December 2013 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Re: [Utah-astronomy] ISON
by Joe Bauman 26 Dec '13

26 Dec '13

Comet of the century my butt! Thanks for trying, Patrick. I truly admire your dedication. -- Joe ------------------------------ On Thu, Dec 26, 2013 4:51 AM MST Wiggins Patrick wrote: >I spent some time this morning imaging the area the Minor Planet Center says ISON is located. Used a clear filter so I could catch as many photons as possible and got down to a stellar magnitude of about 19. > >No sign of the comet. > >Comet ISON, RIP. > >patrick >_______________________________________________ >Utah-Astronomy mailing list >http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy > >Send messages to the list to >Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com > >The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. > >To unsubscribe go to: >http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy >Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".

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ISON
by Wiggins Patrick 26 Dec '13

26 Dec '13

I spent some time this morning imaging the area the Minor Planet Center says ISON is located. Used a clear filter so I could catch as many photons as possible and got down to a stellar magnitude of about 19. No sign of the comet. Comet ISON, RIP. patrick

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NEO UY332F0 rotating fast
by Wiggins Patrick 26 Dec '13

26 Dec '13

Near Earth Object UY332F0 is currently in Utah's skies and seems to be rotating pretty quickly. The following is a sequence of 29 15s exposures taken at 120s intervals I took this evening. Look for it to move from right to left in the bottom half of the frame. FOV is about 18 x 26 arc minutes. http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/UY332F0-1.gif Since it's 9 frames between "cloakings" I'm thinking that puts the period about about 18 or 19 minutes. patrick

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Merry Christmas U-A
by Chuck Hards 25 Dec '13

25 Dec '13

I hope everyone is having a fantastic Christmas, and got what they wanted from the Jolly Old Elf. If not, you probably got what you deserved. Frankly, the coal does come in handy. Let's all take a moment and pause in sympathy for the atheists among us, who have nothing but a civil holiday at this time of year. ;-) I was just outside awhile ago, and with the sun still ten degrees above the horizon, could easily spot Venus naked-eye. It should be a very large crescent right now, I may try and detect the crescent with a hand-held bino shortly. Take a look now because in coming days Venus will be nose-diving for the horizon, as it catches up to earth in it's smaller, faster orbit around the sun. It will re-emerge in January in the morning sky, and be a morning object for much of 2014.

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Solstice
by Wiggins Patrick 22 Dec '13

22 Dec '13

It's the Solstice. Let's head south of the equator. patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Flag on the Moon
by Joe Bauman 22 Dec '13

22 Dec '13

Right you are, Patrick. I hope there's more to H. sapiens than just stewing in our ow juices here on Earth. ------------------------------ On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 2:34 PM MST Wiggins Patrick wrote: >On 19 Dec 2013, at 11:10, Josephine Grahn <jograhn(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> If they did, the flag would probably wiggle while being forced into the ground, which would provide proof that they did not really land on the moon, it was all filmed in the Gobi deserts..... :) > >LoL! Actually it would not surprise me to hear of such conspiracy theories given the number of crazies out there. > >> (By the way, I am pleased to see them moving forward with their space program. Although I really want SpaceX to make a commercial success of themselves, the bigger picture is for mankind as a whole to expand it's knowledge and capability. ) > >Me too. Maybe it'll serve as a kick in the rear, like Sputnik did. > >But even if it does not, humans are meant to explore so someone is going to get us out there someday. If not "us" then "them". But better still I'd prefer it be "us and them". > >patrick (not speaking for anyone but me) >_______________________________________________ >Utah-Astronomy mailing list >http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy > >Send messages to the list to >Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com > >The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. > >To unsubscribe go to: >http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy >Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".

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Successful launch of Gaia yesterday
by Dale Hooper 20 Dec '13

20 Dec '13

I didn't see any mention of this so I thought I would forward this along. ESA's Gaia mission had a successful launch yesterday and is now on its way to L2. This is an extremely important mission. It will give refined astrometric data for up to a billion stars. This will finally let us really get good distance information for several Cepheid variables - such as Polaris so that these standard candles can be fine-tuned. This is a great day for positional astronomy! Here is a link below. Clear skies, Dale. http://www.universetoday.com/107357/esas-gaia-mission-launches-to-map-the-m…

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Flag on the Moon
by Wiggins Patrick 20 Dec '13

20 Dec '13

There was a question here a few days ago asking if China had put a flag on the Moon. I've been waiting a few days to see if they would try to do that maybe with some sort of robot arm. But there's been no news since the landing (which seems odd to me) so here's the best I could come up with: http://www.sastind.gov.cn/n7812/n136428/n136437/c136596/pic_136596.jpg patrick

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From today's funnies
by Wiggins Patrick 20 Dec '13

20 Dec '13

Wish upon a star: http://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/zits/s-1440478 patrick Sent from my iPad

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Flag on the Moon
by Joe Bauman 20 Dec '13

20 Dec '13

As I understand from my son, who married a woman from mainland China, the literal meaning is how are you while the transactional meaning is hello. This is why you sometimes (rarely, mostly from Westerners) hear "nee-how ma" -- ma means something like question mark. ------------------------------ On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 1:47 PM MST Wiggins Patrick wrote: >As Chuck guessed, Chinese. Mandarin to be specific. Pronounced phonetically "Knee How" with the accent on the first syllable. > >Though it did not come though on the list the way I'd entered it. > >To see how it should really look google "Hello in Mandarin". > >patrick > > >On 20 Dec 2013, at 06:41, Ed <utnatsedj1(a)xmission.com> wrote: > >> Hi Patrick, >> >> In what language is that salutation? Since Google doesn't recognize it, I haven't a clue. >> >> Ed >> ------------------------ >> Quoting Wiggins Patrick <paw(a)getbeehive.net>: >> >> N? h?o, >> >> On 19 Dec 2013, at 15:01, Joe Bauman <josephmbauman(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> >>> Right you are, Patrick. I hope there's more to H. sapiens than just stewing in our ow juices here on Earth. >> >> While we (the US) apparently have a law that prohibits us from working with the Chinese the UK and ESA do not have that impediment and have already expressed interest in working with the Chinese on the exploration of space. >> >> In case I've not mentioned it already, Science Friday covered this a couple of weeks ago: >> http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/12/06/2013/china-shoots-jade-rabbit-ro… >> >> patrick. > >_______________________________________________ >Utah-Astronomy mailing list >http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy > >Send messages to the list to >Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com > >The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. > >To unsubscribe go to: >http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy >Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".

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