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

It should be a beautiful weekend for star gazing!
by Ann House 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

2 PARTIES BECKON FANS OF HEAVENS Two free public star parties this weekend will welcome all fans of planets, comets, stars, galaxies, nebulae and other space objects. FULL STORY: http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1%2C1249%2C660214867%2C00.html -A

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M P Itokawa images
by Patrick Wiggins 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

Some here might remember that a couple of years ago the Japanese managed to place a spacecraft in orbit around minor planet (25143) Itokawa, and then landed it on the surface twice. JAXA (Japanese space agency) just released the images their craft returned: http://hayabusa.sci.isas.jaxa.jp/amica.pl pw

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Discovery of Earthlike Extrasolar Planet
by baxman2＠comcast.net 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

Today, the Salt Lake Tribune had a front page story on the discovery of an extrasolar planet having possible Earthlike temperature conditions. It is probably a rocky planet, considering its distance from its sun, and its mass. The mass is also possible to sustain life, though the gravity would be stronger than that of Earth. They don't know yet, if the planet has water. I don't know if they have any information about the atmosphere of the planet. Probably not. The Deseret Morning News had a similar article on the back of today's A Section. I wondering why Joe Bauman didn't put in a front page article on this, in the Deseret Morning News? Sincerely, J. David Baxter

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Test for Bob
by Patrick Wiggins 24 Apr '07

24 Apr '07

Checking to see if Bob is receiving non-digest version yet. pw

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Astronomy-Earth Day 2007 in Utah - Notes
by Kurt Fisher 24 Apr '07

