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

Frontiers of Science tomorrow (plus Mayan & Bernson)
by Wiggins Patrick 14 Nov '13

14 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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Re: [Utah-astronomy] New aircraft flies inside out
by Kelly Ricks 03 Jan '13

03 Jan '13

Wow! This is beautiful! It reminds me of the "air jelly" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wnxpYyeYkk ~Kelly > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2012 05:19:01 -0700 > From: Wiggins Patrick <paw(a)wirelessbeehive.com> > To: utah astronomy listserve utah astronomy > <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Subject: [Utah-astronomy] New aircraft flies inside out > Message-ID: <65C73643-2ADF-4FA2-A2DF-B9B95DB16A3F(a)wirelessbeehive.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > How'd ya like to see this thing slowly creep past your window one moonlit > night? > > >From New Scientist: > > http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2012/12/best-videos-of-2012-inside-o… > > patrick > > >

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Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON)
by Chrismo 02 Jan '13

02 Jan '13

Anyone had eyes on this one yet? The reports and predictions are pretty impressive! http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/brighter-than-a-full-moon-the-big… http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2012/09/25/new-comet-c2012-s1ison-could-be-s…

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New aircraft flies inside out
by Wiggins Patrick 01 Jan '13

01 Jan '13

How'd ya like to see this thing slowly creep past your window one moonlit night? From New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2012/12/best-videos-of-2012-inside-o… patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Utah-Astronomy Digest, Vol 118, Issue 67
by Kelly Ricks 31 Dec '12

31 Dec '12

Hey Patrick, Awesome picture! But (and somebody please correct me if I'm wrong) that mountain looks a lot more like Mt. Nebo than Timp. Here's a link to a picture of Nebo on wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Nebo_from_Y_Mtn.jpg That said, Mt. Nebo would be an even better spot for the scope since it is the highest peak in the Wasatch range. ~Kelly > Message: 2 > Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2012 19:54:12 -0700 > From: Wiggins Patrick <paw(a)wirelessbeehive.com> > To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) > Message-ID: <6145097A-8B6D-4E62-B759-6D5B33695F69(a)wirelessbeehive.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > Let's blame it on the comet. It just does not want to be seen. > > Frustrating that the clouds are not that thick and don't go up that high. > > I got this shot over Utah Lake this afternoon showing we just need to put > a remotely operated observatory on top of Mt. Timp: > http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/timpclouds.jpg > > Well, remote operated for most of us. Joe would probably prefer to take > his images while sitting on the peak. :) > > patrick > > > On 28 Dec 2012, at 12:58, Tyler Allred wrote: > > > Thanks for fessing up. I am happy to share the blame with others. Does > anyone else want to step up? > > Tyler > > > > Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID > > > > Larry Holmes <larry(a)kijoda.com> wrote: > > > >> Tyler, I have to share some of the blame. I had Starzonia install their > >> Hyperstar system in my Celestron 8" OTA, taking it from f8 to f2.1, and > >> it has not been out of the case since I got back from Tucson. 73 > >> > >> On 12/28/2012 8:31 AM, Tyler Allred wrote: > >>> I apologize to everyone. This bad weather is all my fault. My carbon > fiber sandwich tube finally arrived from Germany and the fully-assembled > scope is sitting uselessly atop the Paramount in my observatory. I expect > the bad weather to continue indefinitely. > >>> Tyler > >>> > >>> > >>> On 27 Dec 2012, at 10:39, Dave Gary wrote: > >>> > >>>> By the way, who purchased or received astronomic equipment for > Christmas? The weather down here in St. George has been quite nasty for > observation. I know one of you guys screwed it up. Tyler, did your new > equipment come in? > > > >

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SLAS calendar beta checkers?
by Wiggins Patrick 31 Dec '12

31 Dec '12

With nothing better to do on a snowy night I've written an ICS file for all of SLAS's 2013 public activities and I'd appreciate it if folks on the list could try it out and see if it works (or not) for them. Find it here: http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/slas/slas-ics.zip For those not familiar with ICS files, they are used to quickly install one or several event's on calendar software programs. In the case of this file, it will load all board meetings, general meetings, star parties and Sun parties (62 events in all, making SLAS a very busy outfit). Information included for each event is title, date, time and address. If it works I should also be able to easily insert additional information like the names of speakers at upcoming SLAS meetings and information about their presentations. But that will have to wait until I know if what I've written so far actually works. I've tested it the iCal calendar program on an iPhone, iPad, iMac and MacBook and it worked fine on each. Checking the web I see that it should work on many calendar programs "including Google Calendar, Apple Calendar (formerly iCal), GoDaddy Online Group Calendar, IBM Lotus Notes, Yahoo! Calendar, Evolution (software), eM Client, Lightning extension forMozilla Thunderbird and SeaMonkey, and partially by Microsoft Outlook and Novell GroupWise". Much more on ICS files here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar Clear skies, patrick

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When the Moon ate Jupiter
by Michael Wells 29 Dec '12

29 Dec '12

Hey guys, I don't think this got posted yet. It's a pretty cool video of Jupiter and Callisto passing behind the moon. http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/29/christmas_day_occultati…

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