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New photos posted
by astrodeb＠charter.net 08 Aug '05

08 Aug '05

I posted two new photos. I redid the processing on M35 back in July when the fires were raging and the power was out in St. George. The second one is a 50mm film shot of the Milky Way. I forgot to use the polar scope so the stars are just a bit trailed. http://www.utahastronomy.com/view_album.php?page=3 Enjoy! Debbie

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Benefits of NASA (con)
by Canopus56 08 Aug '05

08 Aug '05

To follow-up on a conversation we were having here a couple of weeks ago, here is some more on the earthly benefits of NASA programs - NASA Spin-Offs homepage http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/technologies/spinoffs_index.html NASA Spins-Offs 2004 edition http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/103475main_spinoff_04.pdf (10 megabytes) NASA Spins-Offs 2002 edition http://www1.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/spin02.pdf (2.5 megabytes) Too bad none of the NASA Technology Transfer Centers are located in Utah. It would make for a good SLAS presentation. - Canopus56(Kurt) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Orion OIII filter
by Chuck Hards 08 Aug '05

08 Aug '05

Has anyone tried the Orion OIII filter? The price for the 2" is particularly attractive. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Thanks to all Wolf Creekers
by Quinn Jensen 08 Aug '05

08 Aug '05

Thanks to all who boldly ventured toward the uncertain skies of Wolf Creek Pass Friday night. My boys, their friends, and Lisa and I had a great time in spite of the clouds. On the bright side, perhaps the abundance of clouds is why it stayed fairly warm. Awesome shot, Tyler. We enjoyed watching you at work! Were you able to get some more time on The Bubble? I would have offered you all a burger, but it was getting dark and I had to shut down the grill to prevent it from impacting the seeing. Thanks again, and best regards, Quinn

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Gary Liptrot, get ahold of me
by Chuck Hards 08 Aug '05

08 Aug '05

Gary, I think I have an old email address for you, please contact me off-list asap. Thanks! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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SN 2005cs one month on
by Patrick Wiggins 07 Aug '05

07 Aug '05

Just shot an image of the supernova in M-51. Comparing it to last month's image it does not appear to have faded much. Both images are 60" exposures with an ST10XME through a C-14 operating at f/5.5. 07 JUL (MDT) http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/temp/M51SN001.JPG 04 AUG (MDT) http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/temp/M51SN002.JPG Patrick

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Index charts to the 50 plates of Barnard's dark cloud atlas
by Canopus56 07 Aug '05

