January 2010 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Whale and the Hockey Stick galaxies from Slooh roboscope 1-14
by Canopus56 17 Jan '10

17 Jan '10

NGC4631 and NGC4627 (Arp 281, C32) Whale or Herring Galaxy. NGC4656 and NGC 4647 Hockey Stick - both in Coma B via Slooh 1-14-2010 http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2771 Some reprocessing attempted in 8-bit using GIMP and layer masking to separately alter the relative brightness of the galaxies and the background. Clear Skies - Kurt

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Wow!!! (SLAS Maui imaging session)
by Canopus56 16 Jan '10

16 Jan '10

Ditto. Many thanks to Bob Moore for hosting and Rodger Fry for acting as event coordinator and "mc" and Dave Bernson for being Dave. Even as a spectator, witnessing a 2-meter research grade instrument in operation was one of the most memorable astronomy nights that I've had. I also wanted to thank the U of Hawaii research - I believe the name I heard is J.D. Armstrong - who has graciously arranged to give the club access to Faulkes North - and of course Dill Faulkes himself. If I understand Armstrong's backstory, he has connections to Utah but went on to a professional astronomy career that ended in a major research center in Hawaii. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but I assume that some years ago he had some exposure to SLAS. The detail in the raw imagery equals the many images I seen over the years from David Malin. For my own part, assuming there is another session, I'll make the committment to prepare and pre-post a sky chart and list of potential targets online, so participants can easily review and better decide on the best targets before the night of the session. The gallery site we were using to preview potential target images was http://server6.sky-map.org/ . To better justify this amazing access to this resource, I propose for the next session that we also check the Supernova web page and take a purely photometric image of current supernova. http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/supernova.html Another justification support activity might be to keep an eye on the Fermilab Gamma Ray Burst alert list - http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/fermi_grbs.html - so if there is a trigger during a session, we can swing over and make an image. Finally, the imaging experience on the 2 meter Faulkes raises the issue of whether the 1 meter Grimm should be fitted out to also support astrophotography. > And speaking of the raw data (the FIT files) you can find those and some low quality JPGs here: > http://tinyurl.com/yd8nxpg Patrick, I didn't see any access points to the raw FITS files on the cited link. Thanks again to SLAS management for arranging a truely memorable evening. Clear Skies, Kurt

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Fwd: Faulkes Imaging Session-January 15, 2010
by Patrick Wiggins 16 Jan '10

16 Jan '10

The image Rodger referred to is temporarily located at: http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/M1_SLAS_Faulkes.jpg Look for it to also be featured in the next issue of Nova. > From: "Rodger C. Fry" <rcfry(a)comcast.net> > Date: 16 January 2010 16:44:22 MST > To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Subject: Rodger Fry > > > On the evening of January 15, 2010, a group of 26 people from the Salt Lake Astronomical Society met at an office downtown where we had access to the internet and had a projection monitor. There, we logged into the website for the Faulkes 2-meter telescope on Haleakela, Maui, Hawaii where we had been granted remote use of the telescope for 1 1/2 hours. During that time, we imaged M-1 (Crab Nebula). We took numerous 120 second exposures with no filters and several 120 minute exposures with Blue, Red and Green filters. We also took some exposures using H-Alpha, beta Hydrogen and Oxygen III filters. Tyler Allred who was in attendance took the FIT files generated, stacked and adjusted them to produce the attached image. > > This was a very good event and we plan to hold another imaging session in the future if we can acquire some useage time on this telescope. > > > Thank You, > > Rodger C. Fry > Consulting Geologist

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Wow!!! (SLAS Maui imaging session)
by Patrick Wiggins 16 Jan '10

16 Jan '10

Many thanks to Rodger Fry for setting it up and to Bob Moore for providing a great venue. Unlike our training session a few weeks ago where the images were not very good, last evening's session was held with great seeing and the target of choice (M1) right overhead. Imaging meister Tyler Allred is already working with the raw data and hopes to have the finished products ready for viewing at Tuesday's SLAS meeting. And speaking of the raw data (the FIT files) you can find those and some low quality JPGs here: http://tinyurl.com/yd8nxpg patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Astronomical Data
by Canopus56 15 Jan '10

