Posts Made By: Linton Rohr

I'd like to introduce the newest member of the IMCA.
Yours truly.
Linton

I loaded up my 10" f/6 Starmaster, recently equipped with Blue Sky cooling fans and other accessories, and headed up to my property in Utah for the weekend.
Got there Friday at twilight, checked in, got some dinner, and headed out to Capitol Reef to take a look at the dark sky. By this time it was 10:00 and being pretty tired from the work week grind, I decided to forego setting up the scope until Saturday night, and instead enjoy a simple binocular and naked eye night.
Wow. It seemed even darker than usual and the transparency was very good. The winter Milky Way stretched all the way across the sky, right down to the southern horizon, below which I knew Scorpius and Sagitarius were approaching. I could see shadows on the ground when I waved my arms around. I was surprised though, to see a rather tall light dome in the direction of the nearby town of Torrey. This puzzled me for a minute, as Torrey is very small (pop. 200) and I hadn't noticed this before. Then I realized it was the zodiacal light, glowing in the west. Hehe.
Cassiopia was already getting low, but I thought I'd try to catch Andromeda before it set. Wow. I caught it alright, even though it was only 2-3 degrees above the horizon. Looking fairly bright and sharp, as much as a galaxy can that is. I scanned all around the horizon, and was impressed to see dark sky and sharp, bright looking stars everywhere I looked, right down to the ground. Not a light dome, or even faint glow, anywhere in sight.
I checked out the double cluster. Beautiful. Surrounded by a sea of faint stars. The Auriga clusters. And Persius. Over to Orions belt. And the nebulae. Wow. So much detail at only 8x. I jumped over to Canis Major and spotted M41 and then M46 and 47 with my naked eyes, before even pointing the binoes. Cool. Couldn't spot the PN in M46, but then hey, I was feeling pretty good. I swung up to Coma Berenices and the Beehive, which were just lovely. Just then a bright orange meteor streaked across the sky. Whoo hoo! What a night!
All this time, the 10" was sitting right there in the back of the car. I gave it a thought once or twice, but decided I was having enough fun with my handheld glass. Packing up was sure a breeze, too! I was sure hoping that the next night would be equally good conditions though. Ha! Of course not. The clouds moved in the next afternoon and my Starmaster spent the night unpacked again. But I really couldn't be too upset, considering what a super night we had with just the naked eye and the binoes. And the inky black sky.
Linton

Yeah, winter. Sorry, I'm running behind.
I was just downloading photos from a vernal equinox trip to Utah,
when I realized I hadn't posted anything from my New Year's trip.
Here's a little twilight glow looking toward Capitol Reef....
Linton

Hi folks.
I had a very nice observing session last night at a somewhat local site
(Red Rock Canyon), if you can call 120 miles each way "local".
I said goodbye to some of my favorite winter objects,
before moving on to the spring galaxies and globular clusters.
What I wanted to share though, was a particularly poignant
moment when I noticed Vega rising in the east.
Looking westward, I saw that Sirius was still up, as well.
They were both about 5-10 degrees above the horizon,
twinkling colorfully to each other, as if communicating.
It seemed to be a "changing of the guard", with Sirius telling Vega,
"It's all yours now. Keep watch over the night sky until my return."
I watched them, back and forth, for several minutes, before continuing at the scope.
By the time I was packing up later, the remainder of the Summer Triangle had risen.
I scanned the summer Milky Way with naked eye and then bino's.
I love watching the seasons changing in the night sky.

Linton

I crawled out of my sleeping bag this morning at the LAAS dark sky site near Mt. Pinos, and as I
was uncapping my new Lunt solar scope, was jolted by 2 thunderous sonic booms in rapid succesion.
I immediately thought "shuttle!" (amazing, in my half asleep state), and grabbed
a pair if binoculars, aimed at the front of a quickly moving contrail,
and spotted the distinctive wing shape of the shuttle.
What a cool wat to start the day!
Linton

Okay...I'm cheating...it's not my scope...it's my architects.
He just recently took it out to test the tracking.
I was pretty impressed...
I hope our house turns out that nice!
Linton

The Grand Canyon Star Party is coming up quick and I am tingling with excitment!
I'm taking my brother along this year and we're hitting both rims.
Anyone here on Astromart planning to attend?
Linton

*photo is on the North Rim sun porch last year

News of the passing of Richard Norton spread through the meteorite community today.
The author of "Rocks From Space", "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Meteorites", and "The Field Guide to Meteors and Meteorites" had been quite ill for some time, and finally slipped out of this world last week.
He was an enormous presence and will leave a huge hole in the meteorite hunting and collecting world.
An obituary is posted here...
http://www.impactika.com/rnorton.doc

Linton

Yeah Jim, her approval numbers (34%) are way down...
lower than Cheney's (37%) in this recent Gallup poll.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/120761/Cheney-Pelosi-Poor-Ratings-Common.aspx
Linton

I'm guessing you guys are aware of the new (June 23?) fall in Arizona.
It is being hunted and mapped at an undisclosed location near Tucson.
http://www.rocksfromspace.org/July_4_2009.html
Extensive discussion is on the meteorite-list.
When they release the location to the rest of us, I may go over and give it a shot.
Linton