September 2006 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

M57 +73PSW-3
by daniel turner 27 Mar '13

27 Mar '13

Mark your calendar for early evening May 7. Their will be a close encounter between the Ring nebula and periodic comet 73P. The comet will be close to earth so its exact position in the sky will depend stongly on your location on the globe. Go to spaceweather.com and use the link at the bottom of the page for "Observable Comets". 73p is in the list and includes orbital elements and a link for daily ephemerides. DT __________________________________________________ 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] Science Fair
by Michael Carnes 07 Jul '07

07 Jul '07

Don, you're cherry-picking your data. >I think there is still a controversy over how much economic development >contributes to global warming. While there is much yet to learn, the so-called controversy is largely clouding of the waters by those with an economic interest. Within the last month there's been renewed information of the rate of melting of the Greenland ice-sheet, in addition to melting in other zones, such as Mt. Kilimanjaro. Thousands of ice cores taken over the last century show that the ice goes back tens of thousands of years. If it had been as warm during the Roman era as your sources indicate, that ice would have melted then or would never have formed. Arctic permafrost that has been stable since the last ice age (as shown by the number of mammoths preserved in it) is rapidly turning to mush. Of course you can find a few scientists who disagree with this assessment, just like you can find a few scientists who don't like evolution. You can find a few scientists who believe in ghosts, in Sasquatch, in fairies, in alien abduction, and in all sorts of things. It is extremely rare in science that someone who goes against the grain is shown to be correct (Galileo, Kepler, etc). Most of them are just cranks.

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M-31
by Patrick Wiggins 01 Oct '06

01 Oct '06

M-31. 100 15" exposures w/ST-10XME & 300mm f/5.6 camera lens. Lightly processed with Photoshop. http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/slas/patrickw/PATRICKW1014.JPG If anyone want to play with the files used to create this image just let me know and I'll temporarily post them to the web. pw

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Saturday Night Observing
by Olhomorto＠aol.com 01 Oct '06

01 Oct '06

Is anyone interested in observing at a site such as the gravel quarry after moonset tonight? Mike

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Help on improving EPOD submittal
by Canopus56 30 Sep '06

30 Sep '06

I received an email from EPOD saying they would be using my equinox sundial animation in the coming weeks. Photoshop could probably improve my original submittal by better registration and gamma balance. I don't own or know how to use Photoshop. If any of you Photoshop experts could clean it up, I would really appreciate it. Thanks - Kurt The original submittal to EPOD is in my Utah astro inbox at: http://www.utahastronomy.com/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album40&id=200609… (234kb) in http://www.utahastronomy.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=kurt The email from EPOD reads: Date : Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:23:40 -0400 Subject : hello from epod ------------------------- Hi Kurt, Thanks for submitting your "sun dial" photo to us. We'll post it as epod in the coming weeks. Sincerely, Jim __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: telescopes
by Richard Tenney 29 Sep '06

29 Sep '06

Bobbie, It doesn't appear that you copied the list, so I'm going to take the liberty of expanding the chances of someone responding to your question, since I personally don't own a travel scope. Anyone...? (Make sure you reply to all) --- Bobbie Kroeber <bobbiekroe(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > I am a silent member of UVAA (meaning I have NEVER > been able to make it to ANY of your star parties) > but I do appreciate getting the emails that let me > know that they are going on. Maybe some night. . . > > I have a question for you and other members right > now. I am going on a Carribean cruise next month > and thought I'd like to buy a little portable > telescope to take along (I have a SkyQuest XT6 now > but that is obviously too big to take). I was > looking at a couple that Orion offers that are small > and pack up nicely. One is the GoScope 350 that > comes in a backpack and the other is the Transporter > 70mm in its own carrying case. I was wondering if > anyone you know has ever used either of these and > what they think of them or if you know of any other > small, packable scopes (for under $200) that you > would recommend instead. > > Hoping to hear from you soon, > Bobbie Kroeber > Sandy, Utah > > > --------------------------------- > Want to be your own boss? Learn how on Yahoo! Small > Business. __________________________________________________ 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] M-31
by Tyler Allred 29 Sep '06

