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You are here: Earth as seen from Mars
by Patrick Wiggins 12 Mar '04

12 Mar '04

This is the first image ever taken of Earth from the surface of a planet beyond the Moon. It was taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit one hour before sunrise on the 63rd martian day of its mission. Small (18 kB) http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20040311a/11-ml-02-eart… Large (366 kB) http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20040311a/11-ml-02-eart…

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File this under very bad ideas
by Jim Cobb 11 Mar '04

11 Mar '04

Inventor patents device for ads in space Thursday, March 11, 2004 Posted: 9:41 AM EST (1441 GMT) MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- Orion, the Big Dipper and Andromeda could be joined in the heavens by ads for soft drinks and cigarettes if a Russian inventor's device catches on. http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/03/11/russia.space.ap/index.html Jim ---- Jim Cobb james(a)cobb.name

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Apple picture
by RStmarie＠aol.com 11 Mar '04

11 Mar '04

In a message dated 3/10/2004 01:27:46 Mountain Standard Time, paw(a)trilobyte.net writes: http://planet.state.ut.us/temp/APPLE.JPG Pretty cool Patrick! Now, knowing the military has a telescope system that could have inspected the Shuttle tiles for damage before re-entry I wonder how big a telescope amatuers would have to have to resolve detail on satellites in orbit without adaptive optics? Is it something we could do or is it just beyond us? I will have to get out an almanac and look at the Dawes Limit formula.

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Large sunspot
by Chuck Hards 11 Mar '04

11 Mar '04

The current large spot formation is favorably placed, nearly centered on the solar disk. A smaller pair is just to it's left, in a correct-image scope. Watch this spot at high powers (above 100x) and see it change shape as you observe. Be sure to use proper filtration. Thanks to Jim Gibson for calling it to my attention. C. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Search - Find what youre looking for faster http://search.yahoo.com

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Utah Astronomy Photo Album down
by GeyserGuy＠comcast.net 10 Mar '04

10 Mar '04

Hi group, Cynthia just called to have me send this email message out. Her DSL is temporarily off line, so the Astronomy photo album will not be available for a few days. She will post an updated message tomorrow. Mark Knowlden, MBA CPA State of Utah Div. of Administrative Services Department of Finance (801) 538-1715

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] Annooyance, Part 2
by Kim Hyatt 10 Mar '04

10 Mar '04

I've followed most of the comments regarding the spherules - they triggered a vague memory of something that I could only recently recall. I'm reminded of the spherules in oolitic limestone. They are the right size, just a millimeter or two, but my memory fails how they formed on earth. Can anyone with a geologic background respond? -----Original Message----- From: Joe Bauman [mailto:bau@desnews.com] Sent: Monday, March 08, 2004 9:52 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Annooyance, Part 2 Hi Friends, here's another closeup by Opportunity, one of the more recent views by the microscopic imager. You'll see this time and again in pictures of "blueberries": They are roughly symmetrical, with a sort of point at top and seams running down the sides. Sometimes they are elongated. You can see what I'm talking about a bit more clearly if you use your photo manipulation software to darken the image and increase contrast. Frequently these things are on stalks, possibly due to material weathering away under them but maybe the stalks are part of a growth cycle. Sometimes the stalks are quite dramatic. Anyway, I am not giving up on the idea that they could be strange lifeforms, that are difficult to recognize as life becuase they're so alien. The closest I can come to an Earth analogue is fungus, like mushrooms, or plants like succulents. Sometimes they remind me of primitive animal life like echinoderms (sand dollars are the remains of echinoderms). Here are views of living sand dollars. http://www.seashells.org/identcatagories/naturalsand.htm Anyway, take a glance at this interesting image from Opportunity: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/m/039/1M131648550EFF0544P2953M2 M1.JPG Best wishes, 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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Apple picture
by Patrick Wiggins 10 Mar '04

10 Mar '04

After mentioning the flashing geosyn satellite named Apple here Monday night I went back out and got a picture of it. http://planet.state.ut.us/temp/APPLE.JPG was taken between 05:50:00 and 05:51:30. The field is about 11.7' x 15.3'. The brightest star in the field is SAO 117935. Flashes were about 14" apart. Patrick

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Solar Data Browser
by David L Bennett 09 Mar '04

09 Mar '04

Speaking of sunspots...if there are any other Mac users out there running OSX there is a great freeware program called Solscape available at: http://www.stimpsoft.com/products/solscape.html It offers the most recent solar images from SOHO (EIT, LASCO, MDI, etc.), current graphs/data, auroral activity and forecasts, satellite imagery from GOES, and solar activity alerts. It's also a nice little cheat to see if there are any worthwhile sunspots visible before setting up the gear. Regards, Dave Bennett P.S. I've included a shot from the program...it's a Michelson Doppler Imager image showing the sunspots Jim mentioned earlier. On Tuesday, March 9, 2004, at 11:21 AM, Jim Gibson wrote: > I just went outside (11:15 Tuesday) and looked at the sun with my > Galileos + filters. There is a pair of huge sunspots just left > (observers left) of the center. One is very black and the other is > much less so. > > Jim

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] second thoughts
by Kim Hyatt 09 Mar '04

09 Mar '04

Has NASA offered any theories yet? I haven't followed all of the info that has been released. I'm sticking with the oolitic limestone model for now. However, on earth doesn't the carbonate precipitate that accumulates on a grain of sand or shell fragment (see http://www.science.ubc.ca/~geol202/sed/sili/oolites.html) to form the oolite ultimatley come from sea organisms? If so, then there's always the possibility that such action took place on Mars to form these spherules. Since I don't have time to follow all of NASA's press conferences, etc., y'all just let me know if I'm up in the night... -----Original Message----- From: Joe Bauman [mailto:bau@desnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2004 11:08 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] second thoughts Hi Chuck, The Moqui marbles do have some amazing similarities to the Mars thingies. What bothers me is that I collected some myself many years ago down around Coral Pink Sand Dunes. I'm not quite surrendering, but it looks grim for the blueberries as life argument. What got me is that the marbles seem to be connected to groundwater and iron. We all know about iron and Mars. What if the groundwater is percolating upward, connecting with iron and silica, and forming these things? They would tend to project out, like these seem to, and might even have "rootlets" that are tubes in the soil where the groundwater traveled. It seem reasonable. Best wishes, 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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Geo flasher
by Patrick Wiggins 08 Mar '04

08 Mar '04

Right now (8:30 pm) about 6 degrees above (in altitude) Procyon is a geosynch satellite called Apple (12545U). It's rotating and about every 28 seconds it flashes. Easy to see from my backyard here in Stansbury with just 7x35 binoculars. Not bad considering it's about 40,000 km out there. Fun. Patrick

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