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

M57 +73PSW-3
by daniel turner 27 Mar '13

27 Mar '13

Mark your calendar for early evening May 7. Their will be a close encounter between the Ring nebula and periodic comet 73P. The comet will be close to earth so its exact position in the sky will depend stongly on your location on the globe. Go to spaceweather.com and use the link at the bottom of the page for "Observable Comets". 73p is in the list and includes orbital elements and a link for daily ephemerides. DT __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Nova in this evening's sky (Fwd from S & T)
by Patrick Wiggins 05 Jan '10

05 Jan '10

+++++ Nova in Eridanus This is an AstroAlert from Sky & Telescope. NOVEMBER 29, 2009 by Roger W. Sinnott An 8th-magnitude nova was discovered on November 25, 2009, by Koichi Itagaki of Yamagata, Japan. The new star lies in northeastern Eridanus, 6.9° west-southwest of Rigel. In an e-mail sent late on the evening of November 28th, Sky & Telescope Senior Editor Alan MacRobert writes, "Just spotted the nova in my 10x50 binocs on their wooden shoulder frame. Barely visible through the bright moonlight at about mag 8.4." The find was announced on CBET 2050, issued November 25th by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Itagaki was using an 0.21-meter (8.3-inch) patrol camera, but within 15 minutes he secured a confirming image with an 0.60-meter reflector. The nova lies at right ascension 4h 47.9m, declination –10° 11' (equinox 2000.0). +++++ It'll be about 7 degrees to the upper right of Rigel as Rigel is rising this evening about 8. Well placed for viewing as it transits about 1 tomorrow morning, about 40 degrees above the horizon as seen from SLC. patrick

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Orion's Latest Super Dobs
by JayLEads 03 Jan '10

03 Jan '10

Anyone see this link: http://www.telescope.com/control/category/ ~category_id=tbdt It's also on their facebook page found here http://www.facebook.com/ oriontelescopes Those are some big mirrors and scopes. I imagine you'd need a roof top or a very large scaffold to observe from. I don't think the wife would approve of this for me though . . .

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Astronomy vinyl stickers
by Dale Wilson 03 Jan '10

03 Jan '10

Hi all. I've had many inquiries about my graphics on the window of my truck. I have had several made and would like to part with them. See my "gallery page" on the slas web site for details. thanks, Dale http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2756

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Clavius and friends
by Canopus56 31 Dec '09

31 Dec '09

P.S. - To correct, my lunar camera is a DMK31AF03. http://www.theimagingsource.com/en_US/products/cameras/firewire-ccd-mono/dm… http://www.theimagingsource.com/en_US/products/cameras/firewire-ccd-mono/ Additionally, the DMK and many lunar imagers are capturing avi or in bmp format - which is an 8 bit 256 level and not a 16 bit tone range. Paradoxically, there is not the contrast range that you would expect in lunar imaging as compared to DSO imaging. HNY - Kurt

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Happy New Years from the Dark Ranger!
by Kevin Poe 31 Dec '09

31 Dec '09

Hello one and all! I'm enjoying 48hrs of fame this New Years. I'm on the NPS homepage – first image in the cycling sequence of title photos. www.nps.gov Yes, the beautiful photo is “photoshopped” - but not the way U think! The scene is real but just composed from 3 different exposures! During the same beautiful moon rise, I 1st shot Moon with 2X telephoto with high-speed -- 1/60 second exposure -- (motion of Moon's oribt and Earth's rotation cause Moon to blur at about 1/4 of a second exposure) & then 2 seconds later re-centered my camera on Powell Point @ 6x for a full 1 second exposure. Then I merged those 2 images with a silhouette taken by the Great Ron Warner at the same locale (top of the Tower Bridge Trail) during a full moon hike back in my skinny, short-haired days -- AND before the invention of the MP3 player, when I had to lug around a boom box (that's what I'm holding) to be able to play my nocturnal animal calls / recordings. If you look carefully you'll notice my name tag and badge are on the wrong sides. No, it's not that Jan dresses me funny I just reversed my silhouette to that I would be looking into the picture. Next month starts 1st ever snowshoe moon hikes at Bryce! Follow the link to our full moon hike schedule, pick a winter moon and come join us! Awesome blend of a few of my favorite things, red rocks, nocturnal wildlife, snow, and astronomy! Happy New Year! - kev -- By the 3rd millennium, the reckless use of light nearly vanquished the night. A formidable few rushed to defend the last sanctuaries of natural darkness. >From the national parks, armed with science, mythology and a love for all things nocturnal came warrior poets who pushed back against the light. They were called Dark Rangers, and no one knew their names. . . Kevin Poe 435-590-9498 (c)

