January 2012 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

SETI gets intelligence signal from a Kepler discovered planet!
by Jay Eads 09 Jan '12

09 Jan '12

Well, they did and they didn't. As soon as the moved the Green Bank Radio Telescope the signals were still there so that informed them that the signal was from a satellite in orbit in space. Here is the link if you want to read the fun people have had with this of late. http://seti.berkeley.edu/kepler-seti-interference It would be rather cool if we did find a planet in a habitable zone of a star or red dwarf and then found a signal coming from the planet. Contact anyone? Good movie, great book. Still miss the author. -- Jay Eads

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1/7/12 ATM report
by Hutchings, Mat (H USA) 09 Jan '12

09 Jan '12

The ATM session on 1/7/12 was very interesting to say the least. First, Charlie has his 13" mirror mounted in a 17" Coulter mirror/rocker box with truss tubes and top ring complete (at least for star testing). He hopes to star test this week sometime when the skies are clear. His goal with this is to rule out astigmatism. Both Josh and Charlie center dotted their mirrors. The bulk of the time, and it was a lot of time , was spent trying to get the "spot test" to work. See this link: http://www.john-pix.com/a/spot.html for a discussion on the spot test. It is basically a 2-dimensional version of the knife edge test and so can more thoroughly test mirrors, especially for things like astigmatism. We were hoping that we could test Charlie's mirror for astigmatism with this method. The short answer is that we were never successful in getting the test operational. It was easy getting nice, clean, round pinholes, but getting a spot to line up and work properly was elusive. In the end we determined that the pinhole and spot need to be mounted independent of each other on their own X-Y stage. It was a fun, but fruitless time. At least we know how not to do the spot test! Josh showed us his recently acquired materials to make a bath interferometer and once that gets going, it will be a powerful bench test tool. Keep walking the barrel! Mat ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message and any included attachments are from Siemens Medical Solutions and are intended only for the addressee(s). The information contained herein may include trade secrets or privileged or otherwise confidential information. Unauthorized review, forwarding, printing, copying, distributing, or using such information is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you received this message in error, or have reason to believe you are not authorized to receive it, please promptly delete this message and notify the sender by e-mail with a copy to Central.SecurityOffice.Healthcare(a)siemens.com Thank you

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SunSpotter update
by D P Pierce 09 Jan '12

09 Jan '12

Congratulations on your marriage Chuck!! Deloy

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iPad free fall from "edge of space"
by Patrick Wiggins 09 Jan '12

09 Jan '12

While the denser air at lower altitudes would have slowed it considerably, I wonder how fast it was falling higher up. I remember that when Col. Kittinger made his jump from a similar altitude he was falling supersonic before the thicker air slowed him down. http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/01/g-form-extreme-edge-ipad-case/ patrick

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James Keeler and Imaging
by Jay Eads 08 Jan '12

08 Jan '12

I am reading a book called The Day We Found The Universe by Marcia Bartusiak and am quite enjoying it. In a very wonderful way the author is laying the groundwork for how we got to Hubble, Einstein and others. Keeler was the second director of the Lick Observatory and used the Crossley Reflector to take some wonderful images of "nebula" which included galaxies. The Clark Art Institute has helpfully digitized all 70 of Keeler's posthumously published plates and you can find them at this URL: http://maca.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/p1325coll1&CISOP… Keeler got the Crossley working and starting taking images on September 15th 1898 and worked very effectively and thoroughly but on August 12th, 1900 Keeler passed away from probably lung cancer (he was an entrenched cigar smoker since his college days). The famous astronomer Donald Osterbrock said of Keeler that due to his efforts "The day of the refractor was over, and although a few more intermediate-sized ones were built, no American professional astronomer ever thought seriously of building a very large telescope as anything but a reflector after Keeler's work with the Crossley." So Keeler it might be said, turned professional astronomy's instrument of choice from the refractor to the reflector. What Keeler's work really did was to ask the question what were the spiral nebula and could the universe be far larger than previously thought? From here this became very important to professional astronomers. Here is a link to his 4 hour image of M51 (remember this was 1899, over a 113 years ago this year). http://collections.ucolick.org/exhibits_on_line/E2E.1/Keeler_M51.html I share the images just so others can see what was being done 113 years ago and in a way, Keeler was a leader if not the leader of taking images of the "nebula". Enjoy looking at his images above. -- Jay Eads

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Ride to Board Meeting
by D P Pierce 08 Jan '12

08 Jan '12

Hi, Can anyone give me a ride to board meeting Wednesday? Deloy Pierce

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Hotel Mauna Kea
by D P Pierce 08 Jan '12

08 Jan '12

Stumbled on this while looking at APOD just now. I may have seen tis before. Deloy Pierce

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Comet Garradd
by Patrick Wiggins 08 Jan '12

08 Jan '12

Anyone here had a look at Comet Garradd lately? I have not been able to image it since November but near the end of my regular run this morning I noticed it was just clearing the roof so I slewed the scope over and got a quick-n-dirty shot. Shows a nice albeit tiny tail. Will post the image later but for now it's time to turn in. It's been a very productive night. patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Value on Explore Scientific 70 degrees EP
by Jorge Gutierrez 07 Jan '12

07 Jan '12

Those 1 1/4” ones are the ones you see me using when im setting up the 6” for imaging, mine have black barrels and don’t have a brand on them though, the bigger 2” are exactly what orion sells you as the Q70’s, they are pretty decent for the price, im almost sure they are made by Long Perng (taiwan)

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Value on Explore Scientific 70 degrees EP
by Jay Eads 07 Jan '12

07 Jan '12

Found these online looking around. I did some research and though not officially listed (ES lists a 5mm eye relief but this is assumed to be a misprint) and the eye relief is around 12mm to 15mm. I'd go with the 12mm. They have a 35mm, 30mm ($49.95 each) 15mm and a 10mm available for $29.95 each. http://www.optcorp.com/ProductList.aspx?uid=30-718-1511-1786 I don't own any of these though for $30.00 I may try the 15mm and use it as an outreach eyepiece. The 30mm and 35mm look similar to the Orion Q70 line and the ones similar to them. -- Jay Eads

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