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

Re: [Utah-astronomy] Ghost Hunt Challenge for October
by Dunn, David 19 Sep '09

19 Sep '09

Jay, That sounds like a fun challenge. Oas will be at the Curlew campground (6 miles north of Snowville) on friday and saturday nights. Anybody is welcome to come out and observe with us. Dave ----- Original Message ----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces(a)mailman.xmission.com <utah-astronomy-bounces(a)mailman.xmission.com> To: Utah-Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thu Sep 17 07:02:16 2009 Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Ghost Hunt Challenge for October In the October issue of Astronomy magazine Stephen James O'Meara has an article about hunting the "Ghost Hunt Challenge." This is a list he put together of 109 "spooky objects." According to the article and the list it is 27 galaxies, 16 emission nebula, four reflection nebula, 19 planetary nebula, 14 globular clusters, three supernova remnants and one dark nebula. Seventy percent are not Messier objects, and these objects according to O'Meara "should be no more challenging to see." O'Meara suggests that his list could be used for a fall like Messier Marathon hunt. The new Moon in October is on Sunday the 18th so that weekend would be good for a Messier like Marathon to go after these 109 objects. Anyone planning on going after them? The list is available to subscribers at Astronomy.com. _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com

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SPOC tonight (Saturday)
by Patrick Wiggins 19 Sep '09

19 Sep '09

A reminder that SPOC will be open tonight (Saturday) for SLAS members and invited guests. I think it's safe to say that any non-SLASers subscribed to Utah- Astronomy can be considered an invited guest (since I just invited you). patrick

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minimalist astrophotography
by daniel turner 19 Sep '09

19 Sep '09

In case you think AP requires a lot of gear and effort. This is a picture I took with a 50mm lense and a fixed tripod. http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2420 Is it the first step down a slippery slope? Lord help me. DT

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Pit 'n Pole
by Jay Eads 19 Sep '09

19 Sep '09

David, I'm heading to Pit n Pole tonight. Not sure how late I'll be since I was out til 2:00a.m. last night. Last night at Grantsville Reservoir was fantastic. About 45 minutes after sunset the clouds cleared and the skies were outstanding. It looked like it was raining down by Pit n Pole (that direction) but skies cleared out really good in that direction so once the afternoon heat goes away I think we'll be ok. Storm arrives tomorrow afternoon from what I heard. See you there around 6:30p.m. or so. Jay On 2009-09-19 18:11, David Rankin wrote: > So, I believe I got my equipment issues sorted out, new laptop (old one > crashed). > > I know the forecast isnt great for the mountains, but it cleared out > nice last night. I am going to chance it tonight and head up to Pit 'n Pole. > I will probably be spending the night up there doing AP. Anyone else > interested in going? > > Check out the zoomify! > > http://www.rankinstudio.com/zoom > > David > >

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Club DOAA SSP - how to use?
by Canopus56 18 Sep '09

18 Sep '09

The club lent me their old DOAA stellar photometer. http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/Photometry/DOAA_SSP.JPG - but there is no manual. Its current successor is the Optec SSP series: http://www.optecinc.com/astronomy/ssp_main.htm For the older model, to confirm, is the brightness unit value simply the range knob number times the number on the indicator dial (1..100)? What is the indicator scale for 1..25 for? Thanks, Clear Skies - Kurt

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Thoughts on IYA by Guy Consolmagno
by Jay Eads 18 Sep '09