29 Sep '06

It looks great Patrick! I am in Montana for conference and won't have any time to "play" for a couple of days. :) I'm glad someone is having a little fun. Tyler _____________________________________________ -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces+tylerallred=earthlink.net(a)mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces+tylerallred=earthlink.net@mailman.xmission.co m] On Behalf Of Patrick Wiggins Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 4:57 AM To: utah astronomy listserve Subject: [Utah-astronomy] M-31 M-31. 100 15" exposures w/ST-10XME & 300mm f/5.6 camera lens. Lightly processed with Photoshop. http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/slas/patrickw/PATRICKW1014.JPG If anyone want to play with the files used to create this image just let me know and I'll temporarily post them to the web. pw _______________________________________________ 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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Zodiacal light
by Kim 28 Sep '06

28 Sep '06

I arose around 5:00 this morning and took a peak out the back door at the eastern horizon. The zodiacal light was easily as bright as the nearby Gemini/Monoceros/Orion region of the Milky Way. Even without being fully dark-adapted, I could make out the zodiacal band from the east across the sky to the west, where it was finally lost about 30 degrees above the horizon in the light pollution from Mt. Pleasant (about four miles southwest of my home). The zodical light and band were also easily observed by my wife, who doesn't spend as much time under the stars as I like to and had no expectations. In the short time that I was outside in my pajamas and bare feet, less than ten minutes, I also saw about six or seven meteors, a number I thought to be unusually high. I don't know of any major active showers at this time of year (aren't the Orionids an October shower?), but four of these appeared to originate from within Orion. I didn't try to accurately retrace their paths, but I'd say that the "radiant" would have been in Orion's upper torso. Does anyone know of a minor "Orionid" meteor shower that could account for what I observed? Think I'll try to photograph the zodiacal light tomorrow morning. If I'm successful, I'll let y'all know. Kim

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New Image - NGC281 The Pacman Nebula
by Tyler Allred 27 Sep '06

27 Sep '06

Hi all. I pulled all-nighters over the weekend and got two nice images. Here is the first. It is NGC281, the Pacman Nebula. I think this may be one of the best images that I have captured. The extended exposure time is the way to go for these deeper images. I hope you enjoy it. Here is the link to the small version. Click the thumbnail for the full resolution version. http://tinyurl.com/m2beu Cheers and Clear Skies! Tyler

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Image processing, cont.
by Tyler Allred 27 Sep '06

27 Sep '06

Nice work Kurt! The detail you pulled out is excellent. I probably should have used deconvolution as well, but didn't get around to it. The background noise that you mention can be removed quite easily in Photoshop, by selecting background areas with the magic wand, feathering the edges, and then applying a median filter. I like your processed image. Cheers, Tyler -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces+tylerallred=earthlink.net(a)mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces+tylerallred=earthlink.net@mailman.xmission.co m] On Behalf Of Canopus56 Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 12:23 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Image processing, cont. --- Patrick Wiggins <paw(a)wirelessbeehive.com> wrote: > The ZIP file is temporally located at > http://utahastro.info/temp/7331RAW.ZIP . It's about > 9 megs. Patrick graciously distributed his calibrated fits images. As a learning challenge on how to handle the bright core and faint disk, I tried processing Patrick's images to see how close I could get to Tyler's work. The results are in gallery folder: http://www.utahastronomy.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=KafAIP4WIN My folder is on the last page (page 4) of the Utah Astro Gallery. Look for the AIP4WIN study folder. Image 1 in the folder was my best result - http://www.utahastronomy.com/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album44&id=Image9D econvolvedLucyRichardson Not as good as Tyler's result at: http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/slas/patrickw/PATRICKW1013.JPG in Patrick's web page at- http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/slas/patrickw/PATRICKW04.HTML - but still passable. Over the past few months, there have been a series of posts on the listserv asking about basic imaging processing. In my AIP4WIN study folder, I have posted a series of 16 images and screen shots that are my beginner notes on how I processed the image. That may be of interest to other image processing newbies here. I realize that probably none of you are using AIP4WIN, but the general processing techniques are the same in most software. For example, many of the same steps shown in the study folder can be replicated using the Meade AutoStar software. The purpose of the slides is to study general imaging principles. Then learn how those principles are applied in your software of choice. Criticisms and suggestions for improving the technique that I used are welcome. It's the only way to learn. For example, there is a k-sigmoid noise removal tool in AIP4WIN, that should take out the noise put into the image by sum stacking. It worked, but it thrashed the rest of the image. So, I could not pull out the sky background noise added by the sum stacking operation. Clear Skies - Kurt __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ 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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