Note that the moon and Venus have identical phases tonight. Both fit in the same wide-field bino FOV, a beautiful sight. And there is a much-diminished Mars, seemingly just below the moon, yet actually on the far side of the sun. I'm going back out in the yard, to the parallelogram... C. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢ http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash
Ann House and I did a lecture and star party in Richfield tonight and one fun aspect of the star party was convincing people who were looking at Venus through the scope that they really were looking at Venus. Many though it was a tiny view of the Moon. Patrick Chuck Hards wrote:
Note that the moon and Venus have identical phases tonight. Both fit in the same wide-field bino FOV, a beautiful sight. And there is a much-diminished Mars, seemingly just below the moon, yet actually on the far side of the sun. I'm going back out in the yard, to the parallelogram...r
Just a reminder that SLAS is holding its first Astronomy Day today at SPOC. Activities begin at 5 pm with lectures, solar viewing, and children's events and will continue into the night. Come, bring family and friends, help out, and participate. Give input as we are considering to make this an annual event. -A
Last night I was with a Boy Scout troop at Simpson Springs and had the same occur. I showed them Venus, explaining it was a crescent (and how important this was historically, cited as Galileo as evidence for the Copernican system). After several were confused, and one insisted he couldn't see Venus, but could see the moon pretty well, I said "That's Venus. I'll show you the moon." I did so at 120x (the same power I had been using) and they gasped and needed no more convincing. It was lovely. Chalk up another for the SLAS loner scope program... Jim ---- Jim Cobb james@cobb.name On Apr 24, 2004, at 2:52 AM, Patrick Wiggins wrote:
Ann House and I did a lecture and star party in Richfield tonight and one fun aspect of the star party was convincing people who were looking at Venus through the scope that they really were looking at Venus. Many though it was a tiny view of the Moon.
Patrick
Chuck Hards wrote:
Note that the moon and Venus have identical phases tonight. Both fit in the same wide-field bino FOV, a beautiful sight. And there is a much-diminished Mars, seemingly just below the moon, yet actually on the far side of the sun. I'm going back out in the yard, to the parallelogram...r
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I response to the moon-Venus discussion, in which the crescent orbs of Friday night were compared: That night I took a view of Venus showing what Jim is talking about. I'm going to post it on my album in the photo gallery (in case anyone's forgotten, the URL for the gallery is always at the bottom of our list's email). I drove to a dark enough site north of I-80, taking the Aragonite exit. To make a long, stupid story short, I struggled until 2 a.m. trying to get aligned properly and finally gave up. It was cold and my nose was running, the wind blew, clear-air turbulence ruined the seeing -- and worst of all, I nearly poked my eye out. From time to time I switched my reading glasses and distance glasses. On one of these occasions the right stem of the glasses I was putting on got stuck on the flap of my ancient Chinese rabbit-fur hat. I shoved hard to get the stem over my ear, and the other stem poked my left eye. Hard! The pain was searing. I said a bad word and put my hand up to see if I was bleeding or leaking aqueus fluid. I wasn't. Sky, who is working on his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Arizona (OK, his academic career has nothing to do with the story, but I can't resist bragging up my kid!) asked me what I would have done if I had punctured my eye. Driven back to Salt Lake, I said. Only later did I realize that was a dumb response. My cell phone was working and I should have called for a medical helicopter, if I had an emergency. I only hope I would have thought of that if I really had punctured the eyeball. Lesson for all of us: use the cell if you need to. Over the weekend I had an awful, bright-red streak across my left eyeball but now it's fading. I had vision disturbance and I feel certain there's no permanent damage. Anyway, while I was fiddling around I took a few quick LPI shots of Venus, not using my Barlow, and none of them spectacular. But I'll post one on the gallery. Best wishes, Joe
Last night I was with a Boy Scout troop at Simpson Springs and had the same occur. I showed them Venus, explaining it was a crescent (and how important this was historically, cited as Galileo as evidence for the Copernican system). After several were confused, and one insisted he couldn't see Venus, but could see the moon pretty well, I said "That's Venus. I'll show you the moon." I did so at 120x (the same power I had been using) and they gasped and needed no more convincing. It was lovely. Chalk up another for the SLAS loner scope program...
Jim ---- Jim Cobb james@cobb.name On Apr 24, 2004, at 2:52 AM, Patrick Wiggins wrote:
Ann House and I did a lecture and star party in Richfield tonight and one fun aspect of the star party was convincing people who were looking at Venus through the scope that they really were looking at Venus. Many though it was a tiny view of the Moon.
Patrick
Chuck Hards wrote:
Note that the moon and Venus have identical phases tonight. Both fit in the same wide-field bino FOV, a beautiful sight. And there is a much-diminished Mars, seemingly just below the moon, yet actually on the far side of the sun. I'm going back out in the yard, to the parallelogram...r
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Joe, practice sessions in the backyard are priceless, even though not very fulfulling on the surface. When I put my equatorial photo-mount together some years ago, for Hale-Bopp, I practiced set-up and alignment DOZENS of times in the yard before I headed to dark sites. These practice sessions allowed me to not waste ONE SINGLE session, which can be critial with comets, due to the fact that they are usually either setting fast, or wiped-out by the dawn as soon as they get high enough. The system wasn't quite ready when Hyakutake popped-up, but I practiced on it from the yard anyway, with no camera attached most of the time. I went out many times in the early morning, driving up to Little Mountain, even on work days, and I got good pictures EVERY SESSION. NO wasted time. Set-up was a snap thanks to repeated rehearsals. I almost got to the point where I could set it up blindfolded, and only needed to see to actually point the thing north. Even though I had done astro-photography many years before, I still practiced with the new mount until I had it mastered. Dark-site time is too precious to waste climbing the hardware learning curve, or poking yourself in the eye. PRACTICE at home, repeatedly! (and get yourself some bifocals!) ;) Heal fast, my friend. C. --- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
To make a long, stupid story short, I struggled until 2 a.m. trying to get aligned properly and finally gave up.
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Thanks! It's not as bad today as it was the past couple of days. Also, I much appreciate the advice with this new telescope and the difficulty I've had with it trying polar alignment. I may drag it into the backyard tonight and do a practice session. Best wishes, my friend -- Joe
Joe, That's a great photo of Venus you got despite all the trouble you went through to get it. I believe it even shows a bit of the cloud shading that I and a few others were able to see out at SPOC the night of Astronomy Day through several different scopes. Nice shot! Dave
participants (6)
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Ann C. House -
Chuck Hards -
David L Bennett -
Jim Cobb -
Joe Bauman -
Patrick Wiggins