18 Sep '09

I found this over at the blog of Bro. Guy Consolmangno, co-author of the book Turn Left at Orion that many may be familiar with. Anyway, I really like the notion he brings up about one reason why some are doing things for IYA and beyond. Just thought a few might enjoy it. Recently (Oct. 2006 to Oct 2007) he served as Chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society and is the curator of the Vatican Meteorite collection and astronomer to the Vatican Observatory. He has a BA and MA from MIT and a PH.D. from Univ. of Arizona in Planetary Sciences. Enjoy. "Many years ago, long before I joined the Jesuits, I had been a postdoctoral fellow at MIT working on computer models to predict the internal evolution of the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. But I would go home at night, and lie awake in my bed at 3 am, wondering if this wasn’t just an enormous waste of time. Why should anyone care about the moons of Saturn when there were people starving in the world? How could I find making these computer models, which only a handful of people would ever study, a worthwhile center of my life? I had no answer. And so I quit my life as an astronomer, cleaned out my office, and went to join the US Peace Corps. I would go anywhere they sent me, I told them; I’d do whatever they asked me to do. I was there to serve people, not some inhuman computer screen. They happily took me in, taught me some Swahili, and within three months I was in Kenya… at the University of Nairobi, teaching graduate students astronomy. There was a certain logic to that job. I learned in Kenya that there is a word to describe people who lived “close to nature”: starving. People were indeed hungry in Kenya at that time, suffering through one of its periodic droughts. And I realized that, for all the ills of a technological society — pollution, alienation, the greed that comes with affluence — nonetheless in the course of human history it’s only the technologically sophisticated societies that have been able to feed their populace on a regular basis. A technologically sophisticated society needs an educated populace. That means schools. And schools need teachers. The students I was training in physics and astronomy all had jobs waiting for them at the Kenya Science Teacher’s College, to teach the teachers who would teach the students who (we hoped) would one day make the power grid in Kenya just a little more reliable. Astronomy was an easy way to teach the physics. But that wasn’t why they wanted me to teach them astronomy. I spent a good amount of my time in Kenya out of the city, up country, visiting the schools where my fellow Peace Corps volunteers were working… schools with no windows in the windows, no black on the blackboards. I would show my slides of spacecraft images (did you know there are slide projectors that can run off automobile batteries?) and at night I would set up my little telescope. Everyone in the village would line up to look at the craters on the Moon, the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter. The enthusiasm, the awe, the sheer joy in their faces was very familiar. It was the same look I would see when I set up the telescope to look at those very same objects back home in America. Of course, the skies in Kenya were much darker, free of factory and light pollution. The improved conditions left me in awe, as well. Then it finally occurred to me… no well-fed cow bothers to look through a telescope. No cat or dog, no matter how clever, is interested in seeing the images that spacecraft have sent us. People are interested in astronomy precisely because they are people. It is a human response to a human urge. Feeding that urge feeds our humanity. The people in Iten, Kenya, were as hungry for this as the people of Lexington, Michigan. It is a hunger for more than food. It is literally true: a human being does not live by bread alone. And to deny someone the chance to share in what the human race has found out about this universe, just because they happened to be born on the wrong continent or to the wrong socio-economic group, is a crime against their humanity. That, ultimately, is what the International Year of Astronomy is all about. That is why we are reaching out around the world, with low-cost telescopes and podcasts and books and lectures."

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LCROSS: Impact Crater Finders
by Canopus56 17 Sep '09

17 Sep '09

The LCROSS Team announced its final target selection for a small crater on the rim of Cabeus A. I have prepared a finder page at the LCROSS Observation Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/lcross_observation/web/finders Other sites with finders for the LCROSS impact crater are: Jim Mosher's Wiki LCROSS Impact Page http://ltvt.wikispaces.com/LCROSS+Impact New Mexico State Univ. Apache Point LCROSS Site Finders http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/rthamilt/LCROSS/media.shtml NASA LCROSS Team Observation Campaign page http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/observation.htm and in the future: NASA LCROSS Citizen Science Page http://apps.nasa.gov/lcross/

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] LCROSS Guide to observing and imaging
by Canopus56 17 Sep '09

17 Sep '09

With respect to my slide presentation regarding the LCROSS impact posted yesterday, I have made a number of revisions. The link urls are the same, but I recommend that persons who download the presentation before the date and timestamp of this message, should download the revised version: MS Powerpoint version (10 meg) http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/observed/LCROSS/20090915LC… http://tinyurl.com/pbb7pw Slide presentation as PDF file (12 meg) http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/observed/LCROSS/20090916LC… http://tinyurl.com/pfujnv in directory: http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/observed/LCROSS/ The updated version contains, among other things, workflow checklists that suggest arriving 90 minutes before the impact for visual observing setup and 120+ minutes before impact for imaging. - Kurt

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Ghost Hunt Challenge for October
by JayLEads 17 Sep '09

17 Sep '09

In the October issue of Astronomy magazine Stephen James O'Meara has an article about hunting the "Ghost Hunt Challenge." This is a list he put together of 109 "spooky objects." According to the article and the list it is 27 galaxies, 16 emission nebula, four reflection nebula, 19 planetary nebula, 14 globular clusters, three supernova remnants and one dark nebula. Seventy percent are not Messier objects, and these objects according to O'Meara "should be no more challenging to see." O'Meara suggests that his list could be used for a fall like Messier Marathon hunt. The new Moon in October is on Sunday the 18th so that weekend would be good for a Messier like Marathon to go after these 109 objects. Anyone planning on going after them? The list is available to subscribers at Astronomy.com.

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Color video camera
by Canopus56 16 Sep '09

16 Sep '09

> Enjoy and appreciate Kurt's posts RE LCROSS! Thanks, Steve. > I have a Sony SSC-S20 CCD color video camera I'd be more than > happy to loan the group for the LCROSS impact . . . . If possible I may want to borrow it for a personal test on the 28th, just to see what they can do. - Kurt

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