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Attilla!!

Very funny!:) Thats the first good laugh I've had sitting in front
of the computer in a long time. Very well done!

Thanks,
Matt

Jan & I laughing to the point of tears at that one. We've always
loved the original skit, but this one had us rolling!
Very, very funny Attilla. Muchos Gratias!

Rol

Count me in!!
Ricardo
ps. a map would be a good idea!!

Attilla!

That was brilliant! ROTFL!!!
You MUST send that to the Starmaster e-group! I'm sure they would love it!!!


--Mike

FANTAAAAAAAAAAAASTIC!!!!! I'm still giggling!!
Richard

I have chanced across a monty python sketch that
seems strangly familliar. Perhaps it fell
through a wormhole from an alternate
universe.

Resemblences to persons or telescopes living or
dead is purely coincidental. Names of the
perpetrator has been changed to protect
the guilty.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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The Four Observers

Mike: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.

Richard:Nothing like a 18" goto Starmaster, eh?

Roland:You're right there, Ricardo.

Matt: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be observing with
an binoviewered 18" computer controlled scope in a luxurious
roll-off roof observatory big enough for a whole star party.

Mike: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have a schmidt
cassegrain.

Richard:A Halley's-comet era Celestron

Matt: Without a tripod.

Roland:OR or a drive.

Mike: 30mm finder, and all.

Matt: We never had a finder. We used to sight along a seam in the
tube.

Richard:The best WE could manage was to sweep at random with 25mm
Kellner.

Roland:But you know, we were happy in those days, though we had
crappy gear.

Mike: Aye. BECAUSE we had crappy gear. My old Dad used to say to me,
"Its not the scope, its the observer."

Matt: 'E was right. I was happier then and I didnt have telrad. We had
this tiny observatory with with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.

Richard:Observatory? You were lucky to have an Observatory! We used to
observe on the porch, all twenty-six of us, no dome slit. Half
the sky was missing and we were all huddled together in one
corner just to see down to 35 degrees!

Roland: You were lucky to have a PORCH! We used to have to climb the
fire escape to the roof.

Mike: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of of fire escapes to the roof! Woulda' been
a Kitt Peak to us!. We used to observe out the bathroom window of
of a downtown apartment. In the winter, the escaping warm air would
cause airy disks to bloat to 20 arcseconds. Observatory. Hmph.

Matt: Well when I say "Observatory" it was only a garden shed with the
door
open, but it was an observatory to US.

Richard:We were evicted from our garden shed; we had to go and observe
in a sodium-vapor lit hocky rink.

Roland:You were lucky to have a RINK! There were a hundred and fifty
of us observing in a cardboard box in the middle of the
417.

Mike: Cardboard box?

Roland:Aye.

Mike: You were lucky. We observed for thee months in the nude
in a swamp. We used to have to setup at six in the morning,
hack down the bullrushes, drain the swamp, sink the tripods
four feet into the muck, collimate for 14 hours, just for
a couple of hours of observing. And when we got home our
SO would complain about how much we spent on telescopes.

Richard:Luxury! We used to have to set up in the swamp at six in the
morning, drain the swamp, cut down trees,
scrape mosquitos off of our optical
surfaces, sink the tripods 6 feet into the muck, collimate
for 16 hours. And we we got home, our wives would sell
our telescopes, if we were LUKCY!

Roland:Well of course, we had it tough. We used to have to get
set up the previous night, drain the swamp by bailing with
our OTAs, re-aluminize our mirrors, and
collimate 32 different optical surfaces for 20 hours.
And when we got home our SO would accuse us of having
sexual relations with a paracorr and divorce us.

Matt: Right ... I had to walk to the swamp, which was uphill
both ways, carrying 300 pounds of gear,
set up at ten at night, half an hour before I packed up,
sop up the swamp with my only copy of Uranometria, pay
for parking!, melt sand into glass, sift more sand
into abrasives, chew pine trees to make pitch, grind
12 mirrors, collimate for 36 hours, observe with a
1mm eyerelief tasco eyepiece for 3 minutes under
a limiting magnitude of -26 in heavy snow showers,
and when we got home our SO would spit on our
Naglers and run off the editor of Sky&Tel.

Mike: And you try and tell the young observers today that...
and they won't believe ya'.

All: They won't..

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

--- In OAFs@y..., attilla.danko@s... wrote:

If its clear, I'd be happy to bring scope and green laser pointer.
I dont know anything about conroy pit.
Would you like me to add it to the OAFs calendar?

Thanks Attilla. Regarding the calendar, your assistance would be most
helpful in placing this small event there. However, I wonder if I
should maybe wait until I can firm up the location of the event before
posting it, or what? I'll have to drive up to Conroy Pit to take a
look, unless someone else in the group has seen the place.