07 Aug '05

This is to announce a preliminary release of index charts to aid in using Plates and Charts 1-50 (omitting Plates 27 and 51) in Edward Emerson Barnard's "A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way" (1927) ("Barnard's Atlas"). Barnard's Atlas features pictures taken with the 1910's state-of-the-art 10" Bruce Telescope. The Atlas was intended to introduce the public to beauty of the Milky Way and to provide a post-humus final version of Barnard's catalogue of dark clouds. These index charts plot the epoch J2000 boundaries of the epoch B1875 photographs in Volume I and in the annotated charts in Volume II of Barnard's Atlas. For example, the reader can use the following index chart for the Aquila area - http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_aql7_1.gif - to orient Plates 34 through 42 to the night sky. These index charts are intended to be used in conjunction with a recent internet distribution of Barnard's Atlas by the Georgia Institute of Technology ("GIA"). << http://www.library.gatech.edu/about_us/digital/barnard/index.html >> The GIA distribution of Barnard's Atlas offers PDF downloads that compile in one file for each plate: 1) Barnard's photograph from Volume I of the Atlas. 2) Barnard's narrative on the plate. 3) Mary R. Calvert's annotated line-drawing chart showing the outlines of the objects in Barnard's catalogue from Volume II of the Atlas. 4) A digital overlay of Calvert's annotated chart over Barnard's photograph. Calvert's line drawings represent the definitive statement of the boundaries that Barnard intended for each dark cloud in his catalogue. Calvert's line drawings annotate the boundaries of distinct (solid line) and indistinct (dotted line) dark nebulae and reflective regions ("nebulosity" in Barnard's Atlas). The following excerpt from Chart 42 illustrates the three types of plotted lines - << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Chart44gamCygExce… >> Calvert's line charts give much more descriptive information on the catalogue object than Barnard's catalogue. A typical note to Barnard's catalogue provides little useful content, as illustrated by the note to Barnard Object No. 3: "Irregular, dark space in nebula; curved, bright strip of nebulosity in SW." Other chart alternatives, like Sky 2000 and Uranometria 2000, chart the Barnard objects, but often combine outlines of several objects into one boundary. The index charts to the plates in Barnard's Atlas can be downloaded as follows. The numbers in parentheses list the Barnard Atlas plates plotted on the index chart: East Sgr (28-31) and East Sco (19-22) Groups to mag 7.1 and 7.6 << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_sgre_scoe7_1… >> << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_sgre_scoe7_6… >> West Sgr (23-26) and West Sco (11-18) Groups to mag 7.1 and 7.6 << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_sgrs_scow7_1… >> << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_sgrs_scow7_6… >> Aql-Sct (34-41) Group to mag 7.1 and 7.6 << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_aql7_1.gif >> << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_aql7_6.gif >> Cyg-Cep (43-50) Group to mag 7.1 and 7.6 << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_cygcep7_1.gif >> << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_cygcep7_6.gif >> Per-Cas (1-2) Group to mag 7.6 << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_Per_dblclust… >> Per-Aur-Ori (3-9) Group to mag 7.1 and 7.6 << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_oriper7_1.gif >> << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_oriper7_6.gif >> CMa (10) Group to mag 8.5 << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_CMa8_5_FOV13… >> The J2000 Barnard plate boundaries are also distributed here in three parts as Cartes du Ciel external nebula catalogues. << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/bdcc.zip >> The Cartes du Ciel compatible nebula catalogues divide the 50 plates into three groups: 1) All plates outside of the Sagittarius-Scorpius region (files bdc1.hdr, *.dat and *.txt). 2) The west groups of the Sagittarius-Scorpius region (files bdc2.hdr, *.dat and *.txt). See << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_sgre_scoe7_1… >> 3) The east groups of the Sagittarius-Scorpius region (files bdc3.hdr, *.dat and *.txt). See << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_sgre_scow7_1… >> The reason for dividing the Sagittarius-Scorpius region into two parts is there are so many overlapping plates covering this region. Including them in one plot catalogue generates a confusing, difficult to interpret display. E.g. - << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/Bdcc_confused.gif >> The Sagittarius-Scorpio region includes the Milky Way galactic core and local Sagittarius-Ophiuchus dark clouds. Using an existing Barnard Dark Object catalogue for Cartes du Ciel << http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/external.html >>, it is now possible to plot Barnard object locations and the Barnard Atlas plate boundaries that surround those objects. Together with Cavert's charts in Volume II of the Atlas, the amount of effort that amateur observers need to expend to confirm the location and shape of Barnard dark cloud can be greatly reduced. Another useful featured provided by these index charts is the identification of the location of bright stars in Calvert's line charts and Barnard's star catalogue tables for each plate by Bayer and Flamsteed numbers. Calvert's annotated charts in Volume II of the Atlas only list stars by a three digit catalogue number. Common stars like Deneb might be identified by only a number like "832". The Aquila area index chart presented above also plots, using Cartes du Ciel, the boundaries of the Barnard plates with Bayer and Flamsteed numbers for bright stars. These index charts aid in rapidly locating the corresponding bright