January 2004 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Time change
by Patrick Wiggins 19 Jan '04

19 Jan '04

Tomorrow's MER News Briefing on NASA TV has been moved up from 11:00 am to 10:30 am MST. Patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Winter observing
by UTAHDEB＠aol.com 19 Jan '04

19 Jan '04

I underestimated the size of Abell 21. It is not 400" as I stated in my report but a whopping 702". I'm going to try Abell 7, a bigger planetary, (768"), when the weather clears. Hopefull soon. Debbie

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Mars Colors
by Josephine Grahn 19 Jan '04

19 Jan '04

Paul, Thank you for posting that link! It took a few trys to get through, but was well worth the wait. I am book marking the site for future reference when I find crack-pot theories that I ~know~ are wrong, but I don't have the specific knowledge to explain why. Jo At 02:34 AM 1/19/2004 -0700, you wrote: >For anyone else who was interested in this thread, I came across the following link that goes into rather extensive detail on the issue. Thanks for your replies Patrick! > >http://www.atsnn.com/story/30048.html >

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] possible explanation for Martian gullies
by Kim Hyatt 19 Jan '04

19 Jan '04

Could bowling balls be involved? -----Original Message----- From: Chuck Hards [mailto:chuckhards@yahoo.com] Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 4:19 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] possible explanation for Martian gullies Im no chemist or geologist, but it sounds worth looking into to me, at least! The fact that the experiments could be done "on the cheap" makes it almost imperative. You may want to do some searches and see if there hasn't been something done already along these lines. C. --- Joe Bauman <bau(a)desnews.com> wrote: > Nahh, too lazy .... But thanks for the wonderful > comment! -- Joe __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus _______________________________________________ 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

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Mars Colors
by Paul Witte 19 Jan '04

19 Jan '04

For anyone else who was interested in this thread, I came across the following link that goes into rather extensive detail on the issue. Thanks for your replies Patrick! http://www.atsnn.com/story/30048.html

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possible explanation for Martian gullies
by Joe Bauman 18 Jan '04

18 Jan '04

Hi Friends, What if the water/permafrost explanations about gullies are wrong? Looking at the "gummy" looking soil exposed by the Spirit rover and the airbag drag marks, and hearing the reports that there's no appreciable moisture, reinforces my notion that the gullies may have a non-H2O explanation. The soil around Spirit is extremely fine but cohesive, and some scientists have attributed the cohesion to electrostatic properties of the dust. Maybe its iron content and the enormous friction created by incessant high winds blowing dust around have given it an electrical stickiness. In that case, I can imagine whole fields of sticky dust cascading down a steep slope and behaving much like water. Only it's not water, it's sticky dust. Anyone like to comment on that idea? Best wishes, Joe

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Winter observing
by UTAHDEB＠aol.com 18 Jan '04

18 Jan '04

Joe, I haven't seen snow since March 1st of last year. It rarely snows in St. George. What I don't like is the wind. I had to bail out at the last minute from observing last night because it was too windy. I may go out for about 3 hours tonight if the clouds don't roll in too soon. Sometimes weather is tough to predict but there is no snow at this elevation although the mountains were covered with it during those last few snow storms. Clear Skies, Debbie

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Winter observing
by UTAHDEB＠aol.com 18 Jan '04

18 Jan '04

After receiving a phone call from Micheal, I hightailed it to LaVerkin, UT Thursday night when I heard that Jim Van Buskirk was setting up his 20" StarMaster telescope. He first pointed the telescope to NGC 7331. This large bright spiral galaxy showed up well in the 20" and I saw several campanion galaxies with the 31 Nagler. Jim then found Stephan's Quintet nearby using one of his higher power Naglers. I saw all 5 galaxies in this Hickson galaxy group. Jim then turned the telescope towards Gemini. After we looked at the bright Eskimo nebula, I suggested we try Abell 21, The Medusa Nebula. This one was not on his Sky Commander digital setting circles, so we had to switch to the RA DEC function. After slewing with the hand paddle, this horseshoe-like nebula came into view. This is one of the brighter Abell objects and it really showed up well with the 20" StarMaster. I think this nebula is about 400" so it is pretty large. After that we moved the scope north to the faint double-lobed planetary NGC 2371/2. It looked similar to M76 but fainter. Planetaries are a joy to view with this scope. The next object I viewed was NGC 2261, Hubble's Variable nebula. This is a must-see object in the constellation Monoceres. It is comet shaped with a tail that widens. It is a very interesting object to view and one of my favorites of the winter sky. I then asked if we could try Abell 12 near Mu Orionis. I showed JIm where Mu was and we centered Mu in a lower power Nagler but I couldn't see anything. We then switch to a 16 Nagler with an OIII filter. I saw a circular planetary in the lower right corner out from the star. This circular planetary is hard to see because of the glare from the star but it was definitely there. High power is a must for Abell 12. Jim then put in the bino-viewer with 24mm Panoptics and turned the telescope to the Orion Nebula. Words cannot describe the beauty of Orion Nebula through a bino-viewer. It has to be experienced. I've never seen a better view in my life! We saw the "e" star in the Trapzium popping in and out. Later in the in the evening when the seeing had cleaned up we saw the "f "star at the 12 o'clock position. I thought the Orion Nebula was blue through my 15" Obsession, but it seemed much brighter and bluer through the 20" StarMaster. Aperature has it's advantages here. After viewing the Orion Nebula, Jim viewed a couple of galaxies in Camelopardalis. NGC 1569 is an interesting elongated galaxy, otherwise know as Arp210. NGC 1961, also known as Arp 184, is a pretty spiral galaxy, a SAB type galaxy. We then viewed M81 and M82. I could see dark mottling in M82 and I could see why astromers call it a star-burst galaxy. The spiral arms of M81 were pretty in the 20". I never get tired of viewing these bright galaxies. I then suggested to Jim that he try NGC 2683 in Lynx. This is a bright 10th mag Sb type spiral galaxy. It looks like a cigar that bulges in the middle. It is similar to NGC 3115 in Sextans. This is the first time I've done some deepsky observing in January. The temperatures were bearable in the low-forties and I forgot how much the winter milky way had to offer. I hope to go back to Jim's house next week and do some more observing. It was an evening I will not forget soon. Debbie

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Mars Colors
by Paul Witte 18 Jan '04

18 Jan '04

Ok, so the redder pictures that are being released were taken at other wavelengths? I haven't been able to follow the press conferences. That makes sense, I wish NASA would include that information in the caption somewhere, maybe they have and I missed it. I think the general public would probably more interested in how it looks in the visual spectrum, do you know if any of those are online anywhere? --Paul ---------- From: Patrick Wiggins Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 7:48 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Mars Colors Paul Witte wrote: > > When my friend first sent me the following link I thought, "Oh great, another conspiracy theorist". Or that the person putting the page theory together does not understand how colors look in different wavelengths. Much of the stuff on the page has been discussed during the daily press conferences (in one case they noted that one of those color tabs on the "Marsdial" would be brilliant white if viewed in infrared. Patrick _______________________________________________ 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

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Earth Photo
by B. Bettilyon 17 Jan '04

17 Jan '04

After spending many frustrating evenings trying to get a decent photo of Mars from my backyard, are there any plans to get a photo of Earth from some Martins back yard? Barney

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