24 Apr '07

I began the celebration day with a visit 2 to 4 pm visit to the South Physics Building at the University of Utah and the U of U Astronomy Club's solar party. The top of the South Physics building houses four pier mounted Meade 10" LX200s, an 11" Celestron and a Meade 12" LX200 under roll-off covers. The old Ealing dome houses a 14" Meade LX200. The scopes were funded with an Eccles grant. A fifth pier holds a 3 meter radio telescope, but the dish is removed for repairs. The weather was problematic - broken clouds - but started to clear towards 4pm. Even so, the current phase of Venus was easily seen at a high 150-200 power. Three U astronomy students had the dome Meade on Venus, a PST on a relatively active Sun and 3 Meade LX200s on a featureless white-light solar disk. The solar disk in the PST H-alpha was featureless, but 5 or 6 good sized sprite prominences were seen. This was a nice display for a near solar minimum and considering the Sun's quiesence over the last few months. See Stephen Ames notes on the Cloudy Nights Solar forum - http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1559358/pa… One of the students, Paul Ricketts, showed me the department's test set-up to measure atmospheric turbulence at the U's proposed Boulder Mountain robotic telescope site. They are testing the turbulence measuring device on top of the South Physics building before field testing in central Utah. The device is a small 1 x 2 feet aluminum box with a window in the side that allows for a small one or two inch objective. A 2 x 3 foot solar panel sits off to one side. The box and objective are fixed on Polaris.. The device basically makes and stores continuous images of Polaris for later FWHM evaluation. Even though this is a site comprised by light pollution, photos by Ricketts and other U students on their website and taped to the interior of the Meade dome demonstrates their ability to take DSO astrophotos from this site. During the summer as the University term ends, the U Physics Department holds weekly Wednesday night star parties on the roof of the South Physics Building that are open to the general public. Presumably, the general public access is related to their Eccles grant. The Wednesday night star parties for this year have started. See the calendar at - http://web.utah.edu/astro/ Being older and too lazy to set up my Orion 10" after work during the week, I inquired with Paul whether it would be appropriate to show up on Wednesday nights with my box of lenses to use a pier mounted scope on the general public observing night. Paul said that could be accomodated. A 7pm weather satellite image check indicated things did not look good. A heavy weather front was over western Nevada heading towards Utah. At 8pm I drove out to SPOC and toured the line of 10-15 telescopes. The 4.6 day-old waxing Moon's crescent was bright with a good ashen Earthshine. The Moon did not set until after 10pm. The DSOs were washed, so most of my notes and interest went to lunar targets using a 10" DOB manned by Bill Cowles, Nate Goodman's 4.25 refractor and Bruce Grimm's LX100. Prominent at the south lunar pole was a single peak in the Leinbitz Mountains that stuck up into the sunlight from the unilluminated dark portion of the disk. These are the south lunar pole peaks that NASA is talking about for potential lunar power stations, since these high peaks remain in almost continuous sunlight. Leibnitz Mountains near South Lunar Pole LPOD 12/04/2006 Rukl 74 http://www.lpod.org/?m=20061204 On the floor of Mare Fecunditatis, the ray of Messier and Messier A was easily seen with crisp resolution. Messier and Messier A ray LPOD 5/20/2004 http://www.lpod.org/archive/archive/2004/05/LPOD-2004-05-20.htm Rima and Rupes Cauchy were exceptional in both the 10" DOB and a 4.25" refractor. Lunar domes Tau and Omega Cauchy had good definition in the 10" and to the practiced eye could just be seen in the 4.25". Rima Cauchy, Rupes Cauchy, Tau and Omega Cauchy LPOD 10-12-2006 Rukl 36 http://www.lpod.org/?m=20061012 Towards 9:30pm the weather cleared with some low clouds in the western horizon. I then drove to This is the Place Monument (TITPM), arriving at the tail end of the star party after 10pm. SLAS President Bob was being interviewed by Channel 4. He said there had been about 26 scopes set up earlier in the evening. The wind was quite high - 5 to 10 mph - off the mouth of Emigration Canyon, with the wind chill sending temperatures effectively into the low 30's. The TITPM plaza has an excellent physical layout to support lunar, solar and double star parties where a 3 to 4 mag light polluted sky that limits DSO viewing is not a controlling consideration. A paved circular plaza, about 150 feet in diameter overlooks the city lights but is sufficiently removed from the 800 South street and Hoogle Zoo night lighting. The parking lot pavement abutts the plaza and allows for easy loading and unloading. Tourist parking can accommodate several hundred cars. It was dark, so I was unable to see if there were any outdoor power cord outlets on the plaza. There is a large two story building north of plaza, but it was unclear whether it is only a concession stand or whether it contains a room suitable for public lectures. A club member, I believe Randy Goodrich, had a Meade ETX on the Moon, which was still bright and 30 degrees above the horizon. Due to wind conditions, applicable for high magnification was not possible. Vallis Rhetia and its nearby fractured floor crater - Janssen - were prominent. Rhetia Valley LPOD 2/2/2006 Rukl 68 http://www.lpod.org/?m=20060202 Coopermine image by George Tasroudis http://lpod.org/coppermine/displayimage.php?pos=-106 Janssen LPOD 6/19/2004 Rukl 68 http://www.lpod.org/archive/archive/2004/06/LPOD-2004-06-19.htm The prominent central peak of 89km dia. crater Vlacq was seen sticking up into the sunlight from the shadowed depths of the crater. Vlacq - LPOD 3/25/2005 Rukl 75 http://www.lpod.org/archive/LPOD-2005-03-25.htm At home after 1:00am, I took a short peak outside. The Moon had set and the Virgo Realm of the Galaxies was well-placed on the zenith. The sky was clear and calm to the horizon. I suspect those SPOC members who toughed it out into the early morning hours where having a good time on DSOs. - Kurt fna Canopus56 _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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Asteriod 2007 HB 15 visibility?
by Kurt Fisher 24 Apr '07

24 Apr '07

Patrick, On 2007 HB 15 in your Daily News, I checked on the JPL NEO Orbit Diagram site and ran an emphemeris on the JPL Horizons site. The JPL ephemeris is showing the asteriod at mag 19, below the horizon except before sunrise and is not visible from Salt Lake considering that the Moon is past 1st qtr. But JPL Horizons mag estimates are usually way off. Are you hearing anything different on the asteriod's magnitude on your minor planet listservs? Will it be sufficiently bright to be worth a try? - Kurt P.S. - I'm staying in bed on this one. -:) JPL Horizons Ephemeris Generator http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?find_body=1&body_group=sb&sstr=2007%20… JPL NEO Orbit diagrams http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db_shm?sstr=2007+HB15&group=all 2007 HB 2007 SLC Epheremis - UTC Date and Time beginning 6pm 4/24 Date UTC-Time Comment-flag RA-Dec Az-Alt Mag 2007-Apr-25 00:00 *m 20 09 50.49 +20 09 20.6 337.2224 -25.7883 17.23 2007-Apr-25 01:00 *m 20 33 02.12 +19 21 32.9 346.4707 -28.7410 17.55 2007-Apr-25 02:00 *m 20 54 13.62 +18 29 18.5 356.8945 -30.6741 17.89 2007-Apr-25 03:00 Nm 21 13 22.28 +17 35 20.0 8.2952 -31.2210 18.24 2007-Apr-25 04:00 m 21 30 31.57 +16 41 39.3 20.2135 -30.0902 18.59 2007-Apr-25 05:00 m 21 45 48.69 +15 49 38.7 32.0632 -27.1543 18.93 2007-Apr-25 06:00 m 21 59 22.68 +15 00 07.8 43.3520 -22.4765 19.26 2007-Apr-25 07:00 m 22 11 23.19 +14 13 31.2 53.8343 -16.2640 n.a. 2007-Apr-25 08:00 m 22 21 59.79 +13 29 56.7 63.5210 -8.7912 n.a. 2007-Apr-25 09:00 m 22 31 21.59 +12 49 20.8 72.6086 -0.3417 n.a. 2007-Apr-25 10:00 22 39 37.17 +12 11 34.0 81.4141 8.8152 n.a. 2007-Apr-25 11:00 A 22 46 54.48 +11 36 23.6 90.3572 18.4194 n.a. 2007-Apr-25 12:00 N 22 53 20.95 +11 03 35.9 100.0024 28.1913 n.a. _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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Re: Stereo A and B Sats - First 3D images released today
by Kurt Fisher 24 Apr '07

