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

Re: [Utah-astronomy] Project Moonwatch of the 1950s? SLAS Participants
by Kurt Fisher 10 Sep '07

10 Sep '07

Chuck wrote: > Friday night at SPOC we noticed a "constellation" of > two satellites separated by only a couple of > degrees, moving south-to-north, among several > other single sightings. For reasons that I assume are related to the low U.S. launch angle of satellites discussed in the S&T Oct issue article, I usually only see the north-south moving polar satellites, often during polar alignment. Except for the shuttle, I never see east-west movers. - Kurt _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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Project Moonwatch of the 1950s? SLAS Participants
by Kurt Fisher 09 Sep '07

09 Sep '07

The Oct. issue of Sky & Telescope has a historical article on a satellite tracking program called Project Moonwatch begun with Sputnik. It continued through the 1970s. I was wondering if any of the more senior SLAS members might have participated in Moonwatch and have some personal recollections back in the time when there were not 11,000 artificial satellites orbiting the Earth. - Kurt _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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Subject: RE: [Utah-astronomy] Bryce Canyon trip - Look for gegenschien please
by Kurt Fisher 09 Sep '07

09 Sep '07

Kim - Although you are probably returning from the Capitol Reef star party and your question is dated, here are some follow-up notes. Kim wrote: > So, if I've done this right, the anti-solar point should > be about midway and north of a line between Neptune > and Uranus. Correct? For the sighting opportunties from Sept 6 to Sept 20, it is closer to north of Neptune, near beta Aqr (Sadalsud), at around 11:00 MDT. There are a couple of other parameters involved in identifying likely gegenschien sighting opportunities in addition to the basic constraint of identifying the anti-solar point. These additional constraints are related to the counter-glow's faintness relative to other objects. Those constraints are: 1) The Moon should be below the horizon - preferably less than 6 degs alt. 2) The Milky Way's disk should be more than 20 degrees away from the gegenschien region. 3) The gegenschien region should be at maximum altitude to minimize atmospheric extinction. These constraints generally combine to make the most likely sighting opportunities to occur when the anti-solar point transits the south meridian, the Moon is down, and the galactic disk is near the horizon. The link table that I posted time that meet those constraints with alt-az coordinates. The times are good for all Utah observing points regardless of latitude. I did not give right ascension and declination coordinates only alt and az. Most of the points are within 10 degrees alt and 10 degrees az of where the ecliptic crosses the meridian at the standard time listed in the table. http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/astromath/2007GegenschienE… As to photographing the gegenschien, Covington's _Astrophotography_ recommends: 1) 2 to 5 minute exposures at 400 ISO. 2) Take two images 1 hour apart to confirm that you have captured the gegenchien. Wide-field lenses can cause a brightening effect in the central field. The two photos should show the heightened brightness move with respect to the stellar background. In surveying web photos, I do not see anyone using specialty filters or polarizers to enhance the image. The poorest web image used a DSLR with a IR cut-off filter, but this is to be expected since the gegenschien is brighter in the near-IR. Polarizers were used in Spacelab experiments to image the zodical light in the 1970s. Because of the faintness of the gegenschien, I'd recommend first trying without any filters that would reduce the amount of captured light. Once you can capture an image, then try with Chuck's recommended polarizing filter. - Kurt _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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Re: Utah-Astronomy Digest, Vol 55, Issue 17 (Mercedes Gullwing)
by John R. Peterson 09 Sep '07

