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

Sportsman's Guide 10 x 50 binoculars
by Chuck Hards 26 Apr '02

26 Apr '02

The 10 x 50's arrived today; here are my impressions: Surprisingly heavier and sturdier than I expected. Solid feel, the hinge is not sloppy in the least, and has a smooth motion. It stays where you put it, yet adjusts fairly easily. Standard anti-reflection coatings on the exterior objective and eyepiece surfaces (at least; I didn't disassemble them), appears to be Magnesium Flouride judging from the blue tint. The image is sharp and contrasty. "WA" is imprinted on them, which I assume to mean "wide angle". FOV is stated as 367' at 1000 yards, which translates into about 8-degrees; perhaps a little more. Not bad! (My 7x50s have a noticeably smaller AFOV at around 7-degrees or slightly less.) Eye relief is just barely adequate for me to use them with my glasses on, but thanks to fold-down eye-guards, I can just see the entire field of view with glasses. Without my glasses, there is eye relief to spare. These are a cut above what you'd normally find on the "outdoors" aisle at K-mart or Shopko. They come with a neck strap, soft carrying case with strap, dust covers for objectives and eyepieces, and a cleaning cloth for the optical surfaces. Collimation was dead-on; I could detect no tendency for my eyes to pull one way or the other. After a five-minute session, my eyes didn't feel strained, as they would with a bino slightly out-of-collimation. BK7 prisms. Textured, soft "leatherette" exterior, easy to grip, not a hard-plastic molded texture. Large center-focus wheel, with right-diopter adjustment. Again, the right eyepiece was solid in adjustment and feel, with no slop. The 10X magnification is slightly better than lower powers, in my opinion, for astronomical use, and low enough to hand-hold for an extended period without fatigue. Anything higher and you would need a tripod, but shouldn't with these. Perhaps the only shortcoming I can find is that there is not a tripod-mounting hole on the front of the hinge. These are not binoculars for group-viewing. An intrepid "do-it-yourselfer" could come up with a "cradle" holder for them, using Velcro straps. Alternatively, if you have access to a small lathe and threading taps, you could make a tripod adapter that threads-on the front hinge stud. If I get a pair for myself, this would probably be the route I'd personally take. This pair is destined for donation to SPOC-2. The price can't be beat. At only $19.97 plus a small shipping charge, they compare well to what you'd find in a retail shop for up to $100. If you want to outfit the entire family with their own pair of astronomical binoculars, without breaking the bank, this is the unit you've been looking for. If you want a binocular for a tripod or parallelogram mount, keep looking, or be prepared to kluge-up a homemade holder. Stock #WX2-59237 $19.97 10x50 binoculars http://www.sportsmansguide.com Toll-free order line: 1-800-888-3006 (24/7) Chucks rating: 4 stars (out of 5 possible) Big bonus for price, docked for lack of tripod socket. And as always with Sportsman's Guide, they won't last forever. If you want a pair, order quickly. 15-45x70mm "zoom" review soon! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com

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Mark your calendar
by Richard Tenney 25 Apr '02

25 Apr '02

Hi all, Recently I was contacted by a woman in North Carolina about doing a special star party on July 5th (Friday night) for people attending an upcoming Science Fiction Convention called "EnderCon"; fans of Orson Scott Card (of "Ender's Game" fame) will be at UVSC that weekend. I happily agreed (they will donate $200 to the club [UVAA]) and am thinking we might hold it in South Fork Canyon at the new parking lot up there (in Provo Canyon up the road past Vivian Park) -- not too far away from UVSC and with fairly dark skies (despite limited horizons). If any of you have a better idea about where to hold this, let's hear it. If any of you can come that night and bring along a scope, please let me know. They don't know yet how many people to expect, but will have a better idea as the date gets closer. I realize this is 4th of July weekend, and many of you may be traveling or otherwise occupied that night, but this sounded like a fun group. Of course everyone is welcome (SLAS and OAS and any others that might be interested) regardless. Who knows, you might just get to share your favorite deep-sky object with Mr. Card, and have your copy of one of his books signed at the same time... :-) I will post detailed directions to the parking lot later. Thanks, and see you there! -Rich __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Games - play chess, backgammon, pool and more http://games.yahoo.com/

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Clear Skies for Planets
by Joe Borgione 22 Apr '02

22 Apr '02

The storm gods have granted us some nice skies tonight (4-21) along the Wasatch Front; I just got back in after an impromptu star err, I mean planet party at Churchill Jr High at Wasatch Blvd and about 3700 south. We had a good look at all 5 planets; Mercury came into view at about 8:45 or so and was visible to about 9:25. If it's clear on Monday (4-22), I'm going to be there again; I'll bring my telescope this time. A number of people were there and were interested in looking through more than binoculars. If anybody wants to join me, I'm setting up about 8:30-8:45. Joe Borgine

