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

Sunrise from Space....
by Project Pegasus 29 Dec '09

29 Dec '09

To the Utah Astonomy Club.... I recently sent out an email to Patrick Wiggins telling him of a project where we launched a helium balloon into the stratosphere, where we had camera equipment to take pictures for us and GPS and barometric equipment to track where and how high the balloon went. We were very excited about the project. We got back some very cool pictures of the stratosphere where it reached a height of just over 108,000 feet. Here is a link to our site which contains pictures and additional details: http://sites.google.com/site/viewearthfromspace/ There is also a little write-up of our project, which we named project Pegasus, in the Deseret News: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705354180/Utahns-aposballoonapos-into-st… We are looking to do an additional launch this coming spring where we do a pre-dawn launch where at the apex of the balloon flight we would like to capture the sun peaking around the back side of the earth. We are also trying to coordinate a night launch where there is some astronomical event occurring such as (meteor showers, eclipse, etc.) These two different things may or may not be able to be achieved on a single launch. What we are reaching out to each of you is if you have any input on a couple of the following questions: 1) Based on a launch of 100,000 feet and launching from approx Fort Collins, Colorado, what time in the morning do you think the camera in the balloon cargo would see the sun peaking around the earth at approx. 100,000 feet? 2) What are up-coming astronomical events would you consider being a nice time to plan the launch around? Also, we welcome input for other considerations that we may not be aware of. We are aware that the experience your club has is really helpful to make up for the lack of experience on our side. Thanks for your time and feel free to add comments to our website or respond to this email. We would also be open to coming to any of your upcoming gatherings to discuss any of this in person. Thanks Again, Jonathan and Mihir <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com>

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Roboscopes
by Gary Vardon 27 Dec '09

27 Dec '09

Fellow SLASers I have used the Shooh remote site and have seen some awesome views which I have photographed. I recommend Shooh highly. 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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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Sunrise from Space....
by Gary Vardon 27 Dec '09

27 Dec '09

Fellow SLASers, Yours truly also helped on a few weather balloon launches this year. The purpose of the project was to detect and measure lake breezes from the Great Salt Lake which were noted and measured. 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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Re: [Utah-astronomy] NGC7320
by Canopus56 27 Dec '09

27 Dec '09

Jerry, You are not being a pain. Thanks for the benefit of your studied on eye on the flats and darks. I am a sure that I downloaded what was in the "darks" directory and not the bias directory. I was perplexed as you are, principally because the files in the GRAS-14 calibration directories are prefixed "G12" - which would indicate that they are for the GRAS-12 scope. The GRAS owner, Arnie Rosen does not respond on email. He hangs out on Skype to provide live tech support. I have not installed Skype, so I have not contacted him. Clear Skies - Kurt

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Clavius and friends
by Patrick Wiggins 27 Dec '09

27 Dec '09

Approaching weather caused me to not try the hours-long project I'd scheduled for tonight after finishing with Nova Eri 2009. But the weather was still good enough that I really didn't want to shut down right away so I thought I's have a go at the Moon. I didn't want to removed the camera since that would mean shooting all new flats so I had to keep the C-14 at f/5.5 (only about 2,000mm EFL). With that fast a system even a .001" exposure overexposed the image. But using my darkest filter (blue), the least sensitive binning (1x1) and a .001" exposure I was able to get an ok image: http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/CLAVIUS001.JPG For the selenologists out there (Kurt?) that's Bullialdus in the upper right. The ejecta rays are from Tycho which is just off to the right center of the image. Clavius is at bottom right (sorry 2001 fans but no sign of Clavius Base). Actually I was feeling pretty good about the image until I saw this one taken with another C-14: http://www.celestronimages.com/details.php?image_id=2914 Ah, but looking at this refractor image http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/C/Clavius_crater.html 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. Any takers? patrick

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NGC7320
by Jerry Foote 27 Dec '09

27 Dec '09

HI Kurt, Sorry to be such a pain. The Dark image "091206_0141_Darks_300_033.zip" appears to be very similar to the Bias image. Also this Dark image does not have what I would expect to see in a dark image. I wonder if the GRAS people have gotten the calibration images mixed/confused or whatever. As I had mentioned previously the Bias image should have only a very minor if any gradient. The only reason for a gradient in the bias image is if the readout is slow and some thermal electrons are collected. The STL-1100 camera specs from SBIG says that it does take about 26 seconds to download which at 0 C should only generate about 13 electrons per pixel or at a gain of 0.8, 10 ADU's.. The reason I think these images are "troubled" is that the Dark frame has a Mean pixel value of 860 ADU's while the Bias frame has a Mean pixel value of 1157 ADU's. Clearly since the Dark frame signal should include the Bias frame signal it MUST be larger, unless the Bias frame has been already subtracted from the Dark frame. The header of each image does not indicate that any processing has been done on these images although it could have been done and not noted in the header of either. Jerry Foote ScopeCraft, Inc. 4175 E. Red Cliffs Dr. Kanab, UT 84741 435-899-1255 jfoote(a)scopecraft.com

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LP Survey in National Parks
by Jay Eads 27 Dec '09

27 Dec '09

Sorry if this is a repost but I found this information over at CloudyNights and felt it was interesting. Tom T who works for the National Park Service is putting up light domes for the national parks. Here is the first one over on Colorado that you can view in google earth: http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showthreaded&Number=1289032&#… See his first attachment which is a KMZ file ( like being able to use this view in Google Earth to view interactively how the LP is in a national park, or how the NP is being impacted by LP). From this site http://www.nature.nps.gov/air/lightscapes/monitorData/index.cfm you can read about the project and few the older data for Arches, Canyonlands and Natural Bridges. Sorry, no Zion's in there yet. He states in this threadhttp://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/3515… that the team he is on is tasked with going to all of the national parks so I'm sure we'll see one for Zion's and I think it will be interesting. Here is the 2003 report from Arches: http://www.nature.nps.gov/air/lightscapes/monitorData/arch/aR20030603.cfm Canyonlands 2003 http://www.nature.nps.gov/air/lightscapes/monitorData/cany/gP20030602.cfm "one of the darkest sites yet visited" Natural Bridges 2003: http://www.nature.nps.gov/air/lightscapes/monitorData/nabr/lDI20030604.cfm "The ONLY Bortle class 2 sky seen to date" It will be nice to see this updated. I did leave a post to Tom on whether he would like input from the old timers here who have been using the parks since I was a teen in California and backpacking in the Sierra Nevada. I hope this is something the Park Service does like once every 10 years so perhaps we can preserve the dark skies in these treasured spots.

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IIS
by jim Gibson 27 Dec '09

27 Dec '09

I woke up this morning and was gazing out the window while lying in bed and saw a star-like light cursing across the sky. I thought it might be the IIS so I looked it up and sure enough the IIS cruised over Utah valley about 6am. I can’t think of anything more fun than star gazing while lying in a nice worm bed.

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Nova Eri 2009 update
by Patrick Wiggins 27 Dec '09

27 Dec '09

Going, going, but a long way to go until it gets to it's pre-eruption magnitude of ~14: http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/NOVAERI2009.JPG patrick

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Yesterday's Sun Tunnel solstice pictures
by Patrick Wiggins 25 Dec '09

25 Dec '09

I've added two aerial pictures I took yesterday of Sun Tunnels to the page I maintain on the subject. As bad luck would have it, of the 50 or so that I took none of them lined up with the ones I have on the page showing a June Solstice sunset. Guess I'll try again next year. http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/SUNTUNNELS.HTML patrick

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