09 Sep '07

Finally, someone has brought up the World's Greatest Car! When I was 18, twice (!) my father let me drive his Fiat 124 Sport Coupe from San Francisco to Salt Lake and back. That, and the 124 Spider were the best cars Fiat ever made. Five main bearings on the crank shaft and dual overhead cams, that car would do 110 mph all day long (Oh, the days of no speed limits in Nevada!). On one trip I made the 810 miles in 9.5 hours, and that was with TWO gas stops. Go figure my average speed (BTW, gas mileage would drop from 30 to about 18 at those speeds). Foolishness of Youth. Anyway, the only car that passed me and STAYED past me on either trip was a 1956 or 57 silver 300SL Gullwing. I went by it at about 90 mph, he downshifted and when he shot passed it felt as if he was going about 60 mph faster (which he probably was). Later, I ran into him at a gas station on North Temple, and I got all the details: Inline 8 cylinder, oil cooled engine. . . I managed not to drool on it. Ever since, that's been the car of my dreams. The closest I'll ever come is the cast-metal Italian 12:1 model, which I nonetheless cherish. (I don't think it was Jack Gallivan-- the guy said he was a doctor) John R Peterson >Message: 7 >Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2007 21:36:16 -0600 >From: "Chuck Hards" <chuck.hards(a)gmail.com> >Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Re: SPOC >To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> >Message-ID: > <2541d8030709082036i5bcebc6cy45fad15040737ec4(a)mail.gmail.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > >Funny you should mention the gullwing. > >When I was a teen, I often would see Tribune editor (back then) Jack >Gallivan driving his silver gullwing Mercedes back and forth to work, near >our house next to the U of U. > >See? This thread is legitimate because some sports cars have "astronomical" >price tags! LOL. > >On 9/8/07, Patrick Wiggins <paw(a)wirelessbeehive.com> wrote: > >> BTW, this thread could turn out to be an expensive one for me. I >> miss my SL and now this thread has got me putting out feelers for my >> second most favorite SL, a "Pagoda top" 230 (most favorite is a 300 >> Gullwing but considering they're going for so much these days that a >> friend was recently able to trade his for a large house up >> Emmigration Canyon, and, well, sigh, it's just not realistic). >> > >

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Bright idea? Vegas may limit lights
by Randall Peterson 08 Sep '07

08 Sep '07

Never been to Bryce for star gazing - I assumed pitch black skies and no sign of Vegas. Not true? > I'll believe it when I see it. >Better still, I'll believe it when I can't see it (LV) >from Bryce >Canyon... >http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695207266,00.html >pw ____________________________________________________________________________________Ready for the edge of your seat? Check out tonight's top picks on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/

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Bill Kennedy/CTI is out of the office.
by Bill.Kennedy＠fiserv.com 07 Sep '07

07 Sep '07

I will be out of the office starting 09/06/2007 and will not return until 09/10/2007. I will respond to your message when I return.

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Generator
by Chuck Hards 07 Sep '07

07 Sep '07

Well tonight the wind blew so of course Rocky Mountain Power has failed in our neighborhood. I guess the gerbil in the treadmill died, or the extension cord got pulled out of the transformer or something. At any rate, for the first time since I got my generator (2 years ago) I'm running the house on it- and I have to say that it's more stable than the power company! Running the computer on gasoline right now (instead of coal and wind) and no complaints. I do run the generator for 10 minutes every 2 to 3 weeks just to keep it lubricated, change fuel every year and use Sta-bil in the gas. Joe Bauman, you've been running your laptop & telescope in the field from a generator for some time now; any insights or comments?

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Friday Night Observing
by Olhomorto＠aol.com 07 Sep '07

07 Sep '07

Anyone thinking of observing at the quarry, the pit, etc. tonight? ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour

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Bryce Canyon trip - Look for gegenschien please
by Kurt Fisher 06 Sep '07

06 Sep '07

For those of you going to Bryce, I would appreciate it you would look gegnschien at the following predicted opportunities computed for Salt Lake City. Bryce times, az and alts should be similar: Date MDT Az Alt 09/07/2007 01:00:00 171 42 09/08/2007 01:00:00 171 43 09/09/2007 01:00:00 171 43 09/10/2007 01:00:00 171 44 09/11/2007 01:00:00 171 44 For those of you who have not seen it, here are some photos: http://www.swisseduc.ch/stromboli/volcano/photoastro/gegenschein-en.html?id… http://www.swisseduc.ch/stromboli/volcano/photoastro/gegenschein-en.html http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061226.html - Kurt P.S. - This may post twice; my email server does not appear to be working right. Earlier in the year, I posted a gegenschien sighting opportunity calendar. http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/astromath/2007GegenschienE… _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net

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UTA has a scientific sense of humor :)
by Patrick Wiggins 06 Sep '07

06 Sep '07

http://media.bonnint.net/slc/211/21178/2117834.jpg pw

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