January 2011 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Re: [Utah-astronomy] Utah-Astronomy Digest, Vol 95, Issue 44 Beating the Dead Expanding Earth One More Time
by John R. Peterson 17 Jan '11

17 Jan '11

This is just about worn out, but I must add the point (and give evidence) that it's all a matter of scale. Gravity works on the relatively small scale (i.e., within a few million light years) while the accelerating expansion of the Universe is seen on the really BIG scale (several billion light years). The Hubble Constant tells us that if we ignore the acceleration (easy to do, say, t 500 million light years distance) the expansion is about 70 km/sec/Mpc. In other words, every additional million parsecs (about 3 million light years) between objects,the velocity at which they move apart increases by about 70 km/sec. If we take this ratio, convert Mpc to kilometers, and see what the recessional velocity is for a distance of 6000 km (about the Earth's radius) we find that the expansion of space (don't forget that's what's really expanding), we find that the speed of expansion is about one TRILLIONTH of a meter per second! It's gonna take a lot longer than even the age of the Earth to see a measurable change. While you wait, the Sun's going to swell up and burn the Earth to a crisp. Get out yer marshmallows! John R.Peterson

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A flight to the edge of space
by Patrick Wiggins 16 Jan '11

16 Jan '11

Fellow list member Rob sent me this link to a BBC video about a flight in a U-2. Wow! http://www.wimp.com/breathtakingfootage/ patrick p.s. For the adventurous out there, here are a few more flying stories that might get your blood pumping: feed://www.aopa.org/pilot/never_again/podcast.xml

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Request for photo of LX200 controls for obs guide
by Canopus56 16 Jan '11

16 Jan '11

Group - It looks like I'll have to wait and take a picture off the UofU scope. The source of my confusion is that it appears the scopes have an add-on rack and pinion focuser on the primary focusing tube. Since that's a unique piece of gear, I'll just wait for the weather to clear, for the observatory to open, and go from there. Thanks again, Kurt

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Book Report on Meteorites
by Raeburn Kennard 16 Jan '11

16 Jan '11

I have just finished reading a book I received at Christmas: The Fallen Sky - An Intimate History of Shooting Stars, by Christopher Cokinos, 2009 (Penguin ed. 2010). The book presents an interesting summary of the progress of scientific understanding of meteroites; and, through them, the evolution of scientific understanding of many aspects of astronomy and Earth's place in the cosmos. It uses the literary device of studying the adventures of key meteorite hunters/finders, making the science more interesting because of the historical and human contexts. It relates the stories of Ellis Hughes' "harvest" of the Willamett meteorite, Eliza Kimberly and the Kansas "Brenham Fall," Robert Peary's meteorite finds in Greenland, Daniel Barringer's life-long interest in the Arizona Meteor Crator; and the adventures and competitions of Harvey Ninger and Lincoln LaPaz. Along the way, the author describes his own "pilgrimages" to the sites of each of these stories, and even his own adventures during a season of meteorite hunting in Antarctica. I'm not informed enough to second-guess his representation of the evolving science, but it seemed pretty solid to me. I was less enthusiastic about his personal introspections, but I'll allow him that author's privilege. In summary, I enjoyed the read, and plan to hang onto the book for future reference. It rekindled for me the desire to someday find a meteorite of my own - even if it's a small ugly one. By the way, author is (or was while writing the book) a professor at Utah State University - so there's that local flavor as well. He mentions the on-going search for near eath objects, but misses the opportunity to toot the horn of our own Patrick Wiggins. Patrick, you and Professor C should get acquainted. Raeburn Kennard

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"Astrological sign of the times" and "My Hobby is Astrophotography"
by Patrick Wiggins 16 Jan '11

16 Jan '11

Opps, I meant to include this link from another list member, Bill Cowles, in that last post. Leave it to The Bad Astronomer to set the record straight. Astrological sign of the times http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/01/13/astrological-sign… And, while I'm passing on stuff for folks to enjoy over breakfast, here's one from another list. I think it starts a bit slow and drags on a bit long but it's still funny and does hit home in a few places. My Hobby is Astrophotography http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSR6A__TC9M Now the question is, who does "Robert" remind you of? And with that it's time to turn in. Night all! patrick

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Flickering Candles
by Stephen Peterson 16 Jan '11

16 Jan '11

Joe, Well written blog! Also very impressed with Patrick's Cepheid photo 'in Andromeda'. One question that has always bothered me: How do we know that the star in question is indeed in or very near Andromeda? That is, for example, could it be half way there? When I look at really beautiful photos of Andromeda ( i.e. in SBIG's advertisement by Tony Hallas) it is easy to see clouds of stars but they, for the most part, appear unresolved as individuals. Have I missed some other confirming data? Steve

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Cepheids
by Joe Bauman 16 Jan '11

16 Jan '11

Hi Friends, My latest blog, about news concerning Cepheid variables and featuring a couple of great pics Patrick took, is up. It's at: http://www.deseretnews.com/blog/47/Nightly-news-astronomy.html Any comments are greatly appreciated. Thanks, Joe

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Request for photo of LX200 controls for obs guide
by Canopus56 16 Jan '11

16 Jan '11

Dear group, I am working up a personal observing guide for operating the classic LX200s on the U of U Physics building. I am stuck on getting a good photo of the control business end of an LX200. Nothing appropriate is available on the internet that clearly captures all the features that I am after, and the observatory has been closed due to weather for some weeks. The photo features that I am after in one clear shot are: 1) A mounted 60mm refractor finder. 2) A screw on the housing rim at the back of the scope (for gross aligning on a target) 3) The gross focus control (for the secondary mirror movement and initial focusing). 4) A centered primary focal plane control (the focuser). 5) An installed 2 inch right angle finder, a 1 1/4" inch adapter, and a 1 1/4" eyepiece. If one of you have an LX200 in a case that you can tilt up or one that is setup indoors, can use a decent DSLR to take a clear picture and email it to me at my SLAS member roster email? I'd really appreciate it. It is for a diagram that explains centering the focuser on scope start up. This is a personal and not a UofU authorized project. Thanks, Kurt

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1st Point of Aries and Astrology.
by erikhansen＠thebluezone.net 15 Jan '11

15 Jan '11

Hi All I did watch the video by Neal Adams, it was hard not to chuckle, it is pseudo science. I would like to point out expanding earth ideas and astrology have something in common. Adams explains that earth expansion has caused the position of the equator to change over time. Astronomy explains this by precession, as we know the point where the sun crosses from the south to the north (the beginning of spring), has been called the 1st Point in Aries. This is what all astrological charts are based on. Earth wobble has caused this to move from Aries to Pisces over the last 2000 years. This wobble has also changed climate zones on earth over that 2000 years, not expansion. Hence a well known observable phenom that the expansion idea fails to understand. I saw on the news, that an Astronomer, back east, went public with this last week. The astrological community reacted quickly to assure all astrologers that this is not true. I guess we should keep on open mind on astrology. As an actor said on Star Trek to Khan, " I try to obey but it is really hard". And of course we all are aware that astrological charts are way off when it comes to positions of the planets. Erik

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Expanding Universe
by erikhansen＠thebluezone.net 15 Jan '11

15 Jan '11

Hi All, I think there are a few more misconceptions of the expanding universe. Superclusters of Galaxies also seem to have unique motions within their systems as well. As mentioned, this is why the Andromeda Galaxy is racing towards us, it is affected by something else than the force that is believed to have caused expansion (big bang). There seem to be unknown forces that act against forces causing expansion. Is our Sun expanding? Not currently, and when it does it will because it is exhausting its fuel. That every motion is towards expansion is a misconception. Yes, new postulates (expanding earth is a postulate not a theory) are often meet with more than skepticism until they are paired with good observation. When the postulates have been confirmed by many observations and people they become theories. I think theories and postulates are often confused, theories are challenged by postulates. Erik

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