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

Re: [Utah-astronomy] Shooting Perseids
by UTAHDEB＠aol.com 10 Jul '04

10 Jul '04

Sure if I get some good pictures. I found the Fuji Sensia 400 slide film but I can't find the Fuji Provia 400 film. Do they still make the latter? I just heard that the peak will be at 5am MDT. Looks like the night of August 11th will be a long night! Debbie

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Shooting Perseids
by UTAHDEB＠aol.com 10 Jul '04

10 Jul '04

Hi Rob, I've been away from my computer for awhile so I haven't had a chance to respond to you. I was thinking of getting a wide-angle lens for milky way shots. These lenses are very forgiving as far as tracking errors go. I don't think I'll have a problem if I get my polar scope aligned right. I was reading in "Spendors of the Universe" that a wide-angle lens will be one of the most used lenses for piggy-back astrophotography. I hear I can take exposures for 15-20 minutes if there is no light pollution. I was thinking about spending the night up at Kolob Reservoir. At 8000 ft it is nice and dark and cool up there. We are into the 100s right now so I like a little altitude gain. I'm just going to try and experiment with different lenses and see what I get. Hopefully I will be more successful than the last time I attempted to do piggy-back astrophotography. I'll try looking for the Fuji Provia 400 slide film at a couple of camera stores in town. I'm looking on Ebay for a 28mm f2.8 lens. I want the faster f2.8 rather than the f.3.5, right? Good luck with your trip to the southern skies. Debbie

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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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Telescope Production Tooling for sale
by Chuck Hards 06 Jul '04

06 Jul '04

I am selling the mold set and production rights to my all-fiberglass 10" Dobsonian design. Consists of 5 molds & 2 assembly jigs, plus ONE set of parts already laid-up. See photos on my Gallery page, this is the all-f'glass design, (the Cannon) NOT the Woodshop Telescope design. Price: $5,900 plus royalties on every unit sold (royalties negotiable). You will have to sign a legally binding royalty contract. You also get my consultation services, included in the sale price, for your first 30 days of business, to help you get set-up and running. Buy the molds and change the design slightly, and you can probably legally avoid the royalties! Molds can be delivered or picked-up locally. Contact me off-list if interested. Thanks! Chuck __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo

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New Gallery images
by Chuck Hards 06 Jul '04

06 Jul '04

I uploaded some new images to my Gallery page last night. Some ATM stuff, astrophotography, odds & ends. Thanks to Jim Gibson for scanning a big pile of old photos for me. I'm still new at digital image processing, so artifacts and technical problems are strictly my fault. The originals are sharply focused. And thanks to Cynthia for providing the venue! C. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

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Saturn orbit and Spaceship One
by Patrick Wiggins 05 Jul '04

05 Jul '04

Cassini's SOI burn has ended and initial indications have the orbit looking good. Regarding the recent flight of Spaceship One, here's a first person account of the event I received this evening. Patrick :-) "This morning, along with about 15,000 other people and a larger radio and TV audience, I saw a little bit of history unfold at the Mojave Airport. By now you have all seen accounts of it and maybe you were there. The first known civilian spacecraft was launched and the pilot reached about 62 miles altitude before gliding back to a landing on the runway in front of us. I started out from Springville about 10PM and arrived at the airport at 1230.AM. Instead of lining up, the cars were going in and parking under the glare of some portable lights. The west wind was constant and blowing up to about 30 MPH, so it wasn't pleasant outside the car. I found a spot and joined a couple hundred cars already there, the pioneers of thousands that were to arrive over the next 6 hours. Some people were trying to sleep, others standing around bent into the wind which prevented much conversation, and nearly blew a couple's tent away nearby my spot, which was along the fence looking east onto the runway. It started to brighten about 0430 and the sun came up following Venus at about 0540. By this time the crowd had grown enormously, the wind died down quite a bit, and a feeling of growing anticipation also grew with the sunrise. The dozens of porta-potties were doing a brisk business, and people were carting their camp chairs, binoculars, cameras and kids to the area set aside for people to watch. You couldn't take a car over there, so I stayed put even though ultimately I missed some of the roll-out and later exhibition of the spacecraft. I had so much stuff, I didn't want to leave it! Tethered by technology might be a good phrase to describe the situation. While I had gone to make a potty call and checked out the viewing area, a lady from Hanford and a couple from Sonoma had set up more or less in front of the car. I had to reclaim a little space which I did by hauling my 7' scope ladder out and setting it up right between my car and the fence. One of the most remembered things about this trip will be how the local country and western station handled their live coverage of the event. Commentary was indispersed with commercials and very country country music! I found the combination pretty hilarious. Apparently folks over in that area compete to see who can be more country. The Old West is alive and well in the Mojave, yessereebob! Anyhoo, the mothership, called the White Knight with the little rocket plane nestled against its belly finally taxied out and rolled slowly down to the end of the runway. After a few checks by a ground crew, the twin jet finally rolled and started gaining speed at about 0643, a little behind their schedule. By this time it was getting hot and mercifully the wind had all but stopped howling. Two chase planes went before the mother ship and a jet trainer also used as a high altitude chase plane followed a few minutes later. The White Knight gained altitude slowly, and it and the Starship twin pusher turboprop camera chase plane became hard to see at certain atitudes when the Sun didn't glint off their white paint. At about 30,000 feet, all the planes started making contrails, which allowed easy tracking as they made ever widening circles while gaining height to the 50,000 foot launch altitude. They finally made a huge figure 8 and flew off toward the northeast to the launch point. Most of us lost view because by this time they stopped making contrails so were very hard to see. The P.A. announcer and radio commentator did their best to do the countdown and tell us which direction to look, which turned out to be directly into the increasingly blinding Sun. I didn't even try to find the aircraft for fear of being blinded, they were that close, but when the "Ignition!" command came out, everybody cheered and the brown smoke trail of the rocket could be seen coming right up out of the Sun for the 80 second burn of the rocket engine. With the 16x70s I could just see the spacecraft at the end of the whitening plume. The SpaceShipOne little craft then glided upwards after burnout to about 63 miles, making the pilot, Mike Melville, a new astronaut and the first one from a civilian company. The commercialization of manned space had begun! Now the Rutan company and its sponsor for this project, billionaire Paul Allen, will gear up for the flights to win the $10,000,000 Ansari prize, which will require two flights within 2 weeks with either a crew of 3 or the equivalent in weight of 3 people, to the same 100km altitude reached today. If they win the prize, it will repay about 1/2 the $20,000,000 invested so far by Allen. Their goal, they swear, is not to win the prize, but to start civilianizing space, and the prize is incidental. The trip back down from altitude seemed a bit faster (45 mins) than the climb up, but the rocket plane actually glides quite well, and it landed gracefully after making a sweeping turn over the northeast side of the airport. It was followed closely by the chase planes which later did a victory pass over the crowd and the now-landed spaceplane. Their flyby was the most impressive thing that happened that morning physically, and you could tell by the pilots' actions that they were happy happy guys, as well as the audience which broke into spontaneous cheering after the flyby and when the pilot opened the hatch and stepped out of the rocket. Unlike the Shuttle, this plane uses an unexotic fuel with nitrous oxide as the oxidizer, so no after-flight precautions were needed as with the larger vehicle. The South African born pilot was seen by the crowd standing on his craft with both arms raised in a victory salute, and as they towed it back to the hanger, sitting on the fuselage like a steed, which indeed it was. So I got some great memories out of the trip, some halfway shaky video (which I haven't looked at yet), and a desire to go over to Mojave again for the next flight! With this experience I will know just where to go and where to take my ladder! And I have my $10 ticket, some pictures, and a little bit of history."

