backyard, as soon as the storms stop (Sunday morning?). BTW, I was looking in the right spot--just south of Cassio. Oh, well. Phil -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-admin(a)mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-admin@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Joe Borgione Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 6:09 PM To: utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Pre-Dawn Comet I just got back from a business trip down to Grand County spending a night in Moab. My standard operating procedure for overnight trips is to take my 15 x 70 binoculars and a tripod, so I can spend a little quality time in the dark. This morning (4-11-02) I got up around 4:00 am and set up in a fairly dark spot east of town, on the road to the popular mountain biking mecca, the SlickRock trail. I had a great view of the summer MilkyWay, especially my favorite looks into Sagtitarius. As I swept north though the MilkyWay, I came upon the comet that we've all enjoyed for the past few weeks. What a pleasant surprise. I knew it would be shifting to an early morning object, but until I actually saw it, I hadn't given it too much thought. It's a real looker at that hour; just to the east of Cassiopia, and when I saw it, very close to M52, a pretty open cluster. It was visable naked eye from the Moab spot as a fuzzy glob; you'll need a pretty good dark sky for that. If you liked the comet before sunset, it's worth the effort to get up early and see it with the back drop of the MilkyWay.... Joe Borgione _______________________________________________ Utah-astronomy mailing list Utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy

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New Hubble Pics
by Richard Tenney 30 Apr '02

30 Apr '02

Worth a look! http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2002/11/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Sportsman's Guide 10 x 50 binoculars
by RStmarie＠aol.com 30 Apr '02

30 Apr '02

In a message dated 04/29/2002 3:49:13 PM Mountain Daylight Time, chuckhards(a)yahoo.com writes: > PS - Good on Ya to donate to SLAS's observatory. It's folks like you that make it work!!

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Swap Meet?
by Joe Borgione 30 Apr '02

30 Apr '02

A while back there were some posts for another swap meet, but I've lost track of where the discussion ended. Is one slated, or did I miss it? The reason I ask is after the last SLAS meeting, I got pretty stoked up to build a parallelogram mount for my binoculars. I got a great pair of aluminum crutches at DI for three bucks. But now I'm stalled. My design of the arm and pivots is contingent on the mount/tripod. I'm toying with a crutch tripod design similar to what T & T advertises. The alternative plan is to find a used tripod & head, which leads to the point of this post: Does anybody out there have a tripod, with or without a head that they want to get rid of? If so, contact me off-group at my email below. Thanks! Joe Borgione jborgion(a)xmission.com

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Swap meet at SPOC Saturday?
by Patrick Wiggins 30 Apr '02

30 Apr '02

I have not been able to reach Siegfried via phone or email so I'll just put this out to general discussion. Is there any interest in having a swap meet at SPOC 2 before the star party this coming Saturday evening? Would also give folks an extra excuse to come out early and tour the new facilities. Tomorrow is my last day at the planetarium and while moving 26+ years of stuff I've come across all kinds of stuff I'd like to get rid of and a swap meet would work great for me. If there seems to be interest here I'll include an announcement in News. Patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Sportsman's Guide 10 x 50 binoculars
by RStmarie＠aol.com 29 Apr '02

29 Apr '02

Has anyone seen the 10x50's at K-mart for $30. K-mart is going out of business up here in Farmington. Would they be a good buy?

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Archae - Astronomy
by Hank Williams 29 Apr '02

29 Apr '02

I received the message below from a friend in Arizona. I tried to put moon cycles (both earth viewed and star viewed) into the 18.5 or 9.25 cycles on the petroglyph, but neither worked out to whole numbers. So, I'm stumped, but thought the great minds of this group could probably come up with an answer. Thanks!! Hank Williams ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I have a question to test your knowledge of astronomy. Last week when we were at the Hopi Reservation petroglyph site, the guide was showing us various places among the over 15,000 petroglyphs and where the old cultures would track the equinox to help them with spring planting. There was one location where he said they tracked the moon. The total cycle ran 18.5 years where it showed 9.25 years from one location to its outer most point and then 9.25 years back to the same location on the rock...a total of 18.5 years. Again, this what the guide told us. Does this make sense to you? Have a nice day. Regards, Dennis

