June 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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M-57 project pix
by Patrick Wiggins 13 Jul '10

13 Jul '10

After doing a bit of work on my imaging setup I dashed off 16 one minute, unguided shots of M-57 to make sure I got everything back the way it's supposed to be. 10 were with the luminance (clear) filter. 2 each with the red, green and blue filters. After reducing all I combined them into individual color sets (1 clear, 1 red, 1 green and 1 blue). I then zipped the four images into a file called M-57.zip and posted it here for folks here to play with. http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/M-57.zip (about 4 MB) I'll be interested to see what y'all come up with. My attempts resulted in the nebula looking pretty good but the stars all had a pink tint. Have fun, patrick

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astro_lionel@sltnet.lk?
by Patrick Wiggins 30 Jun '10

30 Jun '10

Someone just tried to subscribe to the list using the address astro_lionel(a)sltnet.lk . Just in case that someone is monitoring the list: I tried to set up your account but when I sent a confirming email to astro_lionel(a)sltnet.lk it bounced. Please try again. patrick U-A Co-Admin

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Kudos!
by Patrick Wiggins 30 Jun '10

30 Jun '10

Go to http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi#top and search for 221150 :)

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RE Kodachrome SP
by Stephen Peterson 29 Jun '10

29 Jun '10

The canyon opens to the south so southern views are best. You'll want to camp as far south as possible so as to maximize views to the N. Haven't camped so do not know about sites. Steve

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Daystar and Coronado?
by erikhansen＠thebluezone.net 29 Jun '10

29 Jun '10

>>> I don't subscribe. Seems odd as the Daystar is electronically calibrated and tuned to deliver .5 A. I have compared Vaughn's .4 with the clubs .5, the difference is profound, little or no difference when telescope's were switched. I would think Coronado would be happy to announce that their filter improves Daystar performance. Would be interested in seeing if it works, sounds like a lot of work for experiment based on a caption of a photograph (typo's do happen). Also, the SolarMax was designed scopes under 3,000 mm., both the 60 and 90. Anyway it might be better to use the 50mm f 30 at 1,500mm's, probably would take less adaption also. So, the article says it does improve performance? Who wrote it? > > I'm not home so I don't have the magazine handy. Look towards the rear of > the magazine in the images area. I think it's the only H-Alpha image of the Sun (not an article, rather it's an image with the caption describing > the stack). > > patrick > > > _______________________________________________ > 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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anyone observed at Kodachrome?
by Michael Vanopstall 29 Jun '10

29 Jun '10

Hello, all -- Did a night in Ogden Canyon at Perception Park campground yesterday. 8 tiny globulars and a PN in Ophiucus to show for it. About an hour after it started to get dark (tested by visibility of M4 in binoculars), the eastern sky was starting to brighten with the moon, and stars looked hazy in my binoculars. So rather than get everything dewed over, I was satisfied with my catch and went to bed. So soon, I want to go to Kodachrome. Anyone ever go there observing? It should be extremely dark, but I'm curious about horizons. The horizons at Perception were not so good. I'd really like Scorpius all the way up, and a shot at some stuff in Centaurus, if I'm going to S. Utah. Does Kodachrome have a good view to the S? If you've stayed there, do you have a favorite site to accomodate an 8-man tent? Thanks. ---- Rev. Michael A. van Opstall Department of Mathematics, University of Utah Office: JWB 313 opstall(a)math.utah.edu

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Daystar and Coronado?
by Canopus56 29 Jun '10

29 Jun '10

I understand any solarscope can be double stacked assuming you can match the thread and aperture sizes on the objective of SLAS daystar scope. By pre-filtering the light, you can a narrower angstrom bandpass. I have a Coronado double-stack add on filter for the PST 40mm scope. If it matches the SLAS daystar objective, you are welcomed to borrow it. I'll have to measure the thread size and get back to you. I suggest finding and posting the thread and aperture size measurements taken from the daystar scope objective. Someone in the club is likely to have a match. http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=3298 http://www.optcorp.com/product.aspx?pid=6665 http://www.coronadofilters.com/doublestack/doublestack.html with respect to the performance, I have only preliminarily used the PST in double stack mode. My initial impression was that it significantly increased the ability of telescope to resolve Ha detail on the Sun's disk. It seemed to reduce the small PST's ability to focus in prominence's on the solar limb. After the double stack lens is attached to the scope, by turning the brass dial knob on the lens's body, several offset images of the Sun are seen the in eyepiece. The main solar scope tuning knob, the tuning knob on the double stack, and the offset of the parafocal disk of the objective are then played with until all the multiple solar images "register" with each other. Then the image will have maximum resolved detail. There is considerably more "tweaking" time in using a double stacked scope as compared to a single stack. But my setup is at a low-end price point. Other club members with the "real" $3-$5K double stacked 90mm+ SolarMax and Lundt scopes may have other perspectives to contribute. Regards, Kurt

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Need help with star party
by jim Gibson 29 Jun '10

29 Jun '10

The USEB would like to know if any SLAS members could conduct a star party Thursday night August 5th at the National Ability Center in Park City. About 25 people with EB ( youth to adults) and some of their helpers, about 40 in all, are attending a week long summer camp. Because of the nature of EB many of these people do not get a chance to leave home very often. To see more about EB click here http://ebsurvivors.org For those who would like to volunteer please contact Jamie Hartley at jamiediane(a)gmail.com Thank for your consideration Jamie Hartley

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2" finder EP
by Chuck Hards 28 Jun '10

28 Jun '10

One of my favortie "finders" is a home-made 70mm refractor built around a 320mm focal length lens purchased surplus from Apogee many years ago. Although a doublet, it exhibits almost no uncorrected color. I have used it with a 2" diagonal and 32mm eyepiece over the years, yielding a magnification of 10X and an exit pupil of 7mm, along with an incredible wide FOV. I've use my UO 32mm Widescan with it; more recently my Celestron E-Lux 32mm, since I like to use the Widescan in the main telescope...but just today I ordered the new UO illuminated X-hair 32mm eyepiece: http://www.universityoptics.com/2inch.html#ILLUM Has anyone else used this eyepiece? I love Illuminated X-hairs, especially when I use my Pulseguide illuminator. Most standard illuminators are too bright. The Pulseguide allows perfect customization of both illumination and pulse duration. TIA

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