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

Re: [Utah-astronomy] Some Interesting Planetary Nebulae in Scorpius
by Debbie 16 Jul '10

16 Jul '10

Hi, It has been really hot here so I'm out of the pool by 10:30. In July, you almost have to head up to the mountains in the afternoon to stay cool so you have energy leftover to observe at night. I packed most of the telescope in the morning and left the car windows open. Then when I get ready to leave I put the UTA in the Jeep. My UTA is a little warped because it got left in a hot car. Wednesday, I unloaded the scope and by the time I finished the temperature had hit 100 degrees. I was thinking of trying for IC 4406 with my refractor. It's too low for the 15" but I may be able to see it with the refractor. The same goes for NGC 5128 (Centaurus A galaxy). You never know until you try. I bagged a Calwell object in Texas with my 8 inch SCT in 1996. It was a globular, NGC 3201 in the constellation Vela. It has a Dec of -46 25', low even for west Texas. I also bagged the the Eight-Burst Nebula, NGC 3132 out near the Keyenta subdivision about 7 or 8 years ago. Anything above -40 degrees is fair game for me if the conditions are right. I may take the refractor out Saturday and view some double stars if the sky is clear. The Double-Double showed up well in the 15" as it was getting dark. Same goes for Beta Scorpius and Albeiro. Debbie On Thu Jul 15 23:09 , Chuck Hards <chuck.hards(a)gmail.com> sent: >Sage advice! > >Joe, I am so sorry that you lost your friend. > >On 7/15/10, Joe Bauman josephmbauman(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> I second what Chuck says, also about the sun. My old hiking companion, >> Conrad Bert, developed a melanoma on the scalp from all his sun exposure -- >> he would not wear a hat and almost never put on any sun screen. Sometimes he >> wrapped a bandanna around his head, covering his hair, but that was a thin >> piece of cloth. The melanoma metastasized to his liver. The liver cancer >> would have killed him, except that Parkinson's got him first. He was a dear >> friend and I try to warn everyone I can about the dangers of overexposure to >> sun. As astronomers, at least we're mostly out at night. But some of us camp >> out or stay out all night and pack in the morning, and I want all to >> remember to protect against Sol. Thanks, Joe > >_______________________________________________ >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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Help with star party
by jim Gibson 16 Jul '10

16 Jul '10

I tried to post this a few weeks ago. I didn't see it come up and no one responded, so here goes again. The USEB would like to know if any SLAS members could help out with 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 and would love to look through a telescope. 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 Jim Gibson Jamie Hartley

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fish lake
by Mark Shelton 15 Jul '10

15 Jul '10

I all, I am taking my son and wife to fish lake tomorrow. We will be spending 5 days there. I would like to know if anyone has observed from that location? Thanks Mark Shelton

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Useful website of the day
by Chuck Hards 15 Jul '10

15 Jul '10

Sorry if this has been posted before. Beginners, this one is especially good if you are new to filter use. http://pages.sbcglobal.net/raycash/filters.htm

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I'm baaaack.
by Kim 15 Jul '10

15 Jul '10

Hi all. Long time no write. Life has been, well, interesting the past few months, but I find I need more astronomy than the little observing I’m able to do. So, you get to hear from me – again. I just had to share an observing experience that I had last night. Went to the local drive-in theater to see Toy Story 3 and afterwards drove up to Skyline Drive on U-31 (elevation about 9,000 feet). Transparency and seeing were excellent. After we had been there awhile, I noticed that the zodiacal band was visible, very bright and narrow, from horizon to horizon. It was as easy to pick out as the Milky Way, but by the time I set up a camera to try to photograph it some high cirrus had arrived and it wasn’t as dramatic. It almost looked like a second Milky Way that intersected the “real” Milky Way at right angles. The Gegenschein was lost in the Milky Way itself. Great sight. BTW, Toy Story 3 was a lot of fun and I recommend it. Kim Kim A. Hyatt Architect P.O. Box 124 Mt. Pleasant, Utah 84647 Tel: 435.462.9207 Fax: 435.462.5013 Mobile: 801.631.5228 kimharch(a)cut.net Architectural Design ▪ Historic Preservation

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Pluto last week
by Dunn, David 15 Jul '10

15 Jul '10

Did anyone else take a look a Pluto last week? Sky and Tel had an article about it crossing in front of a dark nebula last week. I was up at Monte Cristo so I took a look at it through several telescopes. On Wednesday night I saw it through both my 16" at 156X and through Ron Vanderhule's 25". In my 16" it was barely there. It was not far from a 14.5 mag star. Using averted vision I was barely able to see them. Through Ron's 25" they were bright and easy to see. Pluto was slightly brighter than the star. I thought it was neat to see Pluto without needing to take or draw a picture and then look again a day later. I also took at look at it on Thursday night through OAS's BOB (18.5"). Pluto had moved to where the star was. Dave

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Critter stories
by daniel turner 14 Jul '10

14 Jul '10

My favorite critter story is of the horned lark that curled up at sunset next to my car tire. The tire was still warm from the highway, and the small bird was used to bedding down with something large and warm like a cow. The bird had no fear of humans, because it had grown up out at lakeside and had never seen one before. DT

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Rush Valley Tonight
by daniel turner 13 Jul '10

13 Jul '10

Here's the link to the picture I took on Monday night. I stripped the embedded info to keep the size down but the particulars are Canon 5Dm2 50mm 1.4 fixed lense at f/4 8 minute exp iso 100 processed with canon's DPP and Zoombrowser. DT http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=3563

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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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Lakeside
by Michael Vanopstall 13 Jul '10

13 Jul '10

Wanted to amplify Jay's Lakeside report. Conditions were great. I caught 33 Herschels (all galaxies, 32 in UMa, 1 in Draco) and 1 non-Herschel galaxy. Visible to naked eye were: M6, M7, M8, M13, M20, M31, M33, M34, double cluster, NGC 6633, and IC 4756 (why is this not in the NGC?), at least. Visible light domes were: Dugway, Wendover, Salt Lake, Provo, and a puzzling one to the NNE -- it sat right under the space between the big and little dippers. But these hindered very little, except for the big one to the E. Right before packing up, Jay pulled down the Helix. Nice sight, but better seeing conditions and a little bit more altitude would improve, I think. I'll go after it with the 6" later this week from the east of town, so as not to compete with the light from the city. ---- Rev. Michael A. van Opstall Department of Mathematics, University of Utah Office: JWB 313 opstall(a)math.utah.edu

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