24 Apr '07

Patrick wrote on Solar A and B: > Now I just need to figure how to include them in my public lectures. I'm still waiting to see Solar A and B to show some hi-res 3D closeups of flares. The full solar disk in a 3D image isn't that impressive. The TRACE homepage has a DVD site from which you can download "best of" stills and movies in a DVD format. Unfortunately, the DVD image files are 3 Gigs. I'm still angling to get the right computer (with a DVD burner) with enough free disk space hooked to a high-speed connection in order to download and burn the TRACE movie disk. If I get a disk burned, I'll make an extra for you. - Kurt _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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Astronomy-Earth Day 2007 in Utah - Notes
by Kurt Fisher 24 Apr '07

24 Apr '07

Guy wrote, >I wonder why the media didn't bother coming out to SPOC??? > That's odd. Thanks Guy, but I'm not up for a discussion on intra-club politics and the wisdom of expanding SLAS programs. I was just out trying to enjoy the weekend and some astronomy after working on Saturday. Please start your own thread if you want to go into that topic. - Kurt _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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Stereo A and B Sats - First 3D images released today
by Kurt Fisher 24 Apr '07

24 Apr '07

The Stereo A and B solar satellites are in position and a couple of hours ago, NASA released the satellites first 3D solar images. For those of you who still have 3-D glasses left over from the Mars rovers, enjoy - http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/stereo3D_press.html http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/main/index.html The other new cool solar sat out there is Hinode (Solar-B) that knocks the socks off the ever impressive TRACE sat. Hinode (Solar-B) http://solarb.msfc.nasa.gov/ (NASA) http://solar-b.nao.ac.jp/index_e.shtml (JAXA) TRACE http://trace.lmsal.com/POD/TRACEpod.html - Kurt P.S. - I find a good way to carry around my 3D glasses in my computer bag is to trim the size of the glasses down with scissors and store them in an empty CD case. _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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Astronomy-Earth Day 2007 in Utah - Notes
by Kurt Fisher 23 Apr '07

23 Apr '07

Joe B, mia cuplaed with: > When I realized I'd missed Astronomy Day, I believed > I had not received an e-mail about it but Ann showed me that I had. As usual, kudos to Ann House for print publicizing the event. The Trib article was well placed and had all the dates and places. There was a "lesson learned" for the rest of the observing season to come out of a TV station showing up at TITPM. If the broadcast media _might_ show up, have a current DSO photo ready for pickup off the internet (taken the night of the event or the day before, so it is "news") and one astrophotography scope set up. The TV station was looking for a live feed through a scope to put on air but at TITPM no one brought a CCD camera. In any event, Channel 4 did not appear to broadcast a story - at least I did not catch it channel surfing one of their Sunday night news programs. With the wireless service at SPOC, there is an opportunity on the night before or on the night of star parties to broadcast a live internet mpeg3 or mpeg4 feed between 10:15 pm and 10:30pm for pickup during TV weather segments. The club could offer the live feed to the stations to pick up as desired. That might give a boost to the already well-attended SPOC-Tooele events. The Apple PC application-operating system is well-setup to do live internet broadcasts "out-of-the-box"; I am still working on the details on how to do this on an IBM PC. - Kurt _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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