stars in Calvert's line charts and in Barnard's charts and tables. The following objects in Barnard's catalogue of 349 dark clouds do not appear on plates 1-50 of Barnard's Atlas: 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 33, 37, 39, 140, 155, 158, 159, 162, 168, 175, 222, 230, 315. In Cartes du Ciel, these objects plot outside the boundaries of any plate in Barnard's Atlas. Two Barnard Atlas plates, nos. 2 and 42, contain no Barnard objects. The epoch J2000 boundaries of the Barnard Atlas plates were generated by making a table of crude, low precision B1875 coordinate take-offs from Barnard's Atlas. << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/CornersB1875TakeO… >> As noted in the introduction to Volume II of the Atlas, prepared after Barnard's death: "A high degree of accuracy is not claimed for these charts, but they are sufficiently precise to locate and object closely enough for identification in a catalogue." Using Meuss's low-precision precession formula, the B1875 coordinates were translated to J2000 coordinates. << http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/cat/bdcc/CornersJ2000.htm >> Nutation has not been applied. The resulting coordinates were ported to Cartes du Ciel compatible nebula outline files. Once plotted in Ciel, each of the 49 plates (1-50, omitting Plate 27) in Ciel were inspected and compared for orientation and boundaries to the plates in the Atlas and Barnard's star catalogue of each plate in Volume II of the Atlas. It was felt that Ciel plots represented the boundaries of the Barnard Atlas plates sufficiently for their intended purpose: 1) to rapidly orient an Atlas plate to the night sky and 2) to rapidly locate three bright stars and/or Messier objects located on Calvert's line charts and Barnard's star catalogue table for that plate. A single object test of the precession formula on Barnard 43 confirms the low-precision accuracy of the precession formula used here to transform epoch B1875 coordinates to J2000: Barnard 43 in B1875 per VizieR catalogue VII/220A/barnard B1875 16h 23m 00s -19.5d CDS Simbad FK5/J2000 coordinates for B43: 16h 29.9m -19d 36m Georgia Institute of Technology J2000 coordinates for B43: 16h 29m 7s -18d 50m J2000 Precession formula used here: 16h 30m 44.50s -19d 46m 14.5s It is hoped that these index charts to the plates and charts in Barnard's Atlas will increase the enjoyment of amateurs discovering this overlooked class of difficult objects. A common problem encountered when first observing dark nebulae is "Are you looking at the right object?" For dark objects, this questions is more vexing than when looking at typical light-emitting objects. Dark objects have even less contrast than against the background night sky than dim stars. Barnard (1919) cautioned that "It would be unwise to assume that the dark places shown on photographs of the sky are due to intervening opaque masses between us and the stars." I have always had difficulty in understanding exactly what each Barnard objects consists, given only commonly available coordinates and Barnard's tabular notes by object number. Calvert's line drawing charts (now distributed over the internet by the Georgia Technical Institute) present the definitive statement on what Barnard intended the boundaries of each object to be. But even Calvert's charts can be difficult to use. It is hoped that the index charts and Cartes du Ciel compatible external nebula databases will remove some of these barriers to identifying the Barnard clouds and will allow more amateurs to enjoy this interesting class of night sky objects. Future enhancements will expand Barnard's catalogue with the corresponding opacity and positions of objects in Lynds' "Catalogue of Dark Nebula" (1962) and the known distances to selected Lynd-Barnard dark clouds in Hilton's "Distance measurements of Lynds galactic dark nebulae" (1995). Send comments and corrections to canopus56(a)yahoo.com . - Enjoy - Canopus56 Acknowledgements: These index charts and Cartes du Ciel compatible catalogues make use of catalogues and data from the VizieR service of the Centre de DonnÃ©es astronomiques de Strasbourg, France. Charts distributed here were generated using Cartes du Ciel. << http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/ >>. This amateur-observer-author is not affiliated with the Georgia Institute of Technology or Cartes du Ciel. References: Barnard, E.E. 1919. On the dark markings of the sky, with a catalogue of 182 such objects. Astrophys. J., 49:1-24 (1919) << NASA ADS link: http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?1919ApJ....49....1B >> Barnard, E.E. 1927. A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way. Carnegie Institution of Washington. << http://www.library.gatech.edu/about_us/digital/barnard/index.html >>; also available in hardcopy from ProQuest UMI Books on Demand. << http://wwwlib.umi.com/bod >> (BOD catalogue nos. WB1-2050305-060 and WB1-2050305-061) Barnard, E.E. 1927. Barnard's Catalogue of 349 Dark Objects in the Sky. CDS VizieR catalogue VII/220A/barnard and VII/220A/notes. << http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?VII/220A >>. The catalogues can be queried through the CDS VizieR gateway at << http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-source=VII/220A >>; Cartes du Ciel compatible build << http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/external.html >> Hilton J., Lahulla J.F. 1995. Distance measurements of Lynds galactic dark nebulae. CDS VizieR catalogue J/A+AS/113/325/table1a and table1b. << http://vizier.cfa.harvard.edu/viz-bin/Cat?J/A%2bAS/113/325 >> Lynds, Beverly T. 1962. Catalogue of Dark Nebulae. Astrophys. J., Supp. 7, 1 << NASA ADS Link: http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?1962ApJS....7....1L >> Meeus, Jan. 1999. (2d) Astronomical Algorithms. Willman-Bell. << http://www.willbell.com/math/mc1.htm >> ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

