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

What would you do in this situation?
by Patrick Wiggins 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

Ok, I probably should not have laughed as I'd probably have done the same thing... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynvKWYvyCqw patrick

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Mystery Alignment of Planetary Nebulae Discovered
by Daniel Holmes 05 Sep '13

05 Sep '13

This is pretty interesting. Dan Mystery Alignment of Planetary Nebulae Discovered http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/weird-planetary-nebula-alignment-… %textQuotePrefix% %quote% --- Shared from Pocket (http://getpocket.com)

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ISON buzz heating up
by daniel turner 05 Sep '13

05 Sep '13

I was just over on the Yahoo comet groups and the traffic there is starting to pick up. ISON is currently tracking Mars in the morning sky and there is a window of good visibility between 5 and six am. Photographs are starting to show up including 4 inch refractor shots with Mars in the same field of view Visually its apparently and easy find in a 16 inch dob. More experienced observers are seeing it with 8 inch SCT's. With the resulting flame war about if that is even possible. Remarkably absent are the usual greybeards droning on about Kohoutek. So maybe after 40 years the curse has been lifted at least on the Yahoo sites. DT

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Dean Ketelsen and John Dobson
by D P Pierce 04 Sep '13

04 Sep '13

1. Some of you know Dean Ketelsen who works at the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab and ran the Grand Canyon Star Party on the south rim until 5 years ago. He has also been president of the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association (TAAA). I saw a article on the net about the mirror lab casting another of the 7 8.2 meter(27 feet) mirrors that will be used in the Giant Magellan Telescope with a quote by Dean. I searched for him and found his blog theketelsens.blogspot.com. I was shocked to learn about his current wife's cancer. His first wife died of cancer 10 years ago. I sent an email which he replied to. 2. In it he mentioned John Dobson. John has been put in a Vedanta assisted living center in LA. Following is part of an email sent to Dean "His birthday is coming soon, the 18th. We were going to have a celebration on the Griffith Observatory lawn, but he's not up to it. Send him a video or note via Donna Smith <dsmith1055(a)earthlink.net>" Deloy

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Cool fireball video!
by D P Pierce 04 Sep '13

04 Sep '13

http://news.yahoo.com/spectacular-fireball-outshines-moon-over-american-sou… Deloy

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very cool pictures from 2011
by Mark Shelton 04 Sep '13

04 Sep '13

Here is a link to some of the coolest pictures I have seen. Take a look. http://www.space.com/13093-strange-nebula-shapes-images-gallery.html Mark

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Concrete arrows (OT) (03 September images)
by Patrick Wiggins 04 Sep '13

04 Sep '13

I did finally get into the air yesterday once the storms mostly passed but by then I lost the more direct lighting I'd of had earlier in the day when the Sun was higher. So since these are not as good as I'd like I'll not be adding them to my Arrows website. They are in order that I took them: Lakpoint arrow from afar and closer. http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/arrows2013sep03/lakepoint-2013se… http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/arrows2013sep03/lakepoint-2013se… Circle shows the GPS coordinates of where the beacon used to stand near the old Tooele airport. http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/arrows2013sep03/tooele-2013sep03… Stockton arrow from afar and closer (very overgrown and hard to see). http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/arrows2013sep03/stockton-2013sep… http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/arrows2013sep03/stockton-2013sep… Circle shows the GPS coordinates of where the beacon used to stand near the old Grantsville airport. http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/arrows2013sep03/grantsville-2013… Exit 77 arrow from afar and closer. http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/arrows2013sep03/exit77-2013sep03… http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/arrows2013sep03/exit77-2013sep03… Exit 62 arrow from afar and closer. http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/arrows2013sep03/exit62-2013sep03… http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/arrows2013sep03/exit62-2013sep03… And as I was headed back I got a few fun shots of an outcrop of rock in Skull Valley called Lone Rock (I love the play of light and shadows) and of Stansbury Island being reflected in the Great Salt Lake. http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/arrows2013sep03/lonerock2013sep0… http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/arrows2013sep03/stansburyisle201… All of these images are shrunk both in size and image quality to keep the sizes down. If anyone would like to see originals just let me know. patrick

