October 2004 - UVAA - mailman.xmission.com

Workshop/Moon Watch
by Jim Gibson 29 Dec '04

29 Dec '04

There will be a workshop/moon watch at Fort Provo on Saturday night May 1st starting at 6:30. PM. The park has to be cleared by 11PM. The work shop will be given by John Zeigler and he will present a discussion on the light train and on eyepieces (how the work, not necessarily which ones to buy). If time permits, Jim Gibson will present a short introductory discussion on the moon and it features. To make things interesting for the new folks a free CD will be given away that can be used as an aid to learning moon features and their names. There is also some material on the Apollo missions on the CD. There will be 2 Telrads for sale at the price of $40.00 each for any one who is interested. Fort Provo can be reached by getting off of I-15 on Provo Center Street and going West. From the West side of I-15 go to the 2nd stop light at Center Street and Geneva Rd. Turn right and go about a block and you will see the Fort and the park on the right-hand side. Bring lawn chairs, a snack, the kids, and a telescope or binoculars. If you have none of the above, come anyway. When you arrive look for some strange old guy with a parallelogram and binoculars and if Rich Tenney doesnt show up, then look for a young 60 year old guy with a suave short hair cut and with a parallelogram and binoculars. Jim Gibson --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢

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Re: [UVAA] Follow-on to Wedge report
by Olhomorto＠aol.com 18 Oct '04

18 Oct '04

You all might be interested in the site that Tom Watson and I utilized Friday night. If it weren't for the cloud cover, we both agreed the site would be ideal: it had a wide open unobstructed 360 degree view. Although the cloud cover was like a pancake right above us, we could still peer through an opening all around the horizon (although we had to kneel to do it.) In any event the really neat thing was that the southern horizon was visible down to -50 degrees!!! To get there we had to drive a little further than the wedge site, but not really that much. From the cross-roads it was about 18 miles (5.3 miles from the bridge over the San Rafael river.) The drive is very beautiful as one passes the petroglyphs, and incredible rock formations like bottle-kneck peak. (If you've ever read the comic strip Calvin & Hobbs, and you remember Spaceman Spiff, the country looks like an alien world where Spiff would crash.) Another neat thing was that although the site was less than a quarter mile from the main dirt road, it was completely hidden from anyone driving by. We could hear a few vehicles pass by during the night, but we didn't see the faint glare of headlights until they were back toward the bridge--in that way the glare was only reflected of the rock walls of the canyon...no direct light to bother us!!! Oh, and even though we were still aware of the light pollution from the Huntington Plant, it was greatly diminished. In spite of the clouds, we managed to find scores of galaxies in the southern constellations along with a few planetaries. I hope to visit the site again, and I hope others will come, too. I think anyone would agree the site is superior to the Wedge, itself. Mike

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Urban star parties
by daniel turner 18 Oct '04

18 Oct '04

Friday was a good night for public access astronomy. The Trailside park session was with the Utah Skies group. They asked for help with an army of third graders. The site is closer to Salt Lake than the Gravel Quarry and is as good an urban dark site as Stansbury Park. My reading of the satellite weather maps said that the clouds should start clearing at 8:00 PM. So we had to do some cloud dodging before the third graders left for bedtime. Lucky it wasnt a school night so we had plenty of customers on up to 10:00 PM. These short nights with a young enthusiastic audience are my favorite kind of star party. . Started out looking at M11, which is my favorite not-quite dark-enough dark sky object. I can fix it with a Telrad as soon as the tail star of Aquila becomes visible. M11 is a wide and dense open cluster with three prominent red giants and it sits in the dense Scutum star cloud, which gives it a rich background of very dim stars. When the clouds covered M11 I went to NGC457, the E.T. cluster. This has fewer stars on a less rich star field Not as good as M11 but a good parking spot until the Perseus Double cluster peeks through the clouds. The double cluster always draws a wows from the viewers. Parked on Polaris for a while to show viewers an easy double star. Also this let me take a break from tracking. This raised a call for more double stars, Please. These people are so polite. So as the peeked out of the clouds, we went to eta and iota Cassiopeia, Almaak, and Alberio. I wanted a galaxy but M31 wouldnt uncover from the clouds. So I went to Mirach and Mirachs ghost, NGC 404. This is a pretty red bright star right next to a faint fuzzy galaxy. Later we say M31 with dust lanes, M32 and M110. For Globular clusters, I hit M2, M13, and M56 as they uncovered from the clouds. Then there was a call for Planetary nebulae. So I hit M57 the Ring, M27 the Dumbbell, NGC6543 the Cats Eye, and NGC7009 the Saturn Nebula. The clouds were leaving but a gusty wind was picking up when I broke down at 10:30 PM. I mingled with some of the Utah Skies club members. They were laughing about the antics of the tinfoil hat faction of their club. Its a problem common to many astronomy clubs. It guess I would rather have an earnest debate with a four year old about black holes, than an earnest lecture from an adult who thinks that the U.S. State Department has established relations with 7 different extra-terrestrial civilizations. At least the 4 year old is still exercising critical thinking. DT _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com