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Observing report from Wolf Creek (Friday Night/Sat. Morning)
by Richard Tenney 07 Aug '05

07 Aug '05

Several of us believed the National Weather Service's forecast for "mostly clear" on Friday night, but it turned out to be "mostly cloudy" instead. About to call it a night at 12:30 with no apparent hope of clearing, Quinn informed me that Provo Canyon was closed. Ugh. Wondering what to do, I noticed the sky starting to clear (finally). It opened up for about 2 hours, from 1am to 3am, and I managed to get the last 6 of my summer Herschel-400 objects, all open clusters in the small constellation of Vulpecula. Two of the 6 clusters I observed were especially lovely. NGC 6802 is a small rectangular patch of faint stars that fade to "nebulosity" that I found very lovely in the 16-inch. And NGC 6940 is a spectacular (and I'm guessing often overlooked) open cluster that filled the eyepiece (115x) with over 100 stars, and would probably be wonderful in any aperture scope. All the clusters are in very rich milky way star fields. Good company and some new friends made it worthwhile in spite of the clouds. I just need to remember to bring a pillow and blanket in the future... Rich __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] DNA testing was Re: Creationism rift opens withinThe Vatican
by Michael Carnes 07 Aug '05

07 Aug '05

Mitochondrial DNA is passed exclusively through the maternal line. I think that it has very little effect on the hereditary process. That may be why it's proven useful over a longer timescale. Mutation of the DNA occurs at a fairly predictable rate, or so current thinking goes. That allows us to trace the branching of different population groups based on the divergence of mitochondrial DNA. As I understand it, most biologists believe that the mitochondrium was once a separate organism that migrated into the cell. That would be a fascinating process in itself. So any paternal Native American DNA won't show up in your mitochondrium, although it wouldn't be surprising to find markers in your regular DNA. There was an interesting article a few months ago--I think it was in Scientific American--about some Navajo women who were allowing sequencing of their DNA to help scientists find such markers. But the article went on to say that most Indians were still quite distrustful of supporting such a process. Given the last 500 years of history, it's sort of hard to blame them. >OK. I still am not totally sure how that works. I wondered about the mitochondrial DNA since the supposed Native American blood >goes through me, my mom, her dad, then his mom. For some reason I got the impression that the mitochondrial stuff might trace >Experts think the American continents were first populated around 14,000 years ago. But who did it? And, how many of them were >there? Using DNA samples from modern Native Americans and Asians, a new computer model suggests a founding group as small as >210 people with only 70 breeding individuals. These numbers make many researchers skeptical, because such a small group would >have been in danger of extinction. Also, studies based on blood markers suggest a breeding population of 100 to 1,000 individuals in >the founding group. There may be a bit more to the story. There is an increasing amount of evidence that there may have been earlier migration events--some of the dating of various sites point to more ancient timelines. Your surmise of small breeding populations still holds true, I think, but there may have been a few different clusters. The old Bering land bridge theory has not been undermined, but there's a small prejudice built into that that holds that older populations wouldn't have been capable of travel by boat. We've now got very strong indications that the aboriginal population of Australia reached there 50,000 years ago by sea, so it's pretty clear our ancient ancestors could build a decent boat when they had to. There's no reason to believe that small boats couldn't stay close to shore and find their way to the Americas. The Inuit got pretty good in their little skin boats. Interesting little sub-topic. Boy does this group wander into the weeds sometimes.

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Creationism rift opens within The Vatican
by Patrick Wiggins 06 Aug '05

06 Aug '05

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7801 Patrick

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