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FW: Planetary Marathon
by David Dunn 29 Apr '02

29 Apr '02

I wanted to open this up to everyone, not just OAS. > We are planning a "Planetary Marathon" for Friday night (5/3) at Antelope > Island. We are going to set up in the White Rock Bay trailhead parking > lot. The idea is that all 9 of the planets are visible for the next couple > of weeks and we are going to try to see them all in one night. We hope > that everyone will come out and enjoy the night. With a 3/4 moon we should > be able to see alot of galaxies be fore midnight. John Sulivan said that > they will wave the $8 fee as we don't mind some of the campers coming over > to look through the telescopes. > > See you there. > > Thanks. > David Dunn > 801-961-3253 >

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15-45x70mm Zoom binocular review
by Chuck Hards 28 Apr '02

28 Apr '02

This is a case of a sheep in wolf's clothing. The 15-45x70mm zoom binocular sold by Sportsman's Guide is an attractive unit, many of the components are identical to those on the 15 x 70mm Bear brand. The instruction sheet is the same one packed with the 10x50 binocular, in German and English. The binocular has "JC Optics" silkscreened onto the prism housing; the warranty card was issued by Grampus Enterprises. The binocular came with a soft case, dust covers for objectives and eyepieces, an "L" bracket made of molded plastic (identical to the one that came with the Bears), and a folding table-top tripod with ball-turret for the "L" bracket to attach to. Neck-strap and cleaning cloth round out the package. Rubber armor in green and black, and fold-down eyeguards make for an attractive binocular that can be used by eyeglass wearers. The binoculars seemed to work well on terrestrial objects during the daytime. The first thing noticed is the small apparent field at 15x- I'd say its only about 3 or 4-degrees at 1000 yards. The zoom lever is located ahead of the right eyepiece, with an indicator just ahead of the left eyepiece. 15x, 30x, and 45x are indicated, with a dot between those powers. Zoom control is continuous. As the magnification was increased, the apparent field opened right up until at 45x, the field was very wide. This is typical of all zoom eyepieces and was not unexpected. The narrow field at 15x was in sharp contrast to the very wide field of the fixed-power Bears. Night use revealed the shortcomings. On Jupiter, there were obvious ghosts, no doubt from the extra lenses needed for the zoom system. I also noticed spurious color flares around Jupiter and bright stars. While collimation seemed good at 15x, the optical trains pulled apart as magnification increased, until at 45x I had a hard time achieving image fusion. My eyes were pulled so far that I was getting a headache from the strain. There was plenty of eye-relief, but the image was soft at all powers, and combined with the ghosts and flares made the experience frustrating, and no amount of eye-relief can compensate for a poor image. Even at 45x, where I should have seen at least some banding on Jupiter, only a smeared-out blob was visible. These binoculars were obviously intended for surveillance, explaining the "car-top" tripod. I cannot recommend these for astronomy. Anyone using them on the night sky will only come away frustrated. Perhaps the lesson here is that optical systems built to do "everything" will do nothing well. I am returning this pair to Sportsman's Guide for a refund. Priced at $99.97, they are no bargain. I'll stick with my Bears. Chuck's rating: 0 stars (of 5 possible) unusable for astronomy. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com

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Binocular Astronomy Resource Page
by Richard Tenney 28 Apr '02

28 Apr '02

I've moved it to a more appropriate place: http://www.uvaa.org/links.html Or simply go to www.uvaa.org and hit the LINKS button and find it under "Science and Education" Added a couple of new links, and updated some existing link info. Any and all feedback (suggestions, comments, criticism, additions, etc.) is/are welcome. Rich __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com

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