I ended out having a little fun with this. I was responsible to lead our team meeting this week. Part of the agenda is to have an activity, so I did "Where's Pluto". After they guessed a few time (picking the brighter stars) I told them to try the cross eyed method to look. I don't think any of them got it so I showed them where it really was. That they led to 20 minutes of astronomy questions. At one point my boss said that he had never seen the Big Dipper. One of the team members asked me to show him so I pulled up APOD, found one and displayed it. Certainly the most fun I have had in team meeting for a while. So thanks for the great activity Patrick. Thanks. Dave -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Patrick Wiggins Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 4:28 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Pluto last week I'm putting way too much time into this project. But, hey, I'm having fun. :) I got more shots of Pluto tonight and have now posted two versions. First, two images of Pluto taken last night one hour apart: http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/hour.jpg Second, two images, one taken last night and the one on the right taken tonight: http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/day.jpg All images are screen saves of raw (unreduced) FIT files. I found that if I reduce the images Pluto becomes too faint to see. I'm thinking I'm going to try this again but with much longer exposures so I can reduce them but still have Pluto visible. Now a question for those using Chuck's cross-eye technique to view these pairs. When you view them do you see a single dot or two dots floating above the background field of stars? I see a single dot for the 1 hour pair but 2 when I look at the 1 day pair. And now with dawn approaching it's off to bed. Hopefully my eyes will uncross by the time I get up this afternoon. :) Carpe Noctem! patrick On 13 Jul 2010, at 09:27, Dunn, David wrote:
Thanks for posting this. I am able to see the dark nebula and the star that was near it when I saw it off to the upper left.
Thanks. Dave
-----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Patrick Wiggins Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 4:12 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Pluto last week
Hi Dave,
Your thread about Pluto prompted me to shoot a few images of Pluto tonight.
Here are two shot's taken 1 hour apart. Pluto does move between the the two shots but not very much. I did not mark Pluto's position in case some folks want to try to find it by using Chucks "cross eyed" method (that method worked for me but then I knew where to look).
http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/pluto01.jpg
But I've also posted an annotated image:
http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/pluto02.jpg
All images are shot with the C-14 operating at f/5.5 and ST-10 binned 2x2 and chilled to -10. Clear filter. 15 second exposure.
patrick
On 12 Jul 2010, at 11:33, Dunn, David wrote:
Did anyone else take a look a Pluto last week? Sky and Tel had an article about it crossing in front of a dark nebula last week. I was up at Monte Cristo so I took a look at it through several telescopes. On Wednesday night I saw it through both my 16" at 156X and through Ron Vanderhule's 25". In my 16" it was barely there. It was not far from a 14.5 mag star. Using averted vision I was barely able to see them. Through Ron's 25" they were bright and easy to see. Pluto was slightly brighter than the star. I thought it was neat to see Pluto without needing to take or draw a picture and then look again a day later. I also took at look at it on Thursday night through OAS's BOB (18.5"). Pluto had moved to where the star was.
Dave
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