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

Frontiers of Science tomorrow (plus Mayan & Bernson)
by Wiggins Patrick 15 Nov '13

15 Nov '13

Frontiers of Science talk tomorrow (Thursday) https://www.facebook.com/events/106708762820137/ Evidence that the Mayan calendar does not end this year: http://www.zazzle.com/the_2013_mayan_calendar-158713461120501542 And now we know where Dave Bernson arrived on Earth: http://nationexplorer.com/feature/1448512 Clear skies! patrick Sent from my iPad

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Utah Star Party
by Jay Eads 01 Apr '13

01 Apr '13

Daniel hit the nail on the head. Bryce, Great Basin are wonderful events but the emphasis is on outreach to the public. This is to be in the vein of the Texas Star Party or The Golden Gate Star Party or the Oregon Star Party. This is a place for amateurs to gather, to share views together and to spend the nights observing together. The goal is to start small and build the tradition over time. The nearest Star Party like this is either the Golden Gate Star Party that I am aware of. You can see in this link (copy and paste it) from the Golden Gate Star Party site the quality of the dark areas of the skies where they observe from. We have that in northern Utah and in southern Utah. There are also good sites that the US Forest Service is willing to work with us on using. I also have land that I have purchased for my family's recreational use and also primarily for observing. I don't think I'll have that ready though until 2014 for something like this. http://www.goldenstatestarparty.org/home/comparing-dark-skies If someone doesn't want to go, with Bryce and Great Basin being enough for them, great, no problem. This isn't meant to take the place of these events. It is to be a private star party that people register for, attend and observe for four or so nights up here in northern Utah. I believe we can pull in people from Nevada, some from southern Idaho, northern Utah, central and southern Utah perhaps and maybe even other neighboring states. In the end, even if only some of us go, that is just fine. However, it is time I believe for Utah to have its own Star Party that is private for amateurs to attend in addition to all the public outreach that is done by the many amateurs in the state from various clubs. Hopefully over time Utah can add to the star party traditions like Golden Gate, Texas Star Part,y, Oregon, Mount Baker, the Nebraska Star Party etc. If your interested in helping organizing it let me know.

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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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Local 10,000 stars in your browser.
by Daniel Holmes 16 Feb '13

16 Feb '13

You need to use Chrome or Firefox to have this work (needs WebGL), but it's really cool. Make sure you watch the opening movie to use it. http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/stars/ Dan -- Daniel Holmes, danielh(a)holmesonics.com "Laugh while you can, monkey boy!" -- Lord John Whorfin

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Next ATM session
by Hutchings, Mat 01 Dec '12

01 Dec '12

Hi, all ATM's; just a reminder that the next ATM session is on 12/1 (this Saturday) starting at 09:00. As usual, let me know if you need directions to my house. For any new subscribers to this list who are wondering what ATM means in this context, it is Amateur Telescope Maker. We do all kinds of telescope making including primary mirrors for Newtonian telescopes, overhauls of scopes, observing aids (dew heaters, etc.) and observing chairs. It's a great time for us telescope nuts to get together and help each other out. Future dates for these sessions are: 1/26/13 2/23/13 3/30/13 Hope to see you this Saturday! Mat This message and any attachments are solely for the use of intended recipients. The information contained herein may include trade secrets, protected health or personal information, privileged or otherwise confidential information. Unauthorized review, forwarding, printing, copying, distributing, or using such information is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you are not an intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you received this email in error, and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this email and any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please contact the sender and delete the message and any attachment from your system. Thank you for your cooperation

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Moon + Jupiter
by Dion Davidson 01 Dec '12

01 Dec '12

Here is one of the coolest photos I've seen of the Moon + Jupiter get-together this week: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104605541194704556978/posts/N6tiRHukcUk You have to click on the photo to see the Jovian moons in detail. Dion

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NASA announcements
by Daniel Holmes 01 Dec '12

01 Dec '12

After the kerfuffle with Curiosity, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal nails it again. http://www.smbc-comics.com/ San -- Sent from my iPhone. Please pardon any mispelings or errors.

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Super Giant Black Hole
by Kelly Ricks 01 Dec '12

01 Dec '12

At the end of this article the author asks: "What would you see if you lived on a habitable planet in that far-away galaxy and could look toward the center? Probably nothing that makes sense to human eyes. Black holes have such powerful gravity that they distort the space around them." Coincidentally, my boyfriend Rob (who is on the physics faculty at Oberlin college, and whose research focus is black holes), just presented an image to the computational modeling class he teaches that relates to the above question. It simulates what the Earth would look like to an outside observer if it were 99.99% the density of a black hole. I wasn't able to get the image small enough to forward directly, but you can see it (along with my attempt at a fun explanation) on my blog here. http://kellyricks.blogspot.com/2012/11/if-earth-were-black-hole.html Enjoy! ~Kelly Message: 1 Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 13:13:35 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Shelton <astroshelton(a)yahoo.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> Subject: [Utah-astronomy] super giant black hole Message-ID: <1354223615.5927.YahooMailNeo(a)web161801.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 link to a story on the news http://news.yahoo.com/super-giant-black-hole-baffles-scientists-174556589--… ? Mark Shelton Indian Hills Middle School CTE Tech Ed. Teacher Salt Lake Astronomical Society Board Member (School and Special Star Parties?Coordinator)?

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Mars exploration
by Joe Bauman 30 Nov '12

30 Nov '12

A question for the group: what is the feasibility of attaching propulsion units to the International Space Station and taking it out of Earth orbit, into Mars orbit, and back again?

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Scope Night app opinions?
by Wiggins Patrick 30 Nov '12

30 Nov '12

Anyone here using this iPhone app? https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scope-nights/id540120977 patrick

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