Posts Made By: K. Michael Malolepszy

October 2006 myself and friends used the 82 inch Otto Struve

http://www.as.utexas.edu/mcdonald/facilities/2.1m/2.1.html

http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/releases/2006/0220.html

telescope at McDonald Observatory in Texas to visually observe 2003 UB313 among other things, such as M42. The view of the Trapezium through the eyepiece was very much like these images:

http://www.seds.org/messier/Pics/Hi-res/m42fullmosaic.jpg

http://www.oarval.org/DJOriTrpz.htm

If you crop this image, the colors and features are close to what I recall seeing. As everyone took their turn at the eyepiece, we call couldn't help but scream,"ooooooaaaaaaaaAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

The Eskimo nebula yielded like results

Something I'll never forget....

K. Michael M.

about the claim that," ...American scientists don't buy it - 19 000 signed a petition against the IPCC's views and the need for the Kyoto Protocol". See

http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/programs/atmosphere-energy/climate-change/ten-myths.html#cc2

Where it says:

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The petition is a hoax. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists of the USA:

In the spring of 1998, mailboxes of US scientists flooded with packet from the "Global Warming Petition Project," including a reprint of a Wall Street Journal op-ed "Science has spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth," a copy of a faux scientific article claiming that "increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have no deleterious effects upon global climate," a short letter signed by past-president National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Frederick Seitz, and a short petition calling for the rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on the grounds that a reduction in carbon dioxide "would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind."

The sponsor, little-known Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, tried to beguile unsuspecting scientists into believing that this packet had originated from the National Academy of the Sciences, both by referencing Seitz's past involvement with the NAS and with an article formatted to look as if it was a published article in the Academy's Proceedings, which it was not.

The NAS quickly distanced itself from the petition project, issuing a statement saying, "the petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy."

The petition project was a deliberate attempt to mislead scientists and to rally them in an attempt to undermine support for the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was not based on a review of the science of global climate change, nor were its signers experts in the field of climate science. In fact, the only criterion for signing the petition was a bachelor's degree in science. The petition resurfaced in early 2001 in a renewed attempt to undermine international climate treaty negotiations.


In fact, American experts agree with the IPCC on its fundamental assertions:

In the summer of 2001, George W. Bush asked for the assistance of the US National Academy of Sciences "in identifying the areas in the science of climate change where there are the greatest certainties and uncertainties," and for its "views on whether there are any substantive differences between the IPCC Reports and the IPCC summaries." The NAS was given only a month to respond but did so nonetheless:

Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions

Despite the fact that the committee producing this report includes a notable skeptic who allegedly colludes with industry* (Dr. Richard Lindzen of M.I.T.), the NAS report states:

"The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue. … Despite the uncertainties, there is general agreement that the observed warming is real and particularly strong within the past 20 years" (p.3).

For further publications of the NAS see:

Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises (2002)

Under the Weather: Climate, Ecosystems, and Infectious Disease (2001)


The reader is invited to visit the Union of Concerned Scientists' website for an excellent summary of the skeptic organizations, their tactics, and other hoaxes such as the so-called Leipzig Declaration.

* Lindzen calls himself an "independent scientist" and consults for the fossil fuel industry at a rate of US $2500 a day (Sharon Beder, Corporate Hijacking of the Greenhouse Debate, The Ecologist, March/April 1999, pp. 119-122.)


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Robert Pasken said:

There is no scientific consensus

American scientists don't buy it - 19,000 signed a petition against the IPCC's views and the need for the Kyoto Protocol

That paper you have a link to at http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm comes from the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, which seem to be somewhat of a fairly "cranky" bunch. It is

"... is headed by Arthur B. Robinson, an eccentric scientist who has a long history of controversial entanglements with figures on the fringe of accepted research. OISM also markets a home-schooling kit for "parents concerned about socialism in the public schools" and publishes books on how to survive nