November 2009 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Leonid weather report
by daniel turner 17 Nov '09

17 Nov '09

For tonights peak of the Leonid meteor shower the good news is that the weather will be clear and the moon is out of the night time sky. The bad news is the weather. Last night at the Pony Express marker, which is close to "pit n pole", the temperature dropped to zero and the humidity spiked up to 90 percent. So anything optical like a telescope, or camera lense will suffer from frost and be useless without vigorous countermeasures. There is no measurable inversion so climbing up a ridge line will not get you out of these frost conditions. I would suggest anyone going out to try leave the optics home and plan on a survival strategy like two cars and a tow strap. As well as your warmest winter clothing. I plan to go to Little Mountain after midnight but don't plan to say long enough to get frostbite. Good Luck DT

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Cooling Modification for Canon Rebel
by David Rankin 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

Here is a project I've been working on based of another modification done by a member on cloudy nights for anyone who is interested. The idea for those not acquainted with this, is to cool the sensor of the camera down as much as possible. This reduces your background noise and makes your frames retain much more of the original light signal coming off the object your shooting. It helps create a much better signal to noise ratio, which makes for higher quality stacks of images with less light frames. I based my "cold finger" design off of the one by Anat here http://thaiastro.nectec.or.th/hypermod/ My goal was to preserve the functionality of the camera after the modification for daytime use as well, unlike what Anat and others have done, which is to totally convert the DSLR into an astro-only camera. The cold finger is the aluminum slid under the circuit board for the cmos, and above the actual cmos itself. This is then all sealed up with hot glue to prevent moisture buildup when cooling. Images from my version of the hyper mod. http://www.rankinstudio.com/dnloads/mod1.JPG http://www.rankinstudio.com/dnloads/mod2.JPG http://www.rankinstudio.com/dnloads/mod3.JPG http://www.rankinstudio.com/dnloads/mod4.JPG http://www.rankinstudio.com/dnloads/testrun.jpg Below are crops from the center of the sensor uncooled, and cooled. Can see a significant noise drop. I am not sure what the exact temperature of the sensor is as I didn't have a temperature gauge to install there, but the measurement where the cold finger entered the camera was around 45 deg F after only 4 or 5 minutes of cooling. These are dark frames (taken with the lens covered to show the noise signal) 4 minutes long at very high sensitivity/gain ISO 1600. http://www.rankinstudio.com/temptest <http://rankinstudio.com/temptest> Ill update when it is finished. Cheers, David Rankin

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Vanguard 1 tonight
by Patrick Wiggins 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

I just noticed Vanguard 1 (oldest satellite in space) is making two nice passes over Utah tonight: http://tinyurl.com/yjhv8yv I've seen it a couple of times before. As might be expected, to see a 15 cm sphere over a thousand km away, a telescope is required to see it. patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Utah-Astronomy Digest, Vol 81, Issue 15
by Ray Druian 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

utah-astronomy-request(a)mailman.xmission.com wrote: > S > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Chuck Hards" <chuck.hards(a)gmail.com> > To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 9:38 PM > Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] was Free flick Saturday -- was S&L now L&O > > > >> Saturday Nov. 21 (next Saturday) at noon sounds good, so Rodger can make >> it. >> Let's stick with Lambs for this one, I couldn't find an on-line menu for >> Lttle America. >> >> Who else? Jim? Rich? Erik, can you make it this time? Kurt, Daniel, >> Patrick, Roger Butz? Anybody and everybody is welcome, you need not order >> liver and onions (your loss). There is a TRAX platform only a minute >> away. >> >> Last time the discussion centered mostly on (surprise) amateur astronomy >> in >> the area, with a few diversions. >> >> Let us know asap so I can call the restaurant and let them know how much >> liver they'll need to have on-hand. > > > > > Count me in. And I *WILL* order L&O. B.Ray Druian --

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Citizen Sky Challenge
by Jay Eads 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

Not sure if anybody has not seen this but in case. There is a challenging challenge on Citizen Sky http://www.citizensky.org/content/mini-campaign-eclipse-zeta-aurigae It's a mini campaign on zeta Aurigae. It is undergoing a short eclipse (compared to epsilon Aurigae) with a dip of only 0.1 mag sometime this month. Thus it will be quite a feat for even advanced observers. Here is some information on it: Zeta Aurigae is a bright (V ~ 3.75 out of eclipse), northern eclipsing variable with a known period of 2.66 years. The system contains a hot, luminous B7V star and a more luminous K5II star. During primary eclipse (which occurred in March 2009), the blue B7V star is obscured by the larger orange K5II star. The secondary eclipse is more difficult to detect, because the B7V star obscures a small portion of the K5II star's light. The approximate date of the eclipse is November 17, 2009, with an anticipated duration of about 40 days. The K5II star is known to exhibit variations of 0.05 magnitude, therefore high precision photometry is necessary for this short campaign. The anticipated eclipse depth is very shallow, perhaps 0.1 mag, and is not well characterized. Given this information, obtaining visual estimates of the system may prove to be difficult, and obtaining good photometry of the eclipse may be a challenge. Therefore I request that Experienced observers, both photometric and visual contribute observations of the eclipse during the remainder of the month of November and the first few weeks of December. Inexperienced observers are encouraged to add Zeta Aurigae to the list of 10-star tutorial target objects and submit their data as detailed in the 10-star tutorial in order to hone their observing skills. Visual observers may find this particular star difficult to observe due to the anticipated slight change in magnitude. Please observe the star two or three times per week, using the charts available via. VSP or from the AAVSO website. Instrumental observers of all kinds are also requested to take part. Photoelectric observers belonging to the AAVSO PEP-V program may submit data as usual via. the WebObs feature of the Blue&Gold section of the AAVSO website. If your interested, you can go here http://www.citizensky.org/forum/mini-observing-campaign-secondary-eclipse-z… and read the entire link.

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Free flick Saturday
by Patrick Wiggins 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

The U will screen the 1964 scifi flick "First Men in the Moon" Saturday evening at 7:15 in the Union Theater. Free admission. Free popcorn. Here's the original trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9Dw85TJJTM And here's the U's advert: http://www.physics.utah.edu/calendar/FilmFestPoster.pdf patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] H.A. Rey's The Stars A New Way to See Them going out of print?
by Gary Vardon 14 Nov '09

14 Nov '09

I have the Rey book too. I used it for years. It does not have deep sky objects but it was good for constellation work Too bad that light pollution makes most of the stars impossible to observe in city skies. Sincerely, Gary Vardon The book DO It Right will help you understand vital ideas leading to your geater success. GO to PublishAmerica.

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Scope Buddies
by Jay Eads 13 Nov '09

13 Nov '09

There is a website where if you want you can sign up to and make a list of observing buddies and contact them via email to set up times to observe with. The site is found here at http://www.scopebuddies.com/ Not sure if anyone here would use it but thought it was a good idea.

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First Light ceremony on the 11th
by Patrick Wiggins 12 Nov '09

12 Nov '09

All are welcome: http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/FIRSTLIGHT.PDF See you there! patrick

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Which Carbon Star Tonight?
by Jay Eads 12 Nov '09

12 Nov '09

Riverton High is having a star party tonight and I'm going to take my daughter whose in the astronomy class and the instructor has invited me. I'm taking the distance AoP kit with me to do but thought about showing some doubles since the moon is up. I'll probably stick with Alberio and Epsilon Lyrae. Then it hit me that perhaps a carbon star might be a good contrast as well. Out of the following any that would just stick out? 9 Piscium, TX Piscium Z Piscium S Sculptoris R Sculptoris I'm thinking Z Piscium. Would welcome any thoughts as I haven't viewed these yet. Thanks.

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