July 2008 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Dusk line-up
by Chuck Hards 14 Jul '08

14 Jul '08

That was quite an aesthetic lineup tonight...I hope everyone got to see it. The moon sure looked reddened, didn't it?

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Some bright ISS overpasses for early risers to Sunday
by Canopus56 14 Jul '08

14 Jul '08

Most are in the wee-hours of the morning. Three are evening hours: Friday 18 July 2008 22h55m55s -3.5mag alt: 53.3 Saturday 19 July 2008 21h44pm -4.0mag alt: 41.4 Sunday 20 July 2008 22h08pm -3.3mag alt 52.8 A couple are low southern horizon skirters and may be suitable, from a darksky site to take an image of the ISS streaking across the galactic core in Sgr-Oph. Friday 18 July 2008 0h07am -1.2mag alt 22m33s Saturday 19 July 2008 23h19am -1.1mag alt: 21.8 >From Calsky: Tuesday 15 July 2008 5:19am -1.0 mag alt 25 Appears 5h14m37s -0.5mag az:312.8° NW Culminates: 5h19m17s -1.0mag az: 25.0° alt h:23.4° elevation of sun: -9° Wednesday 16 July 2008 5h43m am -3.4 mag alt 58.9 Appears 5h38m11s -0.6mag az:308.3° NW Culminates: 5h43m05s -3.4mag az: 33.9° NE alt: 58.9° Disappears 5h47m58s 0.3mag az:119.4° ESE elevation of sun: -5° Thursday 17 July 2008 4h31 am -1.1 mag alt 23.5 Appears 4h26m49s -0.3mag az:312.8° NW Culminates: 4h31m29s -1.1mag az: 25.1° alt: 23.5° elevation of sun: -16° Friday 18 July 2008 0h07am -1.2mag alt 22m33s Appears 0h02m59s -0.0mag az:264.5° W Culminates: 0h07m33s -1.2mag az:335.7° alt 22 Disappears 0h09m51s -0.8mag az: 30.1° NNE h:10.3° elevation of sun: -25° Friday 18 July 2008 4h55 am -3.6mag Appears 4h50m23s -0.5mag az:308.3° NW Culimnates: 4h55m16s -3.6mag az: 34.0° NE alt: 59.4° Disappears 5h00m09s 0.1mag az:119.6° ESE elevation of sun: -13° Friday 18 July 2008 22h55m55s -3.5mag alt: 53.3 Appears 22h51m07s -0.1mag az:242.5° Culminates: 22h55m55s -3.5mag az:326.8° alt: 53.3° elevation of sun: -18° Saturday 19 July 2008 3h43m39s am -1.2mag alt: 23.5 Appears 3h39m00s -0.1mag az:312.8° NW Culminates: 3h43m39s -1.2mag az: 25.2° alt: h:23.5° Disappears 3h48m19s 0.2mag az: 97.5° E elevation of sun: -21° Saturday 19 July 2008 5h18am -4.0mag alt: h37.3 Appears 5h14m05s -0.7mag az:300.1° Culmination 5h18m52s -4.0mag az:222.1° alt: h:37.3° Disappears 5h23m39s -0.4mag az:144.0° SE elevation of sun: -9° Saturday 19 July 2008 21h44pm -4.0mag alt: 41.4 Appears 21h39m42s -0.4mag az:218.2° SW Culminates: 21h44m26s -4.2mag az:138.5° SE alt: 41.4° Disappears 21h49m13s -0.7mag az: 59.0° ENE elevation of sun: -9° Saturday 19 July 2008 23h19am -1.1mag alt: 21.8 Appears 23h15m07s 0.3mag az:264.7° W Culminates: 23h19m42s -1.1mag az:335.8° alt: h:21.8° elevation of sun: -21° Sunday 20 July 2008 4h07am -3.8mag alt 34 Appears 4h02m32s -0.3mag az:308.2° NW Culminates: 4h07m24s -3.8mag az: 34.0° NE alt: 59.9° Disappears 4h12m17s -0.2mag az:119.7° ESE elevation of sun: -19° Sunday 20 July 2008 22h08pm -3.3mag alt 52.8 Appears 22h03m12s 0.1mag az:242.6° WSW Culminates: 22h08m00s -3.3mag az:326.8° alt: 52.8° Disappears 22h12m50s -0.5mag az: 51.1° NE elevation of sun: -12°

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Io Moon Eclipse Reappear Event
by Canopus56 13 Jul '08

13 Jul '08

Tonight at July 14, 2008 at 2:19am MDT, observers in the Intermountain USA region near 110 west long with have an opportunity to observe or make a time-lapse image an unusual eclipse reappear event of the Jovian satellite Io. Io will appear emerge from the shadow of Jupiter a short distance from the planet. Io will appear to "wink on" next to the planet's disk. Details at: Star Party Presentations for 111W Longitude - Observing the Eclipse of Jovian Satellites during 2008 http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/tours/JMEcl2008/JupEclSP.h… JPL/NASA Horizon's simulated view http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/tours/JMEcl2008/imgs/20080… - Kurt

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More astronomy podcasts
by Patrick Wiggins 11 Jul '08

11 Jul '08

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures Podcasts http://www.astrosociety.org/education/podcast/index.html patrick

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Jupiter opposition Wed 7-9 mag -2.8
by Canopus56 07 Jul '08

07 Jul '08

Jupiter will be a opposition on Wednesday, July 9. It has brightened by about 1 magnitude over the last month and is currently quite brillant at -2.8. Venus is at mag. -3.8. - Kurt

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A Summertime Exercise
by daniel turner 06 Jul '08

06 Jul '08

A Summertime Exercise Last weekend I was observing Messier globular clusters with binoculars. At some point wondered if it's possible to view them all at this time of year. I managed to see 27 out of a possible 29 without much difficulty. M68 was lost in Corvus to the West and M79 is in the winter sky under Orion. Doing the tour with hand held binoculars was a good exercise in star hopping. The most difficult were M75 and M70 in Sagittarius and M72 in Aquarius. The last to show was M30 in Capricorn some time after midnight. The next night I had my Dobsonian out and used the setting circles to do the same tour leisurely between other objects of interest. Looking at so many in one night shows the wide variety in these objects, from the misty glow of M71 to the stark core collapse of M15 to the broad expanses of M13, M22, and M55. Each one has it's own character. I recommend this exercise with any optics no matter the size. >From Wolf Creek this weekend it was fantastic. DT

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Dusk line-up
by daniel turner 06 Jul '08

06 Jul '08

I saw it from Wolf Creek with Rob Taylor Saturday night. Oddly we were the only ones from SLAS up there. The conditions were great and we stayed until 4 AM when the dawn glow started. Where was everyone else? DT

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Saturday Night at Wolf Creek
by Robert Taylor 06 Jul '08

06 Jul '08

Saturday July 5th: SLAS had a star party scheduled at the Wolf Creek observing site. Only 2 SLAS members, Daniel Turner and Robert Taylor showed to what turned out to be probably one of the best skies I have seen in Utah, yes, rivaling the best of Bryce Canyon. There were some early clouds right around sunset creating a few doubts but very shortly after sunset the clouds disappeared not to return at all for the remainder of the night. A pretty crescent Moon didn't stay with us long and soon dropped below the horizon leaving the sky an inky black with the exception of a little sky glow out to the west that didn't affect the western sky too much. Overall the skies were very transparent, the Milkyway blazed away with sharp clear dust lanes and massive and distinctive star fields reaching across the entire sky from horizon to horizon leaving both Daniel and myself to comment that "there were too many stars". The Veil was incredible, M7 and M6 in Sagittarius were easy naked eye objects, the Lagoon Nebula was very obvious. We were treated a nice transit of Io across Jupiter starting around 1am, we watched as a distinctive bullet hole shadow marched across the disk of Jupiter till the early hours. We were joined by family camping near the observing site. They were struggling to learn to use a nice Orion XT8 they recently acquired. We showed them how to find objects and showed them around the sky a bit showing them what an 8" can do with a fantastic sky. They joined us at our scopes as we toured the night sky with them for over an hour going from one object to another. The sky was so clear many of the objects we hunted were naked eye and easy and very bright targets for the big Dob, lots of OOOHS, AAAHS and WOWS. They were ready for bed by 1:30 am; we gave them a SLAS star party schedule and invited them to come to one of our star parties and left Daniel and myself to enjoy the sky for another few hours. We hunted down all manner of objects from nebulas, galaxies, and especially globulars, all were stunning in the dark clear steady sky with the 16" scope we were using. Daniel was scouring the sky with binoculars picking-off globular after globular intermixed with nebulas and galaxies racking up over 2 dozen globulars before night's end. By the early hours we could see the Pleiades rising above the trees to the east of the site followed by the early morning sky glow and called it a night. The temperatures stayed fairly mild all night, it dipped into the high 40s but the absence of any wind made the temps quite tolerable and even pleasant. The skies were very transparent and the seeing remained fairly steady all night long giving some of the best views of Jupiter I have ever enjoyed, the bands were very well defined, festoons were obvious and cloud details were many, the transit shadow was very obvious. Overall an outstanding night of observing, most satisfying, it was not a night to miss. Robert Taylor

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Bryce Astro Fest and publicity
by Kevin Poe 05 Jul '08

05 Jul '08

Hello All. I've been following the various threads with regard to Bryce Astronomy Festival. Here's come clarification / feedback. Our actual "contacts" were 6364. This means # of times we provided a specific experience / message to # of visitors. For example a family might attend the planet walk, the rocket workshop, my nocturnal ecology powerpoint, stargazing with the telescopes, and a constellation tour (or two) all in the same day. Thus they would get quadruple or quintuple counted. We are okay with this because all 4-5 of those activities are distinct. BUT the big question is how many distinct "people" over the entire 4 days, attended the event? My best guess is 2000-2500 because: 1) stargazing turned in the biggest #s (except with Story's program) with 670 per night. This means that we had to have had a minimum of 670 people each night. Multiply by 3 and add the 310 for Story on Wednesday and you get 2010. However from anecdotal evidence some attended 2 and 3 nights of the event so again double counting. Yet in Panguitch more than 1/2 did not stay for stargazing so the estimate would be closer to 2500. Speaking of the Panguitch event, my staff and I gave out over 1000 free tickets "good for the whole family" including free Saturday admission to Bryce (normally $25 value) across Southern Utah. We put up over 250 posters (50 on the Wasatch Front). I can tell you that 1/2 of 600ish people in attendance to Story's program were locals and that only 4 family groups came into the park on Saturday using their "Free Day" pass. 4 passes in not very good. This is why we will continue to hold 1 night of future festivals in Panguitch at the Triple-C arena to promote increased local awareness of our astronomy endeavors. I can't make a serious move on promoting local lighting ordinances without much stronger local support. THIS ALSO MEANS that contrary to what it says in the purple brochure and currently on our website WE WILL NOT be doing 2009 on July 22-25 because the Triple-C arena is not available. I'll hammer out dates for 2009 early this week. Thanks to Bob Moore's prioritization we will probably go around the new moon in June since he volunteered to postpone SLAS in Hawaii if we at Bryce needed you guys in June -- which of course we very much do. Currently we are being slammed by monsoon (not clearing until too late thunderstorms) so anything in July or August is really flying in the face of Global Climate Change. Used to be 10 years ago that most storms would blow through by dark but now many linger past midnight! My point is we pretty much have to stay in June to beat the weather. However it might not be exactly the new moon in June, because June also has other big events in Garfield County (motorcycle and balloon rally, etc) and we've been asked to plan around those so that we don't overflow the motels. Pretty cool huh?! We are now such a huge event that it matters to the town fathers when we go? Anybody besides Patrick and Don Colton remember the good old days when we only get 200 hundred people out to the scopes -- like the first and second Bryce Astronomy festivals? As for more advertising? Yes, we can always do more advertising. Problem is, it takes time and $ and results are never immediate. We got media attention like never before for this year's event and as long as we keep up the pace more and more will come to us. Articles like Rodger's will go a long way toward that. I'll also be starting a special group of VIPs (Volunteers in Parks) this winter that I'm tentatively calling "Poster Children." These folks, 2-4 per community, will be able to volunteer for Bryce Canyon from the comfort of their own neighborhoods with their primary duty being putting up posters and brochures for events like the Astronomy Festival when I send such materials to them by mail. Other events include our 1/2 marathon, Geology Festival, Winter Carnival, etc. as well as all of the public meeting we are required to host when big land management issues come up. The idea came about as my staff and I logged over 1300 miles and 54 staff hours in putting up posters and passing out brochures. Too much time and money says the big cheeses so we are gong to try this "Poster Children" approach. "Poster Children" will also be granted free entrance to Bryce anytime they and the same car load of friends or family want to visit. IF YOU FROM SLAS or anybody else you know would like to become "Poster Children" send a VERY brief resume to our VIP coordinator Jan Stock (also my wife) at her email address jan_stock(a)nps.gov. Selection (2-4 individuals per zip code) will be made based on. #1. Community Involvement -- circles of influence #2. Year-round Availability -- not wintering in Florida or summering in Alaska, etc. #3. Familiarity with Bryce Canyon and the National Park Service #4. Experience in event promotion The idea is that if we can get 100-200 people in the Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico area on a gigantic mailing list we can reach huge #s of people with the more direct and higher quality word-of-mouth approach and not be as dependent on the whims of mass media. P.S. thanks for inviting me to participate in these discussions!

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Misc astro obs ops 7-4 to 7-6
by Canopus56 03 Jul '08

03 Jul '08

All early morning stuff. But you do not need to go to work, so what the heck. Extracted principally from S&T Online Calendar - Kurt 7-4-2008 2:40am Jupiter GRS (kna the Great Orange Spot) transits; Jup alt 25 degs 7-4-20087 4:05am ISS Overpass mag -3.6 36 deg max alt, appears 36 above SE departs 13 above ENE 7-4,5,6-2008 4:30am Comet Boattini, mag 5-6, may be returning to visibility after passing between the Earth and Sun about 90 minutes before sunrise. See S&T chart at http://media.skyandtelescope.com/documents/Comet_boattini_julaug.pdf 7-4,5,6-2008 5:15am Mercury visible in north east just before sunrise; alt 5 to 7 degs 7-5-2008 4:28am ISS Overpass mag -4.2 59 deg max alt appears 32 above WSW departs 36 above NNE 7-5,6-2008 10:30pm Moon Mars Regulus Saturn grouped within 15 degs at western horizon. Wide angle photo op DSO roundup - At midnight, the Milky Way spinward arms are well-positioned between the eastern horizon and the zenith - giving a preview of July's grand tour objects. Vega and Hercules are directly overhead, making it a good time to image M13, M92 and M57. For deep planet hunters, M24 M23 and Pluto (mag 13 to 15) form an apparent right triangle in Sag with Pluto at the base of the triangle.

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