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NOSS through hole in clouds
by Patrick Wiggins 04 Jul '04

04 Jul '04

NOSS 2-1 just passed over right when/where predicted using: 1 20642U 90050E 04179.95605758 0.00000010 00000-0 12107-4 0 03 2 20642 63.4130 117.6154 0373000 356.5216 3.4784 13.40453875 05 As I'd heard a few days ago, they were brighter than I've seen them before with at least two being easily visible naked eye from my semi rural location. There was a large cloud covering the area I had planned to watch so I was forced to look through holes in the clouds. I was surprised when I found all three (using 7x35 binos) in a single large hole but even more surprised when I noticed the hole was moving at the same speed and in the same direction as the satellites. So, for over two minutes I was able to watch all three through the one hole. Patrick

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NOSS 2-1 tonight
by Patrick Wiggins 04 Jul '04

04 Jul '04

Looks like the NOSS 2-1 constellation of satellites ( http://www.satellite.eu.org/noss.html ) will be passing over N. Utah tonight. While normally binocular objects I recently received email saying they have brightened to naked eye. Time MDT Az El Satellite DOW MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS Deg Deg Visibility Sun 07/04/2004 23:08:00 328.0 11.0 Illuminated Rise Sun 07/04/2004 23:15:30 55.2 77.1 Illuminated Max Sun 07/04/2004 23:23:30 140.6 11.9 In shadow Set Patrick -- Patrick Wiggins NASA Solar System Ambassador to Utah http://www.trilobyte.net/paw paw(a)trilobyte.net

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Star Party Tonight
by John and Lisa Zeigler 03 Jul '04

03 Jul '04

I sent a previous message with much more detail, but the moderator has not posted it yet, and this news is time sensitive so forgive my reposting. There is a star party at the Pit N' Pole tonight!! Begins around 9:00 PM, and goes till Midnight. Directions to the Pit 'n Pole (Rush Valley Site) For a map go to: <http://www.utahastronomy.com/JimS/Pit_nPole> http://www.utahastronomy.com/JimS/Pit_nPole >From I-15 get off at the Lehi exit by the Lehi Roller Mills. That is exit #282 or the UT-73 exit. Go west through Lehi on State Road 73. Continue west on SR 73 across the Jordan River, straight through the intersection of Redwood Road (1700 W.) and up the hill past Eagle Mountain and out to Cedar Fort. The road will turn south for 5 miles to Fairfield then West again for about 5 miles up to 5-mile pass. At 5-mile pass you should see motorcycles and 4-wheelers having a good time (if it's light). As you top the hill at 5-mile pass you will see the road slope down and curve to the North. About a quarter of a mile or less after the top, take the second road on the left (South West on FAUST ROAD). Look at your odometer, it will be in 4.2 miles until the next turn. Go west for 4.2 miles. You will know that you are almost there when the road turns slightly to the left (about 4 miles) and there is a small rise in the road. After the rise, the road dips and about 100 yards or so later there is another rise. Turn left (South) on the road that takes off at the top of that second rise. (John and I will place a sign at the beginning of this road). Go south about a quarter of a mile and as the road bends to the right there will be another dirt road, obscured by sage brush until you are right on it, going to the west (right) (Another Star party sign). Take that road west about a quarter of a mile until you see a pole sticking out of the ground with a pit near by. This is the Pit 'n Pole. 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 it may be the only good observing night this weekend. We hope to see you there. Lisa Zeigler www.johnstelescopes.com <http://www.johnstelescopes.com/> www.mirrorkits.com <http://www.mirrorkits.com/>

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Saturn orbit
by UTAHDEB＠aol.com 01 Jul '04

01 Jul '04

I saw ring images on the news this afternoon. Cool! Debbie

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