May 2010 - 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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CGEM (Was: Atlas or CGEM?)
by Chuck Hards 13 Jun '10

13 Jun '10

It's like Christmas morning here! More observations: In the future, I will definitely make my own dovetail bars. The Losmandy bar will be easy to make from plate aluminum, using only a table saw. I'm glad I bought the smaller counterweight. The stock 17-lb. weight is far too heavy for the small refractors. The 11-lb. is just right. The polarscope fits, but that reticle seems like a joke. I'll try it on the weekend, weather permitting. Anybody have any comments on the Celestron polar scope in use? The cord on the control box is far too short. Plugged-in, the hand control won't even sit in it's cradle on the tripod leg. I'm glad I ordered the extension cable from Astrophotography Tonight. The knob upgrade is a mixed review. The azimuth knobs are a definite improvement. The saddle lock knobs don't seem to be quite long enough. I'll futz with them a bit, and can probably swap out a new SS threaded portion on my own, and keep that nifty, knurled-aluminum, orange-anodized knob. I still haven't powered it up. Taking the GPS unit out of the box now. I like the Autoguider port. No laptop needed to use an autoguider with this mount. Did I say it's big? I'm still trying to absorb the size of this mount.

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] CGEM (Was: Atlas or CGEM?)
by Chuck Hards 13 Jun '10

13 Jun '10

Thanks, Rob, I'll stick with the GSO on the 100mm ED. That bit of info is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I'm going to do the retrofit on my 80mm ED, as well. On 5/27/10, Rob Ratkowski Photography <ratkwski(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote: > Chuck > > > My GSO focuser on my 80mm Orion is a fine unit, the 2 speed focuser > w/ my Williams 80mm sticks here and there, mostly in cold weather. > I've taken it apart, cleaned and adjusted the focuser and still some > places it will not draw out. I think you are fine w/ the GSO plus > all Williams repairs are now thru Taiwan.

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] L&O -- Non-L&O lovers please delete
by Chuck Hards 03 Jun '10

03 Jun '10

I'm booked pretty solid this weekend. How about Saturday June 5th? At that new place Rodger mentioned? On 5/27/10, Joe Bauman <josephmbauman(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > OK, El Presidente Hards has made it official. Almost time for L&O. Who wants > to go where when? -- 2nd subassistant cruise director Bau

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] X37B May 30 10_40_23 mag 2.9 overflight targeting data
by Canopus56 31 May '10

31 May '10

Patrick, A watch index error of 20 secs isn't enough to create an acquisition problem. I was thinking more like 5 minutes. My experience was I sat down outside about 3 minutes before T-0, took a deep breath and fixed the binos on Mars. After a 2-3 minutes, I put the binos down, took one deep breath and then put the binos back up to my eyes. There was X37B about 2/3s of the way through the FOV. If I had taken 2 breaths and then raised the binos, I would have missed it. Once acquired with binos, it was faint and could be tracked naked eye from a light polluted site. But if I tried to acquire it naked-eye, I would have missed it. Most of the difficulty came from that X37B is a fast mover - like 0.5 to 0.75 deg/sec. That's probably why photos on Spaceweather.com are wide-angle 3-4 deg shots fixed on target star and just show the track. No one seems to be achieving a telescopic high-mag hand-tracked image. - Kurt

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] X37B May 30 10_40_23 mag 2.9 overflight targeting data
by Canopus56 31 May '10

31 May '10

Patrick, It was right on time as scheduled and for plot and magnitude. Once I picked it up with binos as X37B passed Mars, I had no trouble following it naked-eye and with binos from Leo-Mars through Com to CrB from SLC at ZLM 4.0. It was a fast mover. Index error on your watch? - Kurt

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Deserted SPOC
by Chuck Hards 31 May '10

31 May '10

I arrived at SPOC tonight at about 10:30 to find the facility utterly deserted, under a crystal-clear, remarkably dark sky. I was very surprised that no-one was taking advantage of the facility in the time before moonrise. The sky really was fantastic for SPOC, once twilight had subsided.

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X37B May 30 10_40_23 mag 2.9 overflight targeting data
by Canopus56 30 May '10

30 May '10

Extracted from Heaven's Above: Date: 30 May Mag: 2.9 Rise Time: 22:40:23 Rise az: 10 W Culmination time: 22:43:45 Culmination Alt: 79 degs Az: South Set Time: 22:44:49 Set az: 41 E Fixed targeting objects that satellite will pass within 1 deg TFOV passage: Time beg Time End Object 22:42:10 22:42:30 Mars (south of) Alt 33 deg 22:43:15 22:43:30 14 Com (v5.0) (south of), Alt 68 deg, SAO 82310 HR 4733 HD108283 22:43:45 22:44:00 sig Boo (v4.9) (north of) Alt 76 deg, 28 Boo, SAO 83416, HR 5447 HD128167 22:44:10 22:44:20 eps CrB (v4.2) (north of) Alt 60 deg, 13 CrB, SAO 84098, HR 5947 HD143107 Posts on the seeSat list indicate that this satellite actively manuvers to maintain a mean orbit. Therefore, times may vary by a couple of minutes from the above.

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A Thank You on Memorial Day
by JayLEads 30 May '10

30 May '10

I know Memorial Day is tomorrow but I just wanted to say thank you to those who payed the ultimate cost and to those who served and pay a cost that is often not understood or overlooked. For me President Lincoln's words sums up to me this weekend. Thank you for your sacrifice and service. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] X37B overflight Sat 5-29 11_33_45 MDT
by Canopus56 29 May '10

29 May '10

Patrick wrote: > Saw it easy with 10x50s as it passed just south of Mars and > continued to follow it until it passed into the terminator a few seconds later. Yep, I saw it too with 10x50s. It was very easy to spot even from light polluted slc with binos, but not naked-eye. It's the size of small bus and was at 800km. Gotta love that Heaven's Above site. - Kurt

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