15 Jan '10

Daniel, > By the way, what is this mysterious other group you keep mismailing to, and is it open to the public? My apologies to the group as a whole and to you. I have been juggling too many things lately and sending things out while being tired and not watching what I'm doing. The two groups were I've made posting mistakes are - the Mathematica symbolic language listserv and the Spectrum Labs yahoo group. Mathematica is an alternative to MathLab used at the UofU. Unlike MathLab, Wolfram sells a $350 Home Edition. Mathematica MathGroup archive: http://forums.wolfram.com/mathgroup/ Mathematica MathGroup announce: http://smc.vnet.net/MathGroup.html Mathematica AstronomicalData function demos http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/ref/AstronomicalData.html http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/symbol.html?symbol=AstronomicalData Spectrum Labs yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SpectrumLab/ Spectrum lab download page http://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/spectra1.html These all relate to current projects, listed below. Specifically I what I am trying to do was to tweak a graph of the Ursid 2010 meteor shower counts by labeling with positional solar longitudes as opposed to dates. See sample graph at - http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2789 The meteor guys ( www.imo.net) also appear to use solar longitude as a proxy for the Earth's orbital position. The daily noise source between 10 UT to 18 UT shown in the graph apparently is Salt Lake City's daily traversing under the Earth's apex-of-the-way - the direction of the Earth's orbital path. The interplanetary dust particles are being run over by the Earth at its orbital speed of 29 kilometers per second. That causes the increased daily background count shown in the chart between 12UT and 18UT. The daily lows between 22UT and 06UT represent Salt Lake City traversing the antihelion (opposite the Sun) direction and away from the apex-of-the-way. I was also trying to come up with a way to find the local horizon altitude of the apex-of-the-way (90 degs longitude in advance of the solar longitude) by hour. I have the raw data from the JPL Horizons Empheris web application, but wanted to cook the same data in my own spreadsheet. I was planning to just use solar longitude + 6 hours (90degs) as an approximate proxy for the local horizon altitude of the apex-of-the-way. > Also, if you would like a copy, you may have it. Yes, I would love to have a copy. I have many Meeus coordinate conversion algorithems implemented in VBA from spreadsheets built in 2006 and 2007 which were DSO and lunar oriented, but I never implemented celestial->eclipitic ecliptic-celestial coordinate conversion code. My vba codes are in the spreadsheets here: General coordinate conversion code http://fisherka.csolutionshosting.net/astronote/plan/ObSpdht/ObSpdhtProject… Lunar and solar positions http://fisherka.csolutionshosting.net/astronote/plan/MoonPlan/MoonSpdtProje… My current hobby projects: 1) Radio meteor observing station - setup and debug http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2774 2) Mark III allsky allweather meteor camera http://fisherka.csolutionshosting.net/astronote/atm/mcm3/mcm3.html 3) Misc astro math graphing with Mathematica http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2812 Again, my apologies to the group for the misposts. Time to slow down and drink more beer. Opps - this is a family listserv. Clear Skies - Kurt

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Astronomical Data
by Jerry Foote 15 Jan '10

15 Jan '10

Hi Kurt, I realize that you had posted your request to the wrong group however, others may have the same question. Particularly when converting from geocentric Julian dates to heliocentric Julian dates. Here are some links that can be useful: http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/astronomical-informa tion-center http://www.physics.sfasu.edu/astro/javascript/hjd.html Jerry Foote ScopeCraft, Inc. 4175 E. Red Cliffs Dr. Kanab, UT 84741 435-899-1255 jfoote(a)scopecraft.com

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Bryce Dates / 2010 AL30 (images posted)
by Canopus56 15 Jan '10

15 Jan '10

Well done, Patrick. Another candidate for APOD or Spaceweather.com submission. - Kurt

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Astronomical Data
by Canopus56 15 Jan '10

15 Jan '10

Thanks, Jerry. - Kurt

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AstronomicalData - solar ecliptic longitude
by Canopus56 15 Jan '10

15 Jan '10

Please disregard the last message. Sent it to the wrong group. - Thanks, Kurt

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AstronomicalData - solar ecliptic longitude
by Canopus56 15 Jan '10

15 Jan '10

Mathematica 7 contains a new powerful astronomical feature - AstronomicalData. It appears to intended to partially supercede the outdated 1997 _Scientific Astronomer_ package. Is there a way by hour to tease out the current ecliptic longitude of the Sun from this function? Thanks, Kurt

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