All for now,
Later,

Rol

If its clear, I'd be happy to bring scope and green laser pointer.

I dont know anything about conroy pit.

Would you like me to add it to the OAFs calendar?

-ad

A friend of mine, Peter Field, is in charge of a group of 10 young
girls ( aged 6 & 7 -- very young ) and he's asked Janice and me to do
an astronomy session for them on Saturday 31th for about 1.5 hours
early in the evening. Around 7pm...

I wanted to ask if any of you have ever seen or been at the Conroy Pit
south of Hunt Club Rd., on the W. side of Conroy. He's suggested that
perhaps we could do it there. Parents would be driving their kids in,
and might also like to observe. They'll have a special Saturday
meeting just so this can happen. I'd bring sketches, photos and star
maps, etc... You know the drill!

Moon would be near 1st quarter.
Saturn & Jupiter still above 30 degrees at 7pm.

If anyone's interested in partaking, let us know.

Fee Fie Pho-ton!

Rol

Mike,

Your esteemed friend might also be interestd in joining our affiliate,
the AWL (Astronomers Without Lederhosen).

Jan

Zads!

I wuz fooled by your smooth & flawless delivery, Wirths. After
many exhausting seconds of research on the Web, I managed to discover
that the mysterious Mr. Gambolputty was indeed a fictitious character
from a MontyP skit. Oh the shame! You can't trust anyone anymore.
;-)

Monty Photons!

Rol

--- In OAFs@y..., mwirths@s... wrote:

I have a German friend who would like to join his name is:
Johann Gambolputty... de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-
crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dingle-dangle- dongle-dungle-burstein-von-
knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz- ticolensic-grander-knotty-
spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer- spelterwasser-kurstlich-
himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein- nurnburger-bratwustle-
gernspurten-mitz-weimache-luber-hundsfut- gumberaber-shonedanker-
kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm, or as he likes to
be called Johnny, is it OK if he joins us? Hes pretty finicky about
getting his name right though...might take some practice! ;>)

Ja, vy nott!

His name fills me with a sense of Von Der. With a name like that,
Johnny'd probably be great at remembering obscure names of
astronomical objects. Um... I don't wanna be fussy here or anything,
but is this Johnny fellow an actual real person? Not that I'd ever
hold that against anyone. It's just nice to know so that I'll know
how to ... um ... react when you ... er... introduce him. ;-)


Photons Rule!
Rol

I have a German friend who would like to join his name is:
Johann Gambolputty... de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-
crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dingle-dangle- dongle-dungle-burstein-von-
knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz- ticolensic-grander-knotty-
spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer- spelterwasser-kurstlich-
himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein- nurnburger-bratwustle-
gernspurten-mitz-weimache-luber-hundsfut- gumberaber-shonedanker-
kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm, or as he likes to
be called Johnny, is it OK if he joins us? Hes pretty finicky about
getting his name right though...might take some practice! ;>)

Opaque sky? Bored? Like mindless games? This may be for you:

Help nasa by idenifying craters on mars orbiter images:



I find it moderately addictive. The images are occaisonally
interesting. (I chanced upon the false-face region of Cydonia.
Yup, it lookes like a crudely molded face. Only one good
crater in the image though.)

This is a very interesting variation on the seti@home idea:
get huge numbers of ordinary people to each contribute a
tiny bit to science.


until, its clear,

-ad

Even though the text has obviously been translated from French, this
particular site has been very useful for me in figuring out how to
collimate my SCT 8".



I liked the diagrams and charts explaining the effect of
miscollimation on your view through a scope in terms of "equivalance
in apeture loss". Jean, perhaps this might be useful or at least
interesting for you...

Rol

--- In OAFs@y..., "Mike Wirths" <mwirths@s...> wrote:

Having images every 8 minutes would allow for a much nicer
animation (it
always looks so choppy that I never get much of an idea of the
actual
movement

It turns out that Nasa has already done that. Have a look
at this .mov file (warning 3meg):


/0000_latest.mov

(you may need to cut and paste that url onto so its one line)

Thats pretty much the smoothest animation i've seen on the web.
I'm not sure how often they update it, but as I am writing now,
the timestamp on the web page is only 20 minutes old.

Anybody know of a script-drivable program or library that can
be used to crop .mov files? I'd like to be able to create an animation
for the region around ottawa. (Mostly because it ought to be
a lot smaller than 3 meg). Something that bursts .movs into
individual frames and then collectes tham back again would be
almost as good.

Well, I figure, if we have to look at clouds ('cause it's cloudy)
it might as well be fun.

