- Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Foreign Exchange Student
by David Dunn 19 Apr '02

19 Apr '02

I received the following message and thought I would pass it on to the group in case anyone is interested. Dave My name is Darcie Behunin and I work with a non-profit organization that places foreign exchange students in homes in Utah. I have a girl from Hong Kong that indicates astronomy as a main interest. I thought it would be best that she be placed with a family with same interests. If you could provide my phone number or email it would be greatly appreciated. My phone number is 282-1250. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for your time Darcie Behunin C.E.T.U.S.A. - Council for Educational Travel U.S.A. foreignexchange.amadeus(a)aros.net

1 0

Pre-Dawn Comet
by Joe Borgione 17 Apr '02

17 Apr '02

I just got back from a business trip down to Grand County spending a night in Moab. My standard operating procedure for overnight trips is to take my 15 x 70 binoculars and a tripod, so I can spend a little quality time in the dark. This morning (4-11-02) I got up around 4:00 am and set up in a fairly dark spot east of town, on the road to the popular mountain biking mecca, the SlickRock trail. I had a great view of the summer MilkyWay, especially my favorite looks into Sagtitarius. As I swept north though the MilkyWay, I came upon the comet that we've all enjoyed for the past few weeks. What a pleasant surprise. I knew it would be shifting to an early morning object, but until I actually saw it, I hadn't given it too much thought. It's a real looker at that hour; just to the east of Cassiopia, and when I saw it, very close to M52, a pretty open cluster. It was visable naked eye from the Moab spot as a fuzzy glob; you'll need a pretty good dark sky for that. If you liked the comet before sunset, it's worth the effort to get up early and see it with the back drop of the MilkyWay.... Joe Borgione

1 0

Darkroom bottles
by Patrick Wiggins 12 Apr '02

12 Apr '02

Astrophotographers, I find myself with a surplus of dark brown glass photochemistry bottles. I hate to toss them but darkroom space limitations require I do something with them. Anyone want them? There are both gallon and pint size. Patrick Wiggins

1 0

FW: Nov 2001 Leonid Meteor photos?
by David Dunn 12 Apr '02

12 Apr '02

The date for this was Saturday Nov. 17th. This guy is looking for anyone that might have a picture of the fireball that they observed. -----Original Message----- From: James Peterson [mailto:James.Peterson@sdl.usu.edu] Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 3:52 PM To: DunnDave(a)aol.com Cc: david_dunn(a)albertsons.com; Dale Hooper Subject: Nov 2001 Leonid Meteor photos? Hi Dave, I work for Space Dynamics Lab at USU. I got your name and email from Dale Hooper. During the Leonid meteor shower last November, a colleague and I made a mid-wavelength infrared measurement of a meteor from our facility here in Logan. In doing so, we have create a great deal of exitment from the folks who study these meteors. Unfortunately the field-of-view of our visible camera was too narrow and we didn't catch the same meteor on our visible camera. I have performed some analysis on IR data from the meteor and am presenting it saturday at NASA/Ames and again the first part of May in Tokyo, then publish the results in some journal. What I really need to go along with the measurements and analysis I have done is ANY kind of visible imagery (photo, video, ect.) . Do you think there might have been someone in the Ogden Astronomical Society who might have something like this? At this point I can't offer any $, but they would certainty get credit in any publications for anything they might be able to provide. Here is the info: The meteor was a hugh fireball - I observed it visually. The local time was 03:40:33, plus or minus about 1 second, and the meteor lasted for slightly longer than 0.5 seconds. From Logan we estimated that it was about 30 degrees from the Zenith and 105 degrees from North (S75E), with at an estimated range of 125km. Which, from Ogden, would to be at nearly the same Zenith and almost due East to slightly North of East. Could you check and see if anyone caught any 'fire balls' during this time period? Any help you can provide would be much appreciated. Maybe you could also forward this to anyone you may know in SLC that might have been photographing or videoing that night. Thanks again, James Peterson Space Dynamics Lab/USU james.peterson(a)sdl.usu.edu 435-797-4384

1 0

Get the lead out
by Patrick Wiggins 11 Apr '02

11 Apr '02

Out of my garage, that is... While cleaning out the garage this evening I came across 2, 2.5 kg ingots of lead left over from an old ATM project. Anybody have any use for it? Patrick

2 2

Re: Patrick's News: Coma Cluster gas cloud
by Chuck Hards 10 Apr '02

10 Apr '02

Interesting story, thanks Patrick. (If you don't subscribe to Patrick's news, I advise doing so. Saves a lot of time...best astro search engine on the Web: Patrick Wiggins!) The "100-million-degree gas cloud" mentioned in the story is rather misleading, if I recall my astro-physics classes correctly. Sounds hot as Hades, but IIRC, the gas is so tenuous that if you immersed your cold lunch in it, it wouldn't even warm it up. Hot gas must be dense enough for conduction to become noticeable on a human scale. While the indivdual atoms of intergalactic gas may have extremely high energies, they are just too few and far between to warm anything in their midst substantially. Something like an atom for every cubic meter; almost a perfect vacuum. However, the clouds are so large, and the collective radiation is so great, that we can detect it here on distant Earth. Rich, you're the physicist of the group, am I remembering correctly? Thanks C. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/

2 2

Binoculars for SPOC-2
by Chuck Hards 09 Apr '02

09 Apr '02

Patrick, I'll order a pair of the Sportsman's Guide 10 x 50 binos for donation to SPOC-2. At only 20 bucks, it's hard to go wrong. You can't even buy the optics alone from surplus for that price. I challenge other list members to do the same. If we order together, we may be able to reduce shipping charges. And I'd like to point out that it's tax-deductable, so the donation really doesn't cost you anything! (Who's the current treasurer? I want a reciept to show the tax man...) Any takers? Chuck __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/

2 1

sportmansguide binos
by William.H.Fenton＠Dartmouth.EDU 08 Apr '02

08 Apr '02

A pair of 15-45X70mm zoom binoculars by Grampus Inc. are listed in a recent sportsmansguide catalog. Does anyone have any experience with this item or manufacturer? I'd give a link but I can't find them in their online catalog. Thanks -Bill

6 11

FW: Starshine mirror help!
by David Dunn 08 Apr '02

08 Apr '02

John Sohl from Weber State is looking for some help polishing mirrors with some elementary school students for Project Starshine. If you can help out, please email John at JSOHL(a)weber.edu. -----Original Message----- From: John SOHL [mailto:JSOHL@weber.edu] Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 12:58 PM Subject: Starshine mirror help! Hi Guys, please help me spread the word. I need a hand on THIS Wednesday from 1:00 p.m. to about 2:30 p.m. to polish 8 starshine mirrors at Hillcrest Elementary School. I don't need lots and lots of help like last year, but about two or three would be wonderful. I had the physics department faculty and students ready to help out but a last minute department seminar came up (that I'll have to miss) and I lost all of them! If you can spread the word and have anyone available to help contact me I'll give them specific directions. Thanks. John - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - John E. Sohl, Ph.D., Professor of Physics Director, Ott Planetarium, Weber State University 2508 University Circle, Ogden, UT 84408-2508 voice: (801) 626-7907, fax: (801) 626-7445 e-mail: jsohl(a)weber.edu web: http://physics.weber.edu/planet/ott.html

1 0

Last night at Lakeside
by Chuck Hards 05 Apr '02

05 Apr '02

WOW! What a night! Thanks to EVERYONE who came out to the comet-viewing party at Lakeside last night. Fantastic views, perfect weather, dark skies, excellent company. It was nice to meet some of you whom I have only exchanged emails with to date. It was one of those not-frequent enough nights when everything worked perfectly. I NAILED my polar-alignment, and didn't have to constantly push buttons while guiding. In fact, I didn't guide at all! The guidestar stayed on the crosshairs as if it were nailed there. Clean livin' and home-brewed equipment, I tell 'ya! Mention was made that the site would be appropriate for club dark-sky star parties, and I will enthusiastically support this. The skies are not perfectly dark, but for a site within an hour's drive of Salt Lake, they are certainly very good, especially to the north and west. Even the S.L. light dome to the east only extended above the hills a few degrees. Bruce Grim, Joe Borgione, and I were using our 15 x 70 Bear binos, and these provided a perfect view of the comet. After the comet set, Bruce began knocking-down Messier objects with them in rapid succession. They readily showed M3, M51, M65, M66, and surprisingly, M97, which took us by surprise for its large apparent size in binoculars. M42 was stunning, as usual. Seen against the larger backdrop of the entire sword region made it only more beautiful. The Beehive was fantastic, like diamonds on velvet. This time of year, the ecliptic forms a right-angle to the horizon, and the zodiacal light formed a huge gossamer triangle that speared upwards toward the zenith. It was still readily apparent when we "folded our tents" and left for a debriefing at the truck stop. The winter Milky Way dazzled the eyes with the addition of Jupiter and Saturn. A few people managed to tear themselves away from the comet long enough to alert the rest of us to a shadow transit on Jupiter, icing on the cake! Well, I've got to get at least a little work done this morning, then it's off to the lab to process last night's film. I shot the comet with the identical set-up and image scale I used for Hale-Bopp, for comparison purposes. If I get some good shots, I'll bring them to the April SLAS meeting. Thanks again to all who attended and helped make a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Many people who didn't have to work today stayed well past comet-set for a night of deep-sky observing, and I wish I could have joined them; but even the few hours I was there will remain indellibly etched in my memory. :) Chuck __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/

3 4