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Re: [Utah-astronomy] OAS excursion to St. George
by David Dunn 08 Feb '05

08 Feb '05

I want to also thank Debbie for the fun evening of observing. I really enjoyed looking at all the nebulas and galaxies that she let us look at in her 15" Obsession. That is a fantastic telescope. The Eskimo Nebula was really neat. You could see lines of gas and dust inside the outer ring. I also appriciate the time Debbie took helping us find a good observing location. We are already planning to return there next year. Dave

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] OAS excursion to St. George
by astrodeb＠charter.net 08 Feb '05

08 Feb '05

Joe, "Thor's Helmet" is actually an emission nebula. I've never seen it that good before. I saw it last spring through the light pollution of Hurricane. It is best viewed through an OIII filter. We saw several good planetaries including "The Eskimo", "Blue Snowball", NGC 2440 (Hubble imaged this one), Abell 21 (The Medusa Nebula), NGC 1535, and NGC 1360. NGC 1360 is a rather large planetary in Fornax. The OIII really brings out the oval shaped blue-grey nebula. I also cranked up the magnification on the "Eskimo Nebula" to about 350X. The central star was easily visable at this power. We also saw the little planetary nebula NGC 2438 in M46. Later in the evening we viewed the Owl Nebula and M108 in Ursa Major. I also found "Hubble's Variable Nebula" in Monoceros. It is an interesting nebula that looks like a comet. Debbie > > From: Joe Bauman <bau(a)desnews.com> > Date: 2005/02/08 Tue AM 10:20:09 MST > To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Subject: [Utah-astronomy] OAS excursion to St. George > > Just a quick thank-you to Dave Dunn and his partners from OAS for the > open invitation to their St. George star party. I had a blast, up > until the time when I wused out because of the cold. At least I found > that Meade did repair my telescope, and I saw some interesting > things. It was the first time I was able to look at the comet through > my 'scope, and I found it to have a bright grainy center and a > diffuse blobby surrounding, but no definite tail from this angle. > Deb, who lives in the St. George vicinity, guided us to our site and > showed some exciting views in her 15" dob, including one planetary I > had never seen before, NGC2359, "Thor's Helmet." -- Thanks again, Joe > > _______________________________________________ > 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.utahastronomy.com >

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Name that telescope
by David Dunn 08 Feb '05

08 Feb '05

Call is the ULT, Utahs Largest Telescope. Of course, someday OAS may decide to build a bigger one just to make the name obsolete. Dave

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Name that telescope
by Steve Trottier 07 Feb '05

07 Feb '05

Have you considered calling it the Larry H. Miller telescope, and then asking him for a donation?

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Re: Name that telescope
by Chuck Hards 06 Feb '05

06 Feb '05

Yeah, the initials "B.S." could tend to raise eyebrows, although there is precedent; I believe the Russians called their 236-inch the "Big Telescope" for years. Bolshoi Teleskop, or something similar. SLAStroscan? Only if we paint it bright red and escrow legal funds for when Edmund sues. How about "Tooelescope" "Cyclops" comes to mind. "Swamp Thing" takes location into account. "Mosquito Telescope" for similar reasons. KECK-III (hows that for attitude?) Hubble-II But I keep coming back to: G.R.I.M. (Grantsville Reflective Imaging Monster, so Bruce can't squabble. Or maybe Giant Relfective Imaging Monster) Imaging can refer to both visual and captured images. Patrick wrote: > I'd also like to have a better name than "Big > Scope". I coined that > name long ago thinking it would only be a working > name, little realizing > that all this time later we'd still be using it. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Please check
by Patrick Wiggins 06 Feb '05

06 Feb '05

I've gone through the SPOC construction pages on my site and reduced the thumbnail images from 8-30+ k down to 2-4 k. This should make the pages open faster. I'd appreciate it if some of y'all would try the links at http://www.trilobyte.net/paw/slas/PW.HTML and see if the pages do open faster. Many thanks, Patrick

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Re: Tonight
by Chuck Hards 06 Feb '05

06 Feb '05

Anonymous wrote: > On a hunch, I took the 12" Dob out this evening for > a backyard tour of the > sky. Yup, it sucked. If I could only glue 3 of these > together I might have > something. A trinocular. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

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Re: Tonights star party
by Chuck Hards 06 Feb '05

06 Feb '05

Debbie, I wanted to let you know that the Big Scope has a very limited FOV due to it's long focal length. Large objects will require mosaicking techniques to image the entire object. We couldn't fit all of M42 in a very low-power eyepiece with a large field stop. Perhaps a tele-compressor will be of limited help, but the real solution is a huge detector chip, like the size of a postage stamp. We only saw the central core of M35 with the Big Scope at low power. Also, as far as I know the Big Scope has already been named the Grim telescope, hasn't it? If not, that's my nomination. __________________________________________________ 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] M35 image posted
by astrodeb＠charter.net 06 Feb '05

06 Feb '05

I forgot the link. www.utahastronomy.com/astrodeb/RZ_M35PIC1 Debbie > > From: <astrodeb(a)charter.net> > Date: 2005/02/06 Sun PM 02:23:11 MST > To: <utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com> > Subject: [Utah-astronomy] M35 image posted > > I got out Wednesday night and tried out my new Kwick Focus Hartmann mask to get a sharper focus with my Canon Digital Rebel. I think we did a better job of focusing than we did back in December. Stars look better than the M38 image. > > I'm still limited to only 30 second exposures because of my polar alignment issues. I'm going to try to train my mount next time by turning on PEC and feeding the guiding corrections into the mount's computer. > > I took 32 30 second frames at my house in St. George. By the time we got the image focused and framed the battery died so I had to recharge the battery for a while. I guess I need a spare for dark sky locations. We came back out and M35 was just past zenith and high overhead. This was my only target for that night. I tried to take an image of the Flame Nebula but the batteries died again. Maybe I'll try the Flame-Horsehead area next time. > > Debbie > > > _______________________________________________ > 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.utahastronomy.com >

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M35 image posted
by astrodeb＠charter.net 06 Feb '05

06 Feb '05

I got out Wednesday night and tried out my new Kwick Focus Hartmann mask to get a sharper focus with my Canon Digital Rebel. I think we did a better job of focusing than we did back in December. Stars look better than the M38 image. I'm still limited to only 30 second exposures because of my polar alignment issues. I'm going to try to train my mount next time by turning on PEC and feeding the guiding corrections into the mount's computer. I took 32 30 second frames at my house in St. George. By the time we got the image focused and framed the battery died so I had to recharge the battery for a while. I guess I need a spare for dark sky locations. We came back out and M35 was just past zenith and high overhead. This was my only target for that night. I tried to take an image of the Flame Nebula but the batteries died again. Maybe I'll try the Flame-Horsehead area next time. Debbie

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