January 2007 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

New pic
by Kim 13 Jan '07

13 Jan '07

HI all. I seldom take photos that I think are worthy of posting in the Utah Astronomy Gallery, but I have just added one. On December 19, while driving to SLC to celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary, my wife and I were treated to a rare sun pillar - well, rare in Utah. Take a peek if you're interested. Maybe one day I'll be able to take deep sky pics that approach the beautiful photos that many of you have shared with us all. In the mean time, this is about all I'm capable of. Kim

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McNaught in daylight
by Patrick Wiggins 13 Jan '07

13 Jan '07

This is a post that showed up on the International Occultation Timing Association earlier today: I was able to observe comet McNaught before sunset yesterday with my WAT 902H2 Ultimate video camera set to low gain and then manual shutter control. I did a dummy one-star align on my GPS scope. Found Venus in my finder scope. Centered and SYNC'd on Venus and then slewed to the comet and voila, there is was, dead center on the video screen. Based on that experience, I'm guessing it will be visible in a clear blue daylight sky. I did shoot some video, but camcorder malfunctioned and I only got a very few frames. It is a nice sight! Once found in the telescope, I was able to see McNaught in binoculars, again, just before sunset, with the sun behind some clouds to obscure the direct glare. Good luck to all. Tony George Umatilla, Oregon

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The Spectrum - www.thespectrum.com -
by Barney B. 12 Jan '07

12 Jan '07

Interesting article. Rob are you following this? Barney http://www.thespectrum.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007701120319

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Spam on gallery site
by Cynthia Blue 12 Jan '07

12 Jan '07

What? Spam on the Album! Oh that is not acceptable. So it was in the comments section? I can turn comments off album-wide if you like. I don't know if each individual user can turn them off for their album or not. Hrmph. I hate spam. I'll go and turn commenting off. Cynthia On 1/11/07, Joe Bauman <bau(a)desnews.com> wrote: > > Dear Friends, the horrors of spam have been visited on my gallery, > with a recent episode having so many ugly URLs and ads that I could > not delete them all. I had to delete the photo and repost it. In an > attempt to protect our amazing gallery resource I put on a new > caption, which you can see at the following URL and which contains a > lie: > > http://www.utahastronomy.com/Joeb/253_G > > I really do think the galleries should be closed to commentary > because interested people can still contact us through email, and > only a few valuable comments have been placed on the galleries. > 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 > -- http://www.collierescueut.org/ Elsinore Lucilla Aurelius ASCA-CD RN CGC CH Pembroke Faded Glory VC HT NAP NJP RN NAC OJC CGC Angel Pumpkin Spice Lady DPP CGC Spirit Chasers Spice NA NAJ WVN CGC http://blog.hexwitch.com

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Found on the web
by William Biesele 12 Jan '07

12 Jan '07

> 'The "Sky Quality Meter" measures the brightness of the night sky > in magnitudes per square arcsecond. http://www.unihedron.com/projects/darksky/

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Comet brightness
by Chuck Hards 12 Jan '07

12 Jan '07

Per my observation that McNaught seemed to be intrinsically very bright, I found this: "NASA astronomer Tony Phillips says Comet McNaught is the brightest comet visible from Earth in 30 years. It is six times brighter than Hale-Bopp in 1997, and 100 times brighter than Halley's Comet when it appeared in 1986, Phillips told The Associated Press on Thursday." 30 years ago would mean that only Comet West was brighter (sorry Kim, you did miss a doozy!) and it was seen in a dark sky. I can only imagine McNaught in a dark sky! Wow! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Sucker-punch spam with award-winning protection. Try the free Yahoo! Mail Beta. http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/features_spam.html

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New pics posted in Gallery
by Howard Jackman 12 Jan '07

12 Jan '07

Hello everyone, I finally took the time to post my Mercury transit photos and some others. You can see why I've resolved this year to improve, as there is plenty of room to do so! Many, Many thanks to Cynthia for helping me figure out what I was doing wrong with logging into the gallery so I could finally get these posted! http://www.utahastronomy.com/Howardj?page=1 Thanks, Howard ____________________________________________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com

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17.5" Scope update
by Chuck Hards 11 Jan '07

11 Jan '07

I've added a few photos to my Gallery page: http://www.utahastronomy.com/Chuck?page=5 These show some aspects of preparing the Sonotube form prior to gelcoat application, and spraying the gelcoat itself. Many thanks to my employee Marty Harrison, who does a great job in my paint booth. The fiberglass will be laminated into the mold on 1/11 and after curing for up to several days, I'll peel off the Sonotube and begin working-up the surface gloss. I will be molding end-rings from fiberglass, as well as tube clamp-rings for attaching to the mount. This scope is somewhat of a throwback design, incorporating some new ideas into a tried and true classic tube assembly. It will be gloss white as are all my scopes since the early '90's. After building dark tubes with metallic charcoal finishes, I found that the traditional white tube is much easier to discern under a dark sky- easier to find one's way around all the appurtenances in very low-light conditions. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com

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Spam on gallery site
by Joe Bauman 11 Jan '07

11 Jan '07

Dear Friends, the horrors of spam have been visited on my gallery, with a recent episode having so many ugly URLs and ads that I could not delete them all. I had to delete the photo and repost it. In an attempt to protect our amazing gallery resource I put on a new caption, which you can see at the following URL and which contains a lie: http://www.utahastronomy.com/Joeb/253_G I really do think the galleries should be closed to commentary because interested people can still contact us through email, and only a few valuable comments have been placed on the galleries. Thanks, Joe

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The comet tonight. 2006p1
by daniel turner 11 Jan '07

11 Jan '07

I saw the comet at sunset tonight. I was on the high bench east of the U of U campus. The Oqirrh mountains were low enough to see over to the wsw. The comet became visable in 20x80 binoculars about 3 degrees up at 5:45pm mst and I followed it into the ground at 6:02pm. Bright nonstellar nucleus with a fan shaped tail almost a degree long. The comet was right at the red/blue dividing line of the sunset colors when first spotted. Without optics it and its tail were visable once you knew where to look. Better jump on this one, it won't be around for long. DT __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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