January 2005 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Re: Geeks
by Chuck Hards 31 Jan '05

31 Jan '05

I'm sure Mr. Rolly really meant "Greeks", as in the great thinkers, philosophers, the model for our university fraternity system, inventors of democracy and the scientific method, classical architecture, the people we named lunar craters after... The classic definition of "geek" was a person who committed bizzare acts at a sideshow or carnival, such as biting the head off of a live chicken. I've never seen anyone in the club bite the head off of a live chicken. (Just hearsay rumors...but never witnessed it personally, and it was probably KFC anyway.) The fact that this term is now used to denote people who are intellectually inclined should tell you something about the mindset of the average person, or writer of "musings" type columns. Consider the source. Guy, put that thing away, he's not worth doing the time! ;) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Geeks, what geeks
by Ann House 31 Jan '05

31 Jan '05

Paul Rolly happens to be my brother-in-law. I have given him plenty of stories, but not this one. At least I now know what he thinks of me. -A

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Fwd: Historical question
by Chuck Hards 31 Jan '05

31 Jan '05

I'm on the digest currently, so if someone else has posted similar information, I apologize for the redundancy. This was sent to me privately by a list member, who can come forward if desired, for now I'm posting it anonymously (thanks!): > I've been away from my desk most of the day, but I > just sat down for a few minutes and read your > question and Guy's response. I think Guy is still > wrong. I am also using Sky Map Pro, v. 7, and I find > the following: > > Not knowing where the escapees were located at the > time, I entered Bern, Switzerland for the location > (1 hour ahead of UT) and the date as 14 October, > 1918. Jupiter is in Gemini and just rising above the > "ideal" horizon at 10:30 local time. However, the > Moon, in Aquarius, is still 20 degrees above the > horizon. The program gives the phase as 0.679. So, I > wonder if the Moon had set from their location and > they were able to see from the light of a rising > Jupiter, perhaps closer to 11:30 or midnight local > time? Saturn wouldn't have risen until about 2:00 > local time, but of course Jupiter was much higher by > then. This sounds much better to me, intuitively. Willis does write that the valley was oriented north-south, and the rivers were located at the bottom of gorges, so the eastern and western horizons were probably obstructed. If Saturn didn't rise until 2:00 am, it could not have been the planet in question. Some small towns passed that night were listed as: Dittishausen, Rotenbach, and Loffingen. We have scant information on the weather; perhaps the moon was obscured by clouds if not terrain. Willis states that the sun did shine during that day, apparently for most of the day as he writes of shadows moving while they were hiding in a pine thicket during daylight hours, and luxuriating in it's warmth. Of the night of the escape itself, (the night before the planet notation), he wrote: "A thin layer of clouds over the stars produced a dim, luminous light everywhere, and the way across country we had so carefully memorized on our walks was easy to follow." So it seems that Jupiter is now the best candidate. It would certainly throw more light on the countryside than Saturn. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: Historical Puzzle
by Chuck Hards 31 Jan '05

31 Jan '05

Jim wrote: > Astronomy has added some extra weight to my > backpack. I love to take my 15X70 Galileo binos now. > After lugging those buggers ten miles they are > going to get used. Just imagine back-packing the 25x100mm! Man, you do it right. Next time, when it's warm again, count me in! I still have my one-man pup tent! Time to go backpack shopping...I don't have a fly-rod, but I do have a collapsing bait-casting setup with miniature reel. Jim, you've got me "mind-fishing" at Twin Lakes right now, waiting for darkness with my big binos... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: Historical Puzzle/3D images
by Chuck Hards 31 Jan '05

31 Jan '05

Thanks to all who replied on the Historical Puzzle question, I'm going to keep trying to refine location and time and perhaps establish a local horizon for the time of the sighting, then we'll run it all again. If anyone would like the entire text of Willis' escape, let me know off-list and I'll have it all ready in the next couple of weeks. It's for the WWI air-war list I run. Patrick, you don't need images shot simultaneously, just let some time pass between exposures. The earth's orbital motion as well as lunar orbital motion ensures that your second exposure is from a location thousands of miles from the first. I've done this for a couple of lunar eclipses, but with the moon it's hard to get a lot of stars recorded without over-exposing the lunar surface into just a bright blob. I echo Joe's comments on Hale-Bopp. Many of my shots display a startling 3D effect. And BTW, they are indistinguishable from simultaneous shots taken at different geographical locations. Reverse them left-for-right and it looks like the stars are in front of the comet! You don't need Photoshop. Any imaging program that allows precise re-sizing of images will work just fine. You can rotate them to register by cutting one out with scissors if your program won't let you rotate one digitally. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

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Chuck's historical question
by Kim Hyatt 31 Jan '05

31 Jan '05

Well, I certainly wasn't trying to be secretive. Yes, I'm the "anonymous source" for Chuck's later information. It was late enough last night when I saw Chuck's email that I simply responded to him directly. No offense intended towards anyone, especially not you, Guy. I just got different results. I've found with Sky Map Pro that I have to be very careful when I use a time and/or location other than the default. It's easy for me to forget to click on "OK" when I make a change, so I double- and triple-check, as I did last night. From Bern, Switzerland, I got the following: Information about Moon for 14 Oct 1918 10:30:00 PM (Julian day number 2421881.39583) Local Information Apparent topocentric coordinates for the epoch of date: Right ascension: 20h 49m 51.06s Declination: -13° 58' 11.5" Constellation: Aquarius Altitude: 19° 20' 40" Azimuth: 221° 27' 6" Rise: 14h 40m 36s Transit: 19h 45m 47s Geocentric Information Apparent geocentric coordinates for the epoch of date: Right ascension: 20h 51m 36.823s Declination: -13° 9' 31.01" True distance: 374979.6 Km Horizontal parallax: 3508.59" Physical Information Magnitude: -10.8 Phase: 0.679 Phase angle: 69.0° Elongation: 110.9° Diameter: 1923.51" Light time: 0h 0m 1.3s Information about Jupiter for 14 Oct 1918 10:30:00 PM (Julian day number 2421881.39583) Local Information Apparent topocentric coordinates for the epoch of date: Right ascension: 7h 5m 54.32s Declination: +22° 27' 11.4" Constellation: Gemini Altitude: 1° 39' 36" Azimuth: 57° 39' 58" Rise: 22h 16m 43s Transit: 6h 8m 14s Set: 13h 56m 7s Geocentric Information Apparent geocentric coordinates for the epoch of date: Right ascension: 7h 5m 54.236s Declination: +22° 27' 12.76" True distance: 4.9587437 AU (742 million km) Horizontal parallax: 1.77" Heliocentric Information Ecliptic coordinates for the epoch of date: Ecliptic longitude: 94° 5' 7.0" Ecliptic latitude: -0° 7' 32.4" Radius vector: 5.1513854 AU (771 million km) Physical Information Magnitude: -2.3 Phase: 0.991 Phase angle: 11.1° Elongation: 95.5° Equatorial diameter: 39.70" Polar diameter: 37.13" Light time: 0h 41m 14.4s I just saw Jim's latest post. I, too, wondered if even the light of Jupiter was bright enough to really aid in seeing anything. The Moon would not have set below the ideal horizon until nearly 1:00 AM on the 15th. We've all observed how bright the sky can be if a bright Moon is just below our local horizon in the mountains. Perhaps the moonlight is really what aided the escapees, even though it may have been below their local horizon, and so they attributed the greater visibility to "some planet or other." Thoughts? I would be interested to know if anyone with a different program gets significantly different results. Please check the time (14 Oct, 1918 AD/CE, 22:30 local time, or 21:30 UT) and location (Bern, Switzerland, lat. 46:57:0, long. 7:25:48). I hope my Sky Map Pro is reliable, as it's the only program I've got for such stuff, and I've used it to research other historical questions. Kim

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A Historical Puzzle
by Chuck Hards 31 Jan '05