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Clavius and friends
by Canopus56 31 Dec '09

31 Dec '09

Patrick wrote: > Kurt, do you have a camera and computer that meets your specs or will we need to look around? Any of your high-end SBIGs are fine. The current camera axe of choice amongst the best lunar imagers appears to be an Infinity 2M. Those are too pricey for my tastes, so a month ago, I bought the hot lunar imaging camera from two or three years ago, the ImageSource DMK A3US. But I recommend you use your existing SBIG and your computer. I am happy to bring out the ImageSource to do a comparison on results. With the Andy it is unlikely you will be unable to replicate the results the best lunar imagers due to tracking. Although you can use equivalent camera gear, their "sub-kilometer" feature results are in part due to high accuracy auto-guiding on lunar targets. They capture about 3 to 5 minutes of video, depending on seeing. Registax is no longer the tool of choice. The best lunar imagers have moved to AviStack - which auto-generates several hundred registration control points per control image. But it is the tracking that gets the pixels to be consistent from frame to frame - resulting in outstanding deconvolution. You can get fine results - and this is the level that I am on - with suboptimal tracking and then using Registax to register the images with a moving target between each frame. If you look closely that work of the best lunar imagers - their wide-fields are not accomplished with DSLRs (although some of these 4M to 8M pixel DSLRs are taking some wonderful lunar widefields). The best lunar imagers are taking "sub-kilometer" high-magnification frames and then creating a mosaic in Photoshop. That is how they get a lunar wide-field with exceptional feature crispness across the entire view. All of this beyond my practical skill level, but I follow it and that appears to be the technique used. Another thing about lunar imaging is that it is seasonal. The Moon is high after the autumnal equinox, across the winter solstice, and through the spring equinox. If you look at the best lunar images, they tend to be taken during those seasons and not during the summer, when the Moon at a lower altitude. That being said, there are times during the summer when the Moon's position in the eclipitic gives it a high altitude - they are limited to the very earlier morning hours around 4am with the Moon near 3rd quarter. Again, you shouldn't be deterred by any of the cautionary qualifiers that I've listed above. I'm sure you will be able to take great lunar images with the Andy. Clear Skies and HNY - Kurt

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Clavius and friends
by Canopus56 30 Dec '09

30 Dec '09

Patrick wrote: > I'm wondering if anyone out there might be interested in working with me > to use the Andy refractor out at SPOC next year to try some lunar and > planetary imaging Yes. For lunar imaging, think negative projection to f/25. f/5.5 and f/9 are too low. Use high speed video capture at 25 fps to catch the still air with an IR band-pass filter. For the C-14, consider stopping down - not for seeing, but to get the exposure time up if f/25 and the IR band-pass filter don't work. - Clear Skies, Kurt

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Sunrise from Space....
by Canopus56 30 Dec '09

30 Dec '09

Josephine, that was amazing home-brew stuff. Their maximum altitude was 108,000 ft and the highest picture that they post is from 92,000 ft. In contrast, for the low-low price of only $200,000, you can now book on the Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceship and fly to 72,000 ft. http://www.virgingalactic.com/booking/ Best use of a Walmart lunch pail (their instrument package housing) that I've ever heard of. Hat's off to Mihir and Jonathan. Thanks for giving us the head's up on your activities. Clear Skies - Kurt

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] WOW!
by Canopus56 30 Dec '09

30 Dec '09

Congrads, Joe. It was pretty amazing that a philantropist like Faukles took the time to weigh in personally. - Kurt

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