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

L&O report and next meeting
by Chuck Hards 09 Mar '13

09 Mar '13

We had a great turnout today with a dozen in attendance, including Bruno who made the longest drive- at least it's all "downhill", as he put it, lol. Topics ranged from star chart apps to focusers, heavy equatorial mounts on trailers, astro-imaging, amateur radio, custom wood pen-turning, laser pointers- many interesting subjects and a good dose of nostalgia for those of us on the wrong side of 50 (everyone except Dan and his kids, actually...). Larry showed his new mini-guidescope, I brought the humongous Baader 3" Steeltrack Crayford focuser and the new RFT. Mark had a fine example of a lathe-turned pen he recently made, what a beauty. Dan showed me his new Macbook, what a sleek little computer...are camera drivers available for those units? Rich borrowed a couple of astronomical biographies to keep him occupied while his wife is out of town, and even poor beat-up Ray dragged himself out of Intensive Care to make an appearance- now THATS going above and beyond the call of duty! We ran nearly a full two hours. Lots of laughs too, as usual. I'm thinking of April 13th for the next meeting. That's the Saturday closest to new moon, but there are no events on the SLAS calendar during the day, folks have their mornings free for other events, and can still head for SPOC or dark skies that evening, with time for an afternoon nap in-between. So unless there are objections, let's plan on April 13th. Plenty of notice. Also, how did the noon start time work for everyone today? Is it preferred to 1:00? I called the Left Fork this morning and let them know we were coming. They have no problem reserving our long table for us if we just let them know early enough in the day, so I'll take care of that from now on.

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] L&O report and next meeting
by Joe Bauman 09 Mar '13

09 Mar '13

Sounds promising. ------------------------------ On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 4:32 PM MST Chuck Hards wrote: >We had a great turnout today with a dozen in attendance, including Bruno >who made the longest drive- at least it's all "downhill", as he put it, >lol. > >Topics ranged from star chart apps to focusers, heavy equatorial mounts on >trailers, astro-imaging, amateur radio, custom wood pen-turning, laser >pointers- many interesting subjects and a good dose of nostalgia for those >of us on the wrong side of 50 (everyone except Dan and his kids, >actually...). Larry showed his new mini-guidescope, I brought the >humongous Baader 3" Steeltrack Crayford focuser and the new RFT. Mark had >a fine example of a lathe-turned pen he recently made, what a beauty. Dan >showed me his new Macbook, what a sleek little computer...are camera >drivers available for those units? Rich borrowed a couple of astronomical >biographies to keep him occupied while his wife is out of town, and even >poor beat-up Ray dragged himself out of Intensive Care to make an >appearance- now THATS going above and beyond the call of duty! We ran >nearly a full two hours. Lots of laughs too, as usual. > >I'm thinking of April 13th for the next meeting. That's the Saturday >closest to new moon, but there are no events on the SLAS calendar during >the day, folks have their mornings free for other events, and can still >head for SPOC or dark skies that evening, with time for an afternoon nap >in-between. > >So unless there are objections, let's plan on April 13th. Plenty of >notice. Also, how did the noon start time work for everyone today? Is it >preferred to 1:00? > >I called the Left Fork this morning and let them know we were coming. They >have no problem reserving our long table for us if we just let them know >early enough in the day, so I'll take care of that from now on. >_______________________________________________ >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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New Stone Henge theory
by D P Pierce 09 Mar '13

09 Mar '13

http://news.yahoo.com/researchers-stonehenge-started-huge-graveyard-1626274… I still like the old theories as proposed in the Hansen Planetarium show and the Stone Henge Decoded book. Deloy

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Another Global Warming Genius
by stormcrow60＠xmission.com 09 Mar '13

09 Mar '13

Thanks for the heads up Patrick. Joe, I would like to see more of your postings on this list once again. Reading yours and some of the others' sky watching adventures allows me to live vicariously through your writings. Haha. Jon

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Another rock whizzes by Earth
by Thomas Sevcik 09 Mar '13

09 Mar '13

I hadn't heard about this one until this morning on HLN news. There is a link in the Space.com to the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy. http://www.space.com/20085-asteroid-buzzes-earth-this-weekend.html Tom Sevcik

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] L & O
by Joe Bauman 09 Mar '13

09 Mar '13

It's looking likely that we'll be there but I need yo check the weather tomorrow for Saturday's forecast. Hey why won't you go, my friend? -- Joe ------------------------------ On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 7:55 PM MST Ray Druian wrote: >Hey Joe, You've gotta show up for L & O on Saturday because I may not be >there. We can't both miss it or the world may stop spinning. > >-- >Thanx, >*Ray > >* >_______________________________________________ >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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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Moon parallax (and stereo) follow up
by Ed 09 Mar '13

09 Mar '13

Patrick, In no way am I trying to belittle your work in demonstrating the parallax of the Moon against the star field background with the cooperation of the fellow in Hawaii, and also producing a stereo pair of the Moon. Since I am particularly interested in stereo images, Moon included, I did some research to see if it hadn't already been done. As mentioned in my last post, an obvious way to get a stereo pair of the Moon was to use images from its libration cycle. I was surprised to learn how long ago that had been done - in 1859! And, by the man who invented the light bulb, no less! This site shows stereo pairs of the full Moon from the earliest by Warren de la Rue in 1858/59 using the wet-plate collodion process to a Lunar eclipse stereo pair spanning 5 years by Tom Matheson. This site also has a .gif movie showing libration and the apparent size changes of the Moon from October 11 thru November 8, 2007. http://lcni.uoregon.edu/~dow/Marks_photos/stereo_pairs/Apollo_moon/Stereo_p… I'm sure there are many more stereo images of the Moon out there for those interested in looking further. And, Joe, you can cross your eyes to see stereo. Really. Yes you can! Enjoy, Ed Stimpson

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Comet watching tomorrow?
by Patrick Wiggins 08 Mar '13

08 Mar '13

With the National Weather Service and now SPOC's Clear Sky Clock (http://www.cleardarksky.com/c/SPOC2UTkey.html?1) showing the clouds clearing out late tomorrow morning (Saturday), tomorrow evening might be the first good time for those of us here in the north to look for Comet Pan-STARRS. The MPS has it about 10° above the western horizon at sunset and magnitude 0.5 (remember that's comet magnitude not star magnitude) so would-be comet seekers will need to find a spot with a very low western horizon. I'm thinking out at the Rowley exit from I-80 where some of us gathered to watch the Venus transit. MPC reports sunset for SPOC will be at 0121 UT with the comet setting at 0210 UT Just for laughs I may try to find it in the afternoon. For comparison on Wednesday the Sun will set at 0127 and the comet will set at 0249 but by that time the comet will have faded about half a magnitude. BTW, I'm using UT time here to hopefully lessen the confusion caused by Daylight Silly Time being inflicted on us Sunday morning. So subtract 7 hours while we're still on standard time and 6 hour after the switch to silly time. patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Comet watching tomorrow?
by Kelly Ricks 08 Mar '13

08 Mar '13

I'm with Patrick on this one. I think we should pick one time and stay with it. I dislike being forced into a bit of jet lag every spring--getting to sleep in an hour in the fall doesn't make up for it either. ~Kelly > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2013 07:04:20 -0700 > From: Chuck Hards <chuck.hards(a)gmail.com> > To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Comet watching tomorrow? > Message-ID: > <CAHmuOYqN-73gs4GeQOX+D= > 95Z8c7a1fhzq9RV9Jc_hwEYNWpXw(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Lol Patrick, I think you just like to say "Daylight Silly Time" and are the > only one confused by it. ;-) > > I love the extra hour of daylight in the evening, when it's most useful, > having a normal daytime job and major interest in gardening. If I had my > way, we'd stay on DST year-round. > > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 12:55 AM, Patrick Wiggins <paw(a)wirelessbeehive.com > >wrote: > > > BTW, I'm using UT time here to hopefully lessen the confusion caused by > > Daylight Silly Time being inflicted on us Sunday morning. So subtract 7 > > hours while we're still on standard time and 6 hour after the switch to > > silly time. > > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Utah-Astronomy mailing list > Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com > http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy > Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php > > End of Utah-Astronomy Digest, Vol 121, Issue 28 > *********************************************** >

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IDA declares Death Valley a stargazer's paradise
by Thomas Sevcik 07 Mar '13

07 Mar '13

This is a recent release by the IDA in regards to stargazing in one of the hottest places in the U.S. http://www.parkadvocate.org/death-valley-this-land-of-extremes-now-recogniz… Tom Sevcik

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