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IDA and the Diane Rehm Show this morning
by Richard Tenney 04 Sep '13

04 Sep '13

In case you missed it, Light Pollution was the subject of this morning's Diane Rehm show on NPR (FM 90.1) at 9 a.m. Guests included Bob Parks, executive director of the IDA. Worth a listen: http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-09-03/environmental-outlook-combatin…

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OT: Weather balloons
by Chuck Hards 03 Sep '13

03 Sep '13

Maybe one of you pilots can shed some light on this. I swear I saw a weather balloon being released at SL Int'l airport this morning. It appeared to be a balloon with an orangish beacon light on the bottom, that illuminated the balloon itself. Constant light, no flashing. I stared at it for a while thinking it might be a helicopter taking-off, but the lights were wrong and it didn't fly any kind of pattern, just more-or-less straight up and following the wind direction. About 5:05 AM, not far from the Million-Air terminal that Patrick flies from. Do those balloons still get used? Seems kind of hazardous releasing it from the airport, unless radar showed no incoming traffic for a long ways off.

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] road trip to the arrows (OT)
by Ed 03 Sep '13

03 Sep '13

Patrick, You may have already researched the GIS site for the beacon/arrow sites from Wendover on west, but here is what I found and thought it might be useful in planning your flight out that way. The beacon site north of Wendover is a USAF Communication site now and access is restricted by a gate on the road northwest of the peak it sits on. Location is on: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=LQ0586 The beacon/arrow site (51) at the top of the hill west of Wendover shows nothing discernible on Bing or Google. There is a Jeep "road" that comes in from the west and ends near the site. Location is on: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=LQ0601 The Silver Zone beacon site (50) clearly shows an arrow on both Bing and Google. It's a pretty little thing broken for a ~90-degree course change eastbound. Location is on: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=LQ0620 A tower still shows on Bing and Google (by its shadows at different times of the day) at the Hardy Creek beacon (49). Location is on: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=LQ0629 The location description on the data sheet for the beacon 44 site is not even close to the lat/long coordinates given so I don't know where that site is. Location is on: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=MT0819 I found no beacon towers or arrows on satellite imagery in searching all the way to and including the beacon 42 site near Elko. Location is on: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=LQ0737 I hope this will be useful info for you. Ed ---------------------------- On Tue, 3 Sep 2013 14:12:03 -0600 [02:12:03 PM MDT] Patrick Wiggins <paw(a)wirelessbeehive.com> wrote Well, I had hoped to illustrate this with aerial shots but today's weather nixed that idea. :( On 03 Sep 2013, at 06:12, Ed wrote: Re: Hiking to the 61A arrow at Lakepoint. Until Patrick posts specific hiking directions, About the best directions I could post would be to drive to the base of the hill and hike up. Oh, and look both ways before walking across the railroad tracks. :) Even with my Social-Security-eligible old bones it was just a 20 minute hike up with backpack, camera bag and tripod. Half that to get down. But not recommended if one is uncomfortable with or unable to handle fairly steep slopes and scree. Re: The road up to the SFO-SLC 57 arrow at exit 62. I think the original road followed a much gentler curving climb at the southwest end of the ridge, but is no longer used because of the 4WD "short cut" straight up the hill. My poor little 4 cylinder, 2 wheel drive pickup and I took one look at the short cut and we both started to tremble. So the truck got to rest in the pasture at the bottom of the hill and I hiked to the top. No more than half an hour to get to the arrow. Really enjoyable out there with the only reminder of "civilization" being sounds from the freeway down below. Regarding the site at the next exit (49) as I and Daniel have both mentioned there's not much there. I did find a bottle like the one here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/125354373/antique-vintage-glass-bottle-clear There are two more locations in the Salt Flats I still want to check out as well as one on the Wendover airport and two others near Wendover. Also I checked the site of the beacon that Brent said stood near the old Tooele airport but the GPS coordinates took me to what is now the parking lot for a technical school. Hoping for flyable weather soon, patrick

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