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Follow-on to Wedge report
by Jim Gibson 18 Oct '04

18 Oct '04

Among the many other objects that I forgot to mention, one of the more notable ones was M33 the Pinwheel Galaxy in Triangulum. Besides be spectacularly beautiful to observe, my primary interest was to see if we could see the nebula NGC 604 and we could. Don Colton found it. The structure of the spiral arms is well defined in the 20 scope and at the bottom of the view at the extremity of one of the arms is a bright splotchy spot or knot that is NGC 604. We could see other knots as well. I wish I would have put more power on NGC 604, but we were looking at the entire galaxy with either the 31mm (85x) or the 22mm (120x). I wish I had gone to the 9mm (292x) to look at NGC 604. I am looking forward to another chance to obsurve this beauty. We also saw the dust lane through the galaxy NGC 891 near Almaak in Andromeda and the nebula M1 looked like a big thumbprint. JG --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.

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Dawn Patrol: observing report from the Wedge
by Jim Gibson 17 Oct '04

17 Oct '04

Rich Wrote: surfing the Wedge. Rich, right on; that brings back memories. I used to be 8 feet tall until I body surfed the Wedge. Now I am a short little 6 footer. The Wedge was cloudy and breezy most of the night. Those who made it to the Overlook were Don Colton, Bill Biesele & wife, Kim Hyatt & kids, Bob Taylor, and Jim Gibson. We setup in the camping area. Mike Bailey and Tom Watson went out on a big flat somewhere near the Wedge. Checking the sky periodically through out the night and sleeping in-between, I finely got a rap on the van window about 3 AM and the sky was nice and clear but a little unsettled. The wind had quit which was nice. The wait was worth it. It didnt take Don long to put his beautiful 18 GOTO Dob into action. Bob Taylor had a 16 f/4.5 (?) Dob he had made in a John Zeigler class. I had my 20 f/5.375 Dob with filter slider loaded with a UHC filter and an OIII filter and we were cruzn the sky. At 3 AM Orion was very high in the sky. We did the usual by observing M42 with Trapezium and surrounding nebula. It was fun do dial in the UHC and OIII filter to see the difference. The nebula around Trapezium was very mottled and the dark nebula to the left (relative to the eyepiece) was very dark. Don found the Horse Head nebula, which I would have passed up as one of those impossible objects to see without a H-Beta filter. Don also found the Horse Head in my 20 scope without any filter at all and then we dialed in the UHC and the OIII filter. I dont remember which one gave the best view but Don said it was the best he had ever seen it. I could see in a relatively dark part of the sky with a few stars around and even darker ink spot that turned out to be the Horse Head. Once I knew what I was looking at I could see that the head wad facing down. It didnt look like Richs picture posted on utahastronomy.com but with that in mind I could begin to make out the back light at the edge of the ink spot; very subtle. The Eskimo nebula in Gemini was really neat; nice and bright with little sparklies ( a technical term used by astronomical offico-not-oes denoting a cool view) on the interior glowing a blueish-green. We saw the huge undulations of the Rosette nebula, and M46 with its beautiful planetary. We did get to Stephens Quentet and the nearby NGC 7320 (?). We also saw Hubbles Variable nebula. I have been trying to find NGC 4236 (mag 10.7 22X5) for a long time in Draco between the stars Giausar and Kappa Draco. I started looking for it back when I equated large with bright because it showed up well on the chart. I soon learned that any magnitude spread out over a large area is a hole lot less bright and 10.7 mag isnt all that bright to begin with. I still cherish the challenge of trying to find it in my 12.5 f/7 scope. I know others have done it. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? vote.yahoo.com - Register online to vote today!