31 Jan '05

I find myself in need of aid from someone with a planetarium program that can reveal planet locations on the sky, going back to at least 1918. There is a bit of preamble necessary to frame the question, please bear with me. The backstory, taken from "The Lafayette Flying Corps" by James Norman Hall & Charles Bernard Nordhoff, copyright 1920. Quotes are from the book, otherwise it's my commentary: "(Note: Harold Willis, of the Escadrille Lafayette, was shot down in combat behind the German lines on August 18, 1917. After several unsuccessful attempts at escape, he finally succeeded in crossing the German frontier into Switzerland by swimming the Rhine. Four simultaneous attempts were made to break out of the prison at Villengen by four groups of American aviators and Lieutenant Isaacs, of the U.S. Navy. The lights of the camp were short-circuited, whereupon each of the four groups followed prearranged plans for getting outside the camp. Willis was provided with a wooden gun and a prison-tailored uniform somewhat resembling that of the guards. His plan was to rush out of the camp with the German sentinals when the alarm was sounded. He made the cross-country journey to the border with Lieutenant Isaacs.)" Willis and Isaacs found each other in the darkness a little while after the escape. They hid during daylight hours and only traveled by night, to avoid detection. In the narrative, Willis wrote: "Every one who has wandered about much at night knows how difficult it is to judge heights, depths, and angles of slopes by starlight." Obviously there was not moon, I'm guessing that the escape was planned during moonless times intentionally. They did not use their tiny pocket flashlight while moving, lest it betray their position to any pursuit. Willis wrote that at times they checked their course against the north star, so obviously he knew the constellations at least in a rudimentary fashion. He goes on, writing about their second night: "The bridge spanned another roaring stream - quite as impossible to wade as the one of the previous night. Some planet or other which had just arisen gave us light enough to see that the place was deserted, so we slipped over." My question is, what planet could he be referring to? His escape is recorded as being on October 13, 1918, the planet reference would be the night of October 14th. He makes another reference that places the planet sighting before midnight, could have been as early as 10:30. He and Isaacs were at the time traversing the Black Forest, with mountainous horizons, so the "planet" could have been as high as 20 or even 30-degrees before it "rose", when reading the description of the bridge and stream in a canyon-bottom, but this is not certain. Checking my planisphere, there is a possibility that Willis confused Sirius with a planet, but I would think that he would know the Dog Star; too, it is a bit below the ecliptic and seems like it may have been too low in altitude at the time. Possible candidates are Jupiter, Saturn, or Mars near opposition. If none were in the area then it would have to have been Sirius. I'm also curious as to the phase of the moon at that time. Anybody care to set the "WayBack" machine for October 14, 1918, and see what shakes out? Thanks in advance, please post your results! C. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250

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Make 3D images
by Patrick Wiggins 31 Jan '05

31 Jan '05

While putting together today's issue of News I found myself looking through the latest raw image pairs from the Mars rovers. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/ It occurred to me that I'd heard here some time ago that such pairs could be made into stereo images. After a bit of digging I found this site that describes how to do it with Photoshop (I also got it to work with Photoshop Elements although many of the functions are not where they are in Photoshop). http://dogfeathers.com/3d/3dhowto.html Now I'm wondering if it might be possible to shoot a stereo pair of the Moon. I'm guessing all we'd need would be someone here in Utah to shoot a picture of the Moon while at the same moment someone far away like Hawaii (hey Rob, I'm talking about you) shot the Moon. Images are then exchanged via email. Shall we? Patrick

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Re: A Historical Puzzle
by Chuck Hards 30 Jan '05

30 Jan '05

OK, Guy, you're forgiven! You still get points for diving in-there first. So, of everyone who's run the WayBack machine, what's the consensus? Is Jupiter the best candidate for the illuminating planet that Willis wrote about? Guy wrote: > Chuck, > > The information I just sent was wrong. Seems these > planets were up with the > sun. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250

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Re: Polar Alignment
by Chuck Hards 30 Jan '05

30 Jan '05

Somewhere around here I have a home-made borescope for my old Jaegers equatorial, it works on the same principle as the Tuthill scope and I made it for about two dollars. I must agree with Patrick, a borescope is the fastest way to achieve precise polar alignment, but a true borescope does require that you can either remove your polar shaft (as in my Jaegers mount), or have a hollow polar shaft and on many modern designs. I think the Tuthil scope just used V-grooves for German equatorials, and mounted on the shaft housing, not sure how it worked on fork-mounted SCT's... Patrick wrote: > There is one other option that I've had good luck > with, namely a nifty > device called a Tuthill Precision Polar Alignment > Scope. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

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