-ad

ps. i've posted this link to OAFs/booksmarks

--- In OAFs@y..., jean_dorais@s... wrote:

just that the view just doesn't 'look' like it does in any
picture I've seen....of
course this could all be a problem with my Mark 1 eyeball....

You scope might or might not have a problem. We should check
at the next starparty.

But comparing to pictures will be confusing. What one sees in any
scope almost *never* looks like a any picture. Most people say
the picture looks far far better.

(I still perfer to look at a fuzzy dim visual view than dramatic
photograph.)

The difference between visual views and photographs has more to
do with the difference between human vision and film rather than
between telescopes.

It's quite possible that there is nothing wrong with your scope and
you might still not be impressed with the views.

In that case, there are only two cures: astrophotography or a bigger
scope. :)

I'd be happy to look though your scope at the next oportunity.

Clear skies.

-ad

As you rack in and out of focus, does the star blur stay round?
Does it get elipitcal? Does it have spikes or look lopsided?

At about 200 power rack out of focus a star so that its about 1/10
of the apparant field. Now rack in about the same distance. Do
the two blurrs look different?

Well, if memory serves me right (boy am I leaving myself open
tonight...)the blurrs look about the same, and they look round-
ish...I don't recall any lopsided-ness to them at all...just that the
view just doesn't 'look' like it does in any picture I've seen....of
course this could all be a problem with my Mark 1 eyeball....

I dont have an 8" to compare with, but I'd be happy to look at,
and through your scope, at an observing session.

Can you arrange for a clear night ?

I'd love for a few pairs of better trained eyes to look through the
scope...and tell me what they honestly think...if the scopes on the
really bad to " yikes' side of things, then a new scope is in my
future...if on the other hand it's all a question of my not knowing
what the heck I'm doing ( quite possible!), then I'm in for a little
ribbing, but I'll have learned something!

I'm working on the clear skies as we speak...and I think I've done a
pretty good job so far tonight!

Again, thanks all for your help...must get out to a real observing
site soon! I hear Perth calling my name..... :)

Jean

--- In OAFs@y..., attilla.danko@s... wrote:

--- In OAFs@y..., jean_dorais@s... wrote:
>

What makes you suspect there's any kind of problem?

Well, when I do a star test, I don't see anything resembling
a 'good'or even 'so-so' result....the airy disc looks like...er

cow

poopoo....

The star test can be hard to apply. It needs extreemly good
seeing and fully cooled mirror before you will see the
classic airy disks.

However, there are some basic things you can look for even if
you dont see an airy disk:

Sorry that post was truncated. Here is the rest:

As you rack in and out of focus, does the star blur stay round?
Does it get elipitcal? Does it have spikes or look lopsided?

At about 200 power rack out of focus a star so that its about 1/10
of the apparant field. Now rack in about the same distance. Do
the two blurrs look different?

If the answer is "yes", then there is a problem with the optics
(assuming good colimation and cooling).

If the answer is "no", then you scope could be good, or not-so
good, but its hard to diagnose in email.

In either case, Its a good idea to have some people look
throught your scope. Planets are a good target for checking
optical quality. It would be even better if someone else had
an 8 inch scope for comparison.

I dont have an 8" to compare with, but I'd be happy to look at,
and through your scope, at an observing session.

Can you arrange for a clear night ?


-ad

--- In OAFs@y..., jean_dorais@s... wrote:

I mean that I would like another pair of eyes ( or 10 ) to look at
the optics and the 'seeing' with my scope and tell me if I'm out to
lunch, or if the optics/collimation/setup are waaaaaaaaaaaaay off.

If the laser and chessire seem bang on, then it's difficult to
understand what the problem might be. Not only do you have to let the
optics cool ( as you described ) before you do a star test, but in
winter, there are a couple more problems that I've had to contend
with.

#1) I presume you know about: Local heat sources, including your body.
It took me awhile before I realized what distortions of seeing my
body heat could cause, in sub-zero conditions.

#2) Also any nearby rooftops or chimneys release much heat as well.
Planets look churny from my backyard when I have to observe above the
roof, but look fine from my front driveway... Just trying to narrow
the parameters, Jean, accounting for problems I've had collimating in
the past.

#3) Have you tried to split binary stars of known seperation at high
power? ( on an 8", 200X to 400X or more - depending on seeing.) If
seeing is fairly good, I can usually split ( 8"SCT ) down to 0.7" or a
slight touch less. Ideally, if another observer can split it with a
similar scope and you can't ( even when scopes cooled ), then perhaps
there's a problem to consider.

In any case, next time there's an observing session and you bring your
scope along, I would be curious to take a peek through your scope.

Later,
Rol