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Star party tonight (Saturday)
by Patrick Wiggins 20 Apr '02

20 Apr '02

The weather *seems* to be clearing so here's a reminder of the SLAS star party at the Harmon's at the Brickyard plaza, 3200 S.1300 E. in SLC. Entire schedule at http://planet.state.ut.us/slas/PARTY.HTML and http://SLAS.WS. Patrick

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Foreign Exchange Student
by David Dunn 19 Apr '02

19 Apr '02

I received the following message and thought I would pass it on to the group in case anyone is interested. Dave My name is Darcie Behunin and I work with a non-profit organization that places foreign exchange students in homes in Utah. I have a girl from Hong Kong that indicates astronomy as a main interest. I thought it would be best that she be placed with a family with same interests. If you could provide my phone number or email it would be greatly appreciated. My phone number is 282-1250. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for your time Darcie Behunin C.E.T.U.S.A. - Council for Educational Travel U.S.A. foreignexchange.amadeus(a)aros.net

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Pre-Dawn Comet
by Joe Borgione 17 Apr '02

17 Apr '02

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

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Darkroom bottles
by Patrick Wiggins 12 Apr '02

12 Apr '02

Astrophotographers, I find myself with a surplus of dark brown glass photochemistry bottles. I hate to toss them but darkroom space limitations require I do something with them. Anyone want them? There are both gallon and pint size. Patrick Wiggins

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FW: Nov 2001 Leonid Meteor photos?
by David Dunn 12 Apr '02

12 Apr '02

The date for this was Saturday Nov. 17th. This guy is looking for anyone that might have a picture of the fireball that they observed. -----Original Message----- From: James Peterson [mailto:James.Peterson@sdl.usu.edu] Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 3:52 PM To: DunnDave(a)aol.com Cc: david_dunn(a)albertsons.com; Dale Hooper Subject: Nov 2001 Leonid Meteor photos? Hi Dave, I work for Space Dynamics Lab at USU. I got your name and email from Dale Hooper. During the Leonid meteor shower last November, a colleague and I made a mid-wavelength infrared measurement of a meteor from our facility here in Logan. In doing so, we have create a great deal of exitment from the folks who study these meteors. Unfortunately the field-of-view of our visible camera was too narrow and we didn't catch the same meteor on our visible camera. I have performed some analysis on IR data from the meteor and am presenting it saturday at NASA/Ames and again the first part of May in Tokyo, then publish the results in some journal. What I really need to go along with the measurements and analysis I have done is ANY kind of visible imagery (photo, video, ect.) . Do you think there might have been someone in the Ogden Astronomical Society who might have something like this? At this point I can't offer any $, but they would certainty get credit in any publications for anything they might be able to provide. Here is the info: The meteor was a hugh fireball - I observed it visually. The local time was 03:40:33, plus or minus about 1 second, and the meteor lasted for slightly longer than 0.5 seconds. From Logan we estimated that it was about 30 degrees from the Zenith and 105 degrees from North (S75E), with at an estimated range of 125km. Which, from Ogden, would to be at nearly the same Zenith and almost due East to slightly North of East. Could you check and see if anyone caught any 'fire balls' during this time period? Any help you can provide would be much appreciated. Maybe you could also forward this to anyone you may know in SLC that might have been photographing or videoing that night. Thanks again, James Peterson Space Dynamics Lab/USU james.peterson(a)sdl.usu.edu 435-797-4384

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Get the lead out
by Patrick Wiggins 11 Apr '02

11 Apr '02

Out of my garage, that is... While cleaning out the garage this evening I came across 2, 2.5 kg ingots of lead left over from an old ATM project. Anybody have any use for it? Patrick

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Re: Patrick's News: Coma Cluster gas cloud
by Chuck Hards 10 Apr '02

10 Apr '02

Interesting story, thanks Patrick. (If you don't subscribe to Patrick's news, I advise doing so. Saves a lot of time...best astro search engine on the Web: Patrick Wiggins!) The "100-million-degree gas cloud" mentioned in the story is rather misleading, if I recall my astro-physics classes correctly. Sounds hot as Hades, but IIRC, the gas is so tenuous that if you immersed your cold lunch in it, it wouldn't even warm it up. Hot gas must be dense enough for conduction to become noticeable on a human scale. While the indivdual atoms of intergalactic gas may have extremely high energies, they are just too few and far between to warm anything in their midst substantially. Something like an atom for every cubic meter; almost a perfect vacuum. However, the clouds are so large, and the collective radiation is so great, that we can detect it here on distant Earth. Rich, you're the physicist of the group, am I remembering correctly? Thanks C. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/

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