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

Wanna buy a name?
by Patrick Wiggins 28 Dec '13

28 Dec '13

Those who have been on this list a very long time might remember that back in 2007 I spotted a little dot on one of my images that moved from picture to picture that turned out to be an unknown minor planet. I gave it the temporary name UOFU08 (for Univ. of Utah find #8). The Minor Planet Center checked and when they decided it was in fact a new find they called it K07V08N / 2007 VN8. Going through my correspondence from back then I saw I'd posted to this list that it would probably be a couple of years before I'd be able to name it. Turned out to be longer than that. However, a couple of hours ago I received my second cosmological birthday present (the first being the GRB) in the form of an email from MPC giving my little rock a number: 361690 So, what am I bid for naming rights? :) Just kidding as the rights were gone long ago. Some here might also remember that following my (with wife Holly) first find back on 03 November 1999 and my solo find a couple of weeks later I was thinking this was going to be easy. So easy that I gave naming rights to my next find to KCPW to auction off during one of their telethons. And from what I remember, they got a handsome sum. Little did the winner (or I) know that next find would be 8 years later. And that the ability to name it would come 6 years after that. So I just sent the winning bidder an email to the address I had for him in 2007. So far it has not bounced. I'm really interested to see how he'll respond. Clear skies, patrick

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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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Arches NP Star Party
by D P Pierce 30 Apr '13

30 Apr '13

I remember a star party in my early SLAS days at Panorama Point. The astronomy club from Grand Junction joined us. http://wcacastronomy.org/index.html Deloy

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Do we know these people?
by D P Pierce 30 Apr '13

30 Apr '13

http://moab-astronomy.com/ Deloy

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M13 4/29/2013 ~ 00:20 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
by Dave Gary 29 Apr '13

29 Apr '13

M13 early this morning. http://www.flickr.com/photos/78046474@N06/8693129526/in/photostream/

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Re; Speed of Light Speculation (Dave Gary)
by stormcrow60＠xmission.com 29 Apr '13

29 Apr '13

Since when do photons have charge? Second proposal, second paragraph. Dave Dave, Haven't you ever heard of the "Charge of the Light Brigade"? I just had to throw that one out there. Jon

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UFO activity reported near Moab
by Chuck Hards 29 Apr '13

29 Apr '13

My sister in Moab texted me to say that for a few nights she's seen unidentified objects (star-like) flying around the sky, looping, moving very fast. Anybody else in the area noticed unusual night-time activity?

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Speed of Light Vacuum Variations
by baxman2＠q.com 29 Apr '13

29 Apr '13

I got the following information from electrical engineer and researcher George Hathaway of TorontoCanada. Dear Mr. Baxter, The speed of light is not a true constant, because it varies with the vacuum energy content (positive, negative, or zero) as you surmise. Photons are affected by propagating through vacuum fluctuations (ZPF). In free space, these fluctuations act to limit the speed of light to what we know it to be via lab experiments. QED theory does not address the variability of permeability and permittivity in undisturbed free-space vacuum because QED is only concerned with the interactions between photons and charged particles. However, the paper cited below addresses the fermionic vacuum ZPF which has been shown to change the permeability and permittivity and thus the speed of light: 1. Marcel Urban, François Couchot, Xavier Sarazin, Arache Djannati-Atai. The quantum vacuum as the origin of the speed of light. The European Physical Journal D, 2013; 67 (3) DOI: 10.1140/epjd/e2013-30578-7

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Anyone imaging?
by Patrick Wiggins 29 Apr '13

29 Apr '13

I received an email notice about an hour ago about indicating a possible gamma ray burst. They're almost always faint and don't last very long but I figured I'd give it a try anyway. The notice said the satellite that detected it put it at: 11h 32m 32.68s (J2000) +27d 42' 46.4" (J2000) I was surprised to actually find something there. I've shot many a GRB field before but this was the first time I caught something. I checked the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey and it shows nothing where the mystery object is in my images. But the weird thing is this thing, whatever it is, is still there more than an hour after detection. My first image shows it at an unfiltered magnitude of 13.2. The most recent image puts it at 14.8. The fading appeared to be leveling off there for a bit but now seems to be accelerating again. If anyone else happens to be imaging at the moment I'd sure appreciate a confirmation image. Thanks, patrick

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Anyone imaging?
by Kelly Ricks 29 Apr '13

29 Apr '13

I agree! Congratulations Patrick. ~Kelly > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 23:37:21 -0700 (PDT) > From: Joe Bauman <josephmbauman(a)yahoo.com> > To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Anyone imaging? (corrected URL) > Message-ID: > <1367217441.78860.YahooMailNeo(a)web125105.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > > Wow, that is real science! It would be fun to hear your speculation about > what triggered it. -- Joe > > > > ________________________________ > From: Patrick Wiggins <paw(a)wirelessbeehive.com> > To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2013 11:30 PM > Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Anyone imaging? (corrected URL) > > > I just checked the field and, though greatly diminished, it's still there. > > Apparently my data turned out to be useful to some folks as I see NASA > Goddard published them (many thanks to AAVSO's Matthew Templeton for > helping me write it up): > http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn3/14490.gcn3 > > That marks my first time in a GCN Circular. > > Matthew tells me that someplace called the Los Alamos group reported it > initially reached magnitude 7.9 and that that might have been the jet > emerging from the star.? I guess we should be thankful the source was so > far away.? From what I understand if a nearby source were to hit us with > such a beam it would wreak havoc with Earth's ecosystem. > > patrick > > On 28 Apr 2013, at 07:28, Dave Gary wrote: > > > Wow, that is bright. I doubt it would be there, tonight, but I could try > to get an image. > > > > Dave > > On Apr 28, 2013, at 1:33 AM, Patrick Wiggins <paw(a)wirelessbeehive.com> > wrote: > > > >> Right you are.? That should have read: > >> > >> http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/mystery/mystery01.jpg shows > the light curve as generated using two different softwares > >> > >> http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/mystery/mystery02.jpg shows > the POSS image of the field on the left and one of my very hazed and mooned > shots of the same FOV with the object arrowed. > >> > >> 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". > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 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 122, Issue 108 > ************************************************ >

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