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

New images from the Moon
by Patrick Wiggins 07 Nov '07

07 Nov '07

New hi-def pictures (stills and a very nice movie) from the Japanese spacecraft that recently entered lunar orbit: http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/11/20071107_kaguya_e.html patrick

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Comet 17P - figure showing relative size to Sun, Jupiter, Earth
by Kurt Fisher 06 Nov '07

06 Nov '07

Inspired by a similar comparison on Cloudy Nights, here's my shot at figure showing the relative physical sizes of Comet 17P, the Sun, Jupiter and the Earth: http://gallery.utahastronomy.com/d/10591-1/C17P_Size.PNG see also collected SLAS member images at: http://www.utahastronomy.com/Current_observing_events#SLAS_members - Kurt _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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Comet Holmes - New Image Added
by Tyler Allred 06 Nov '07

06 Nov '07

Hi all. I imaged comet Holmes again last night and WOW has it grown larger over the past few days. I added another image to the web page with the most recent image. Be sure to scan down the page to see the new image, which is at the bottom. Notice how much larger it is than the color image from Halloween night (same scope and camera). http://71.18.228.62/subpage57.html Cheers, Tyler _____________________________________________

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comet holmes: you gotta go look at this
by daniel turner 06 Nov '07

06 Nov '07

Once again a bright comet is in the sky and I'm reading email observing reports from midtown Manhattan and nothing from my friends in Utah. This comet is an even bigger deal than comet Mcnaught was earlier this year. This is a Northern hemisphere, naked eye, middle of the city, easily visible comet. 20 years from now you are going to want to tell people that you saw this thing. It's up and visable from down town Salt lake city from 6:00pm to 6:00am. If you are up at all during those hours, look for the "W" of Cassiopea and to the east of that the bright star Cappela. Half way between will be the dimmer star alpha Perseus. Off to the side of that will be this wierd fuzzy thing. That should send you back into the house for a pair of binoculars or a grab-and-go telescope. Weatherwise the weekend curse was lifted this last two days and we were blessed with "clear" skies. The next three days are forecast to be "mostly clear". Come Thursday we will have "partly cloudy" and friday will be "chance of rain", saturday will be "chance of snow". Do you see the pattern here? you gotta go see this thing within the next three nights or plan on missing it. It is impossible to overhype this astronomical event. You just gotta see this thing before it is gone forever. DT __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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From Astromart: A message from the President of Meade (rather longish)
by Dale Hooper 06 Nov '07

06 Nov '07

#530374 Announcement: A message from the President of Meade to you Category: Astromart Classifieds / Telescope - Refractor Placed: 11/2/2007 1:19 PM PST Placed By: Anacortes Telescope http://www.astromart.com/classifieds/details.asp?classified_id=530374 Shipping: Location: ------------------------------------------------------------ Customer Service Update from Meade Instruments Hello. Our recent Dealer Newsletter announcing details of our continued progress on our business turnaround that we were moving our remaining U.S. manufacturing to a more cost efficient location, followed by our dealer bulletin detailing short term availability of specific high-end telescopes, seems to have raised as many questions as these announcements were meant to answer. And so we are taking this opportunity to elaborate a bit more on our short term plans and long term strategies which were developed with the purpose of better serving you, our customers, and which we believe will ultimately return our company to profitability. I hope this Question/Answer format works for you. Question: Is Meade staying in the High Performance Telescope business? Absolutely! With a global market share of well over 50%, we believe there is more opportunity today than ever before for us to lead the industry with our drive toward more consumer friendly products, while delivering an ever improving user experience at fair pricing. Question: Where will Meade be building its telescopes, if not Irvine, California? For years now we have been importing all of our entry level telescopes from three or four primary partners in China. With the help of our manufacturing partners we refresh these lines annually. These products will continue to be built in China. Similarly, a few years ago we began sourcing parts and sub-assemblies, and ultimately complete units of our intermediate products in China. At the same time we began substantial assembly processes in our Mexican facility. Product quality has been maintained and consumer acceptance has remained strong. We anticipate continuing to source these products from China and our own plant in Mexico. This year we have determined we cannot continue to build high end telescopes in California and remain competitive in the market. We have therefore made the decision to move production to our plant in Mexico and our partners in China. You can be sure that we will not lower our quality standards on any product as we make this move. Question: What about the RCX and Max Mount products? As announced earlier this year, we decided to implement some fairly serious improvements in both product lines, and determined that the simplest way to do this was to temporarily suspend the manufacture of these products while the improvements were being tested and then implemented. We are very proud of both of these lines and we expect to be back up and running soon. However, our first priority will be to maintain the world famous LX line's position in the industry. Once the LX line is operational we will move on to production of the RCX and MaxMount. Most RCX orders in hand, but not all, will be finished and shipped prior to the shut-down of our California manufacturing on January 1. Those of you who have orders with us for either RCX or the Max Mount should contact your dealer for information regarding your specific order. To those of you who saw our use of the word "indefinite" in the recently published Dealer Newsletter, and to those that interpreted the use of that word to imply "permanent," I apologize. We fully intend to be back in production as soon as possible Question: Will Meade continue to provide product support for all of its telescopes? Of course. We intend to be the market leader, and the consumer's choice in telescopes for years to come, and we know that to do that we must build a great product and then stand behind it. As a matter of fact we are continuing to invest in improvements on our customer service/product repair business, and our customers should continue to realize these improvements over the coming months. We will continue to stand behind our products and their respective warranties. Question: Will Meade continue to invest in Product Development? More than ever! These past couple of years have been difficult for us as we've worked on the many areas to improve our company, but through it all we continued to spend on R&D, as we will continue to do so in the future. Our introduction this year of mySKYT was just the latest of a long line of innovative, market making products from Meade. And we have many more new products in development for introduction in the coming months and years ahead. Question: Will the Meade Headquarters remain in California? Yes! We will continue to operate at our 160,000 square foot facility in Irvine, California. The area formerly used for manufacturing will be converted to warehouse space, and our current office space will remain as is. The Customer Service Department and the related Product Repair Department will continue to operate out of Mexico and California, just as they do currently. Question: Is Meade going to be sold? Hard to predict. We know that we have many well known and valuable brand names, not only in the telescope industry but in the Sport Optics industry as well. We have a solid $100,000,000, global business that could very well be attractive to some potential buyer. Our obligation will be to our shareholders to maximize the value of their shares, whether it is through the continuing efforts of the turnaround, or through a sale of part or all of the company. Whatever happens, it should be obvious that it will always be in Meade's interest to continue to serve the customer with the best product and best "post sale" service. Respectfully, Steve Muellner

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Comet 17/P imaged from space?
by Kurt Fisher 06 Nov '07

06 Nov '07

Howard, Spaceweather.com and Cloudy Nights are the best places to see 17P images. Sure wish I could figure out that filter processing they are using to bring out the detail. I think it's a weak wavelet filter, but I am not sure. - Kurt _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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Comet 17/P imaged from space?
by Kurt Fisher 06 Nov '07

06 Nov '07

Howard, Hubble Space Telescope scheduled time to observe Comet 17P on Oct. 29 12:18 UTC (6:18am MDT). http://www.stsci.edu/ftp/observing/weekly_timeline/timeline_10_29_07 The current week schedule shows observations also set for 10-31 and 11-2. Next week's schedule - http://www.stsci.edu/ftp/observing/weekly_timeline/timeline_11_04_07 shows nothing for 17P. As to whether any images will be released - I haven't heard anything and do not know anything about "Weaver" - the researcher listed as taking the images. - Kurt _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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Comet 17P - 11-6-2007 8UT 1 x 1.5 deg TFOV
by Kurt Fisher 06 Nov '07

06 Nov '07

Mine from last night - http://gallery.utahastronomy.com/v/kurt/solarsystem/Comet+17P+Holmes/028.PN… See also Utah astro wiki - compiled SLAS member pics http://www.utahastronomy.com/Current_observing_events#SLAS_members Utah astro wiki - compiled Best of Web links http://www.utahastronomy.com/Current_observing_events#From_the_web _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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(no subject)
by Tyler Allred 05 Nov '07

05 Nov '07

Hello all. I managed a couple of Comet Holmes images on Halloween night and I thought someone might be interested. Here is a link to my website where you will find two images of the comet on a single page. http://www.allred-astro.com/subpage57.html Image 1 - Widefield LRGB taken with my Tak Epsilon 160 Image 2 - Luminance only image processed to show internal structure of the comet (interesting details not obvious in the LRGB) I hope you enjoy the images. Cheers, Tyler _____________________________________________

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Comet 17P misc widefield image tonight
by Kurt Fisher 05 Nov '07

05 Nov '07

Quick images from tonight 17P Holmes wide-field image 3x4 deg unlabeled http://gallery.utahastronomy.com/v/kurt/solarsystem/Comet+17P+Holmes/025.PN… Labeled http://gallery.utahastronomy.com/v/kurt/solarsystem/Comet+17P+Holmes/026.pn… My mediocre imaging skills just doesn't do the view at the e.p. justice. - Kurt P.S. - I am still collecting links to the best of the web 17P images on the Utah Astro wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com/Current_observing_events#From_the_web The very best image I've seen over the last week is this one from France: http://spaceweather.com/comets/holmes/02nov07/Sebastian-Voltmer2.jpg P.P.S. - What Daniel T said. Be there or be square. _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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