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

Re: Green lasers
by Chuck Hards 04 Nov '05

04 Nov '05

I have received a message from Siegfried stating that he is not interested in my green laser comparison test as a SLAS meeting presentation. His exact words were: "I appreciate you thoughts on this subject and your wanting to participate in the meeting. I don't however see the point of the experiment." I am now very sorry and somewhat embarrased to have brought up the subject and regret having wasted anyone's time, especially the good people of SLAS, and this list. I appreciate having had my idea at least taken under consideration by the president of the club. __________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page! http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

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Meteor Trail
by Edward Lunt 03 Nov '05

03 Nov '05

Hi everyone; Driving home from Kaysville last Sunday night I saw an extremely bright meteor that fell all the way to the horizon. This meteor as well as the topic of other bright meteors over the past couple of nights reminded me of an image that I have been going to post for a couple of weeks now. It was taken last August while imaging IC5068. I noticed the familiar streak across one of the R frames, but this was considerably brighter than most. As I looked at it, I saw a pronounced spiral pattern as it twisted its way through the sky. When enlarged, it also shows a definite "wobble" to the seemingly straight trail. I was reminded of Stephen James O'Meara's article in Septembers' Sky and Telescope, "Twisted Meteor's' (see page 77)where he writes about twisting meteor trails. My original image shows a pronounced twist although the image in my album needs to be enlarged for the twist to be seen to full advantage. I also have included some images of the Double Cluster taken last week. http://www.utahastronomy.com/album24 Hope you find the "twists" as interesting as I did. Ed Lunt __________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page! http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

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Double Cluster imaged on 10-31
by astrodeb＠charter.net 03 Nov '05

03 Nov '05

Hi, I took over 50 30sec exposures at ISO 800 of the Double Cluster Monday night. I had a few problems that night. I forgot to switch from JPEG to RAW mode after I got the cluster centered on the chip. The laptop computer eventually ran out of battery power and died. But I'm still pleased with the result. http://www.utahastronomy.com/astrodeb/RZ_DOUBLCLUSTERDEB Debbie

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Meteors
by astrodeb＠charter.net 03 Nov '05

03 Nov '05

I saw a couple meteors on Monday night. Is it part of the Orionids? Debbie > > From: Joe Bauman <bau(a)desnews.com> > Date: 2005/11/02 Wed AM 10:53:52 MST > To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Meteors > > Hi all, a woman called and said she and her husband saw two meteors > last night around Point of the Moutnain. They were bright and went > nearly to ground level. Anyone have any idea what this might be? > Anyone else see anything? Thanks, Joe > > _______________________________________________ > 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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Green laser part 2
by Chuck Hards 02 Nov '05

02 Nov '05

My daughter saw my Beta green laser, and I knew that I'd have a hard time keeping it to myself, so I went in search of a lower-cost "loaner", for her occassional non-astronomical uses- and to satisfy my curiosity. ;) I had a few bucks in my PayPal account, so I bought one made by Lightvision Technologies of Taiwan. Rated at <5mw, class IIIa (same as the Beta and Z-Bolt high-end models) but not stated as optimized to deliver close to a true 5mw output. Constant duty cycle. The price was attractive at $41.99 + shipping from Computer Geeks of Oceanside, CA. www.geeks.com. I actually bought it from their eBay store, using "Buy It Now". It arrived in 5 days via FedEx. Well-built, shiny chrome-plated brass housing with pocket clip, it's about 10mm longer than the Beta unit, at 152mm (6"). Same diameter, 12.7mm (1/2"). It also has a small green indicator above the switch that lights-up when the laser is on. I can see a glass lens for beam focus optimization, non-adjustable, like the Beta unit. It uses 2 AAA cells, included, and comes in a metal, clamshell case with cut-foam tray. No lid padding. First impression: Nowhere near as bright as the Beta pointer, an estimate is about one-third as bright. The beam is only dimly visible in a dark room. This one has a beam about as bright as one I saw being used at the Wallop Watch out at SPOC this past summer. Visible, but not stand-out-obvious. It actually might be preferable at a dark-sky star-party, especially if others are imaging nearby. Visibility increases as one approaches the beam axis, and falls-off as you get farther away from the beam. I think this unit clearly demonstrates the visible difference between units optimized near the 5mw legal limit for class IIIa, and those non-optimized units closer to 3mw. This isn't a "star-pointer" for the suburbs. But, under reasonably dark skies, it is usable, and the price is attractive, especially for beginners or those on a budget. And my daughter can't seem to put it down- mission accomplished. The Beta pointer is unmolested. __________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com

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Potential SLAS speaker
by Richard Tenney 02 Nov '05

02 Nov '05

A colleague at work today informed me that his Uncle, Bob Wilson, is the project manager at JPL for the Spitzer Space Telescope, and would likely be willing to come give SLAS a lecture/presentation if we're interested (of course we are!). He lives in Sandy and commutes to Calif. 4 days out of every week (Leaves Sunday and returns home Thursday). Doesn't bode too well for the regular Tues. night meetings, but I'm thinking we could do some Thu-Fri-Sat. night special lecture or something, no? Thoughts? Siegfried/Lowell? __________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com

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Re: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Santa, I want a Canon 20Da for Christmas
by astrodeb＠charter.net 02 Nov '05

02 Nov '05

Yes. Here is a photo from last night's session. http://www.utahastronomy.com/astrodeb/RZ_IMG_6821 If stars are trailed to the east, do I need to move the azimuth control to the west? Debbie > > From: Joe Bauman <bau(a)desnews.com> > Date: 2005/11/01 Tue PM 12:41:11 MST > To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Subject: Re: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Santa, I want a Canon 20Da for Christmas > > Is that a 4" refractor? Thanks, Joe > > _______________________________________________ > 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] Meteors
by Seth Jarvis 02 Nov '05

02 Nov '05

Meteor observations are tricky things. Where people think they see a meteor and where it actually was are generally two vastly different things. "Nearly to ground level" could in fact mean that a bright meteor seen from a distance of a couple of hundred miles made it down to airliner altitudes before either vaporizing or losing incandescence. We've received (so far) no calls about this here at the planetarium, so we have no additional information from which to start making educated guesses as to the location of the meteor. Not long ago we had numerous calls reporting a bright meteor that was visible in the late afternoon. Calls came in from everywhere between southern Idaho to Lake Powell. All of the observers claimed that the meteor fell just to the east of them, not more than a mile away. By triangulating from the reported azimuths of multiple observers we concluded that the meteor came down well east of the Utah-Colorado border. Even when we told the reporter from Malad that the exact same meteor had been seen by another person at Lake Powell, they said, "No way! It must have been a different meteor!" People are funny that way. Seth -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces+sjarvis=slco.org(a)mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces+sjarvis=slco.org@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Joe Bauman Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 10:54 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Meteors Hi all, a woman called and said she and her husband saw two meteors last night around Point of the Moutnain. They were bright and went nearly to ground level. Anyone have any idea what this might be? Anyone else see anything? Thanks, Joe _______________________________________________ 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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Orion SCTs
by Chuck Hards 01 Nov '05

01 Nov '05

Does anyone know if Celestron makes the Orion-brand SCTs? __________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com

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Franklin Elementary Star Party cancelled for tomorrow (Wed) due to weather
by Richard Tenney 01 Nov '05

01 Nov '05

The star party planned for tomorrow night (Wed) in South Fork has been cancelled due to current weather forecasts. We may try again in a few weeks; I'll let you know. Thanks for those that planned to help out. Rich __________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page! http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

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