October 2003 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Re: Orion 80mm ED APO
by Chuck Hards 16 Oct '03

16 Oct '03

I got the shipping notice on this today, so the backorder delay wasn't nearly as bad it initially appeared. With luck it will arrive while the high pressure is still stuck over us. I also tried Orions "mag-wheel" focuser knobs, installing them on a 1.25" focuser, as well as a 2" focuser. Looks aside, they improved the feel and function of both, due mainly to their increased diameter over the stock knobs. Just a little more leverage makes a difference. The rubber grip ring is a nice touch. The 80mm scope appears to have similar knobs, judging from the photo, although it is supposed to be a Crayford-style rather than R&P. C. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com

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China in space
by Kim Hyatt 15 Oct '03

15 Oct '03

Contratulations China! To paraphrase a favorite song, "This is Ground Control to Major Yang. You've really made the grade!" Kim A. Hyatt, AIA SL&A Architects 331 South Rio Grande, Suite 304 Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 Tel: 801.322.5550 x122 Fax: 801.322.5557

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Chinese in space
by Chuck Hards 15 Oct '03

15 Oct '03

This is golden business opportunity for Roger Ockey. The Chinese will now reqire lightweight carbon-fiber chopsticks for their flight crews! C. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] Fwd: Rigel and companion
by Kim Hyatt 15 Oct '03

15 Oct '03

I've never had difficulty with Rigel with an "unmasked" 10-inch f5 Newt. If I can't make out the companion, I wait an hour for the position to change and to see if it was lost in the glare of one of the diffraction spikes from the secondary, or I try rotating the tube assembly. Even with bright diffraction spikes, Rigel's companion hasn't been difficult for me. Not so for other pairs I've tried observing that way. I believe that the same principle behind the "apodizing" mask makes observing close doubles easier with a SCT than with a quality refractor of comparable aperture. This was apparent one night in May 2001 while observing Eta Cor Bor with both Don Colton's Ultima 2000 (Celestron 8-inch SCT) and Siegfried's 9-inch Clark. The large central obstruction of the SCT in effect made the Airy disk proportionately smaller than that in the Clark and allowed the pair (0.8 arcsec, as I recall) to be split easily. At the same time, I couldn't split the pair in the Clark, nor I believe could anyone else. (I was so impressed by the performance of the Ultama 2000 that two weeks later I bought one myself. Siegfried wouldn't part with the Clark for the same price, although I offered...) -----Original Message----- From: UTAHDEB(a)aol.com [mailto:UTAHDEB@aol.com] Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 1:14 PM To: utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Fwd: Rigel and companion Joe, According to the Astro-League's Double Star list, the separation is 9.5 arc seconds and the PA is 202 degrees. The primary star is 0.1 mag and the secondary star is 6.8 magnitude. Rigel was my first observed double when I bought my 4 inch refractor back in 2001. I'll try to take a picture of Rigel this winter with my digital camera. I don't know if more vanes could help. Debbie _______________________________________________ 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] Fwd: Rigel and companion
by Kim Hyatt 13 Oct '03

13 Oct '03

Thanks Deb, I'll take a look. -----Original Message----- From: UTAHDEB(a)aol.com [mailto:UTAHDEB@aol.com] Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 1:55 PM To: utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Fwd: Rigel and companion Wow. That is interesting. Thanks Kim for sharing. Have you tried Psi Cassiopeiae or Epsilon Equleii? There is a good thread on AstroMart Forums on observing triples. ASTROMART <http://www.astromart.com/messages.asp?message_id=119965&page=> Forums - The best triplets in the sky (Top 8) Here is the link. Debbie

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Fwd: Rigel and companion
by UTAHDEB＠aol.com 13 Oct '03

13 Oct '03

Wow. That is interesting. Thanks Kim for sharing. Have you tried Psi Cassiopeiae or Epsilon Equleii? There is a good thread on AstroMart Forums on observing triples. <A HREF="http://www.astromart.com/messages.asp?message_id=119965&page=">ASTROMART Forums - The best triplets in the sky (Top 8)</A> Here is the link. Debbie

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Fwd: Rigel and companion
by UTAHDEB＠aol.com 13 Oct '03

13 Oct '03

Joe, According to the Astro-League's Double Star list, the separation is 9.5 arc seconds and the PA is 202 degrees. The primary star is 0.1 mag and the secondary star is 6.8 magnitude. Rigel was my first observed double when I bought my 4 inch refractor back in 2001. I'll try to take a picture of Rigel this winter with my digital camera. I don't know if more vanes could help. Debbie

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Fwd: Rigel and companion
by UTAHDEB＠aol.com 13 Oct '03

13 Oct '03

Hi Chuck, Thanks for the info. It does help. Did you like the picture? I thought it was cool. Debbie

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Columbia/NASA multi-media site
by Jim Cobb 13 Oct '03

13 Oct '03

Regarding "a question of perception," I agree with the site author; it sounds like "feelin' that heat" to me. Jim On Saturday, October 11, 2003, at 09:54 AM, Chris Valentine wrote: <excerpt>Here is a website some of you may find of interest. If you check it out make sure you read "a question of perception" the link is at page bottom. <underline><color><param>1999,1999,FFFF</param>http://www.angelfire.com/film/sts107/ </color></underline> -Chris Valentine (one of the Columbia reentry videographers) _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy </excerpt>

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Fwd: Rigel and companion
by Debbie 13 Oct '03

13 Oct '03

Chuck, How do you make an apodizing mask? Debbie --- In digital_astro(a)yahoogroups.com, Ginger Mayfield <chikadee@e...> wrote: After having pretty pitiful results with my Mars imaging tonight I did a little viewing of the Moon, still poor seeing, so waited a little longer. Decided to try Rigel and companion just for the fun of it. I got a lucky shot of it with my C-2100 right after I first got it so this time I wanted to try the D60. Didn't know what settings to use and so tried a lot of different ones. At first I wasn't getting the companion at all but finally started to see it at around 1 sec but it wasn't truly split. Decided to use the apodizing mask to see if I could get a split and sure enough, that worked. So here is the result. Rainbow colors are from the mask. Hey, they're psychedelic. Well, what did you expect, I'm an old hippie! ;-) D60 with Denkmeier OCS through a 14.5" Starmaster tracking Dob Homemade apodizing mask in place Single 1 sec exposure, 200 ISO No processing except cropping Doubles are really fun! Now I know I need a Powermate! http://velatron.com/dca/ginger/rigel101203.jpg Ginger --- End forwarded message ---

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