This looks really good for us! Thanks, Joe --- On Tue, 6/9/09, Canopus56 <canopus56@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Canopus56 <canopus56@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Interest in "LCROSS Crunch" event? To: "Utah Astronomy List Serv" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Tuesday, June 9, 2009, 3:02 PM Whoops - let's delete that prior post and substitute this one - I incremented the hour counter the wrong way - so these altitudes are not so great - but are workable on Oct. 8 and 9 and maybe Oct. 10, but advancing sunrise kills Oct. 11. - Kurt ============= Joe and Patrick: My apologies for the delay in responding. The best current first person LCROSS Team impact time reports are appended. "MoonThumper" (see appended posts) is Brian Day, the LCROSS Team Public Education Officer. The hearsay blog report from Joel Raupe, the political space-science reporter at http://lunarnetworks.blogspot.com/2009/05/narrowing-lcross-impact-visibility... appears consistent with this. Raupe's report is based on watching a May 21 NASA-TV vodcast of an LCROSS panel and taking notes on the impact dates. Jim Mosher, a physicist and amateur astronomer is also a reliable authoritative source. http://ltvt.wikispaces.com/LCROSS+Impact. The LCROSS announced dates and times are consistent with - and actually much better than - the December and January 2009 LCROSS Observation Campaign test imaging sessions that I tried (blocked by some clouds) to participate in. Plugging in the current best announced impact dates and times into my planetarium program - I get the following altitudes for SLC - (which are actually way much better than I expected): October 8 10:30 UT (4:30 MDT) Salt Lake City Utah 2009-10-8 4h30m ( TU + -6h00m ) Sideral Time : 4h11m Hour Angle : 23h52m Azimuth :+173°24' Altitude :+74°11' Sun Alt -33 October 9 11:30 UT (5:30 MDT) Salt Lake City Utah 2009-10-9 5h30m ( TU + -6h00m ) Sideral Time : 5h15m Hour Angle : 23h52m Azimuth :+173°15' Altitude :+74°57' Sun alt -23 October 10 12:30 UT (6:30 MDT) Salt Lake City Utah 2009-10-10 6h30m ( TU + -6h00m ) Sideral Time : 6h20m Hour Angle : 23h52m Azimuth :+173°21' Altitude :+73°55' Sun alt -12 October 11 13:30 UT (7:30 MDT) Salt Lake City Utah 2009-10-11 7h30m ( TU + -6h00m ) Sideral Time : 7h24m Hour Angle : 23h53m Azimuth :+174°58' Altitude :+71°10' Sun alt -1 These read like they are positioning imaging equally for the KECK and IRFT in Hawaii and Apache Point in New Mexico. But - a cautionary note - this launch has been delayed so many times - something like four or five - I'm taking the whole thing with a grain of salt until Atlas V candle is actually lit. Reversing my earlier comment a few days ago - if these impact dates and times hold true - this is something to at least get started to get worked up about in Utah - as our observing point is well positioned. The club's 1 meter Grim scope will be the place to be. Think positive vibes about for the June 17 launch being successful. - Kurt Appended sources for impact date-times ======================= From: MoonThumper <brianh...@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 20:32:28 -0700 (PDT) Local: Tues, May 26 2009 9:32 pm Subject: Initial List of Impact Dates and Times Tony Colaprete and the LCROSS Science Team are releasing their initial list of impact dates and times corresponding to launch opportunities in the June 17-21 window. A launch on June 17 results in an impact on October 8 at 10:30 UT. A launch on June 18 results in an impact on October 9 at 11:30 UT. A launch on June 19 results in an impact on October 10 at 12:30 UT. A launch on June 21 (June 20 EDT) results in an impact on October 11 at 13:30 UT. These times are preliminary and could be subject to change. We’ll post any updates on this site. Looks like best visibility for the widest portion of North America corresponds to the June 17 launch. Let's all hope for good weather at the cape that afternoon! Thanks, Brian Day brian.h....@nasa.gov =========================== 5/25/2009 LCROSS Facebook page entry on south polar impact date: "LCROSS Lunar Impactor Mission at 7:55am May 25 We have not announced the impact time since it is heavily dependent on launch date and also the in-flight orbit corrections the team must execute. For a June 17-21 launch window, we know the impact will be at the south pole. The "exact" location (which crater) will be determined at impact minus 30 days. Updates to the impact time will be updated ... Read Morethen as well. It is a big trajectory calculation that moves the exact location/time around. For a nominal June 17th launch (for one window of several that day), impact is Oct 8th, around 10:30 UTC (ish). That's about 3:30 AM PDT. The timing is optimized to get the moon high over Hawaii. If we launch from another date or another window within that June 17th the impact date and time of impact changes. We are excited that these potential Oct 8-11th impact dates (told you there was a range!) provide a visible moon to most of the western continental US to observe the impact. Stay tuned! LCROSS Facebook team." http://www.facebook.com/pages/LCROSS-Lunar-Impactor-Mission/154478180006 ======================= _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com