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Dawn Patrol: observing report from the gravel pit
by Richard Tenney 17 Oct '04

17 Oct '04

For those of you who were sitting at home, or surfing the Wedge (and I don't mean Newport Beach CA) last evening, early this morning I joined Tyler Allred (Orem) at the gravel quarry about 1 a.m. (sorry I missed the folks from BYU who were up earlier), and was later joined by Joan, Lowell, and Robert Fisher around 2 for some early winter fun. A nagging breeze kicked up just before I arrived, but in spite of the scope moving on its own a little too often, we managed to find some pretty neat stuff. For one thing, a welcome plethora of meteor activity (are we close to a shower?) all night. In addition to adding a few new H-400 objects to my log book (some open clusters in Taurus, a few diffuse nebulae and a small Planetary nebula in Orion), and Stephens Quintet, we were treated to the California Nebula (huge!), Abell 21 (the medusa nebula) and Hubble's variable Nebula (all firsts for me) among other deep-sky gems, along with a very cool "3-D" view of M42 in Robert's new AP Traveler with the Denkmeier binoviewer fitted with 24mm Panoptics -- an experienced not to be missed. Half the fun up there was listening to Joan's frequent ooohs and aaahs ;o) -- I love her enthusiasm. Aside from an unfortunate mishap with my DSC's hitting the pavement too hard (:o( it was a fun way to greet the dawn... now if I can just get caught up on my rest... <yawn>. _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com

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Fwd: Ensign Schools Star party, new observe places
by Richard Tenney 17 Oct '04

17 Oct '04

--- Gary Wallace <glwal28(a)mstar.net> wrote: > From: "Gary Wallace" <glwal28(a)mstar.net> > To: <retenney(a)yahoo.com> > CC: <glwal28(a)integrity.com> > Subject: Ensign Schools Star party, new observe > places > Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 22:17:53 -0600 > > UVAA group: > Been reading your emails for some > months. Yer a good group. > Finally figured out my ISP rejects group emails and > forwards. Ill let > Richard Forward this. > > EnsignSchools dot com has a Celestron > Star Hopper 8 > Dobsonian. that I have been using and learning > astronomy out of books > for months. (I could use a copy of its manual if > anyone can get one. . > . is not on Internet) > Had a nice talk w/ Richard and was tempted to go to > the gravel pit Fri. > Spent my time in Cedar Hills and found a few new > stars. Mostly I put > Al foil over neighbors lites and found how to deal > with street lites. > (very satisfying to defeat them!) My front yard is > reasonable seeing > now. > We have had the scope out several nites > when parents, kids > were at school evenings in American Fork. We would > be interested in a > star party sometime, if anyone wants to bring a > scope and get some kids > excited. > Im thinking of an early morning Ensign thing. (B4 > we switch to > Daylite Save time: at last OCT Sunday). Maybe OCT > 30 or 29 > 5:30 AM . The Principals son in law is a grad > student in astronomy @ > BYU. They have an awesome scope in Eyring Center > all new, he might get > us into that. > > Does anyone know about cameras mounted to Scopes? > This we could output > to a TV or computer screen and all could see. > > New spots Closer: Anyone know of any > w/in 30 min of Ut > County? > 1. What about behind Lone Peak High School and > West of the Training > school. I havent looked at nite but there is a > hundred acres of > woods, and Tri Cities Golf Course. > 2. One parent lives in Cedar Fort and > she says is good > seeing. > 3. Burriston Ponds State Park down by > Mona. Has ponds, > fishing camping, bird watching, might be star spot. > 4. My front yard > 5. South Fork Provo Canyon. > 6. Wallsburg? > 73s (ham talk for best wishes) > Gary Wallace N7JZN Amateur Radio > > > > > > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

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Tonight at the gravel pit
by Richard Tenney 15 Oct '04

15 Oct '04

For those of you who are not headed to the Wedge tonight that want to do some observing closer to home, a few of us will be at the Gravel Pit (East of Park City) tonight (Friday). I haven't decided if I'm going up early evening or late night, but I plan to be up there into the early morning hours hunting early winter objects along with Lowell Lyon and a few others, so if you come early and nobody is there yet stick around and you'll have company sometime after midnight at least. And if Lou Griffin shows up (hint, hint), there will be at least two 20-inch dobs there ;o) Rich PS, you can find directions on the UVAA website: http://www.uvaa.org/sitedirections/GravelPit.html _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com

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LPI cameras
by Debbie 07 Oct '04

07 Oct '04

Anybody had any experience using the Meade or Celestron LPI cameras? LPI stands for lunar and planetary imagers. I hear they are better than Starlight Express, Apogee etc. Debbie

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Weekend Weather
by Jim Gibson 07 Oct '04

07 Oct '04

The person that I usually get weather information from is out sick today, but roughly speaking, Friday night looks better than Saturday night. I could see a circular low weather system off of British Columbia that is flinging off clouds impulses ahead of it. I am told that we should begin to see some of these clouds sometime Saturday night. Southern Utah could be OK. I Dont know for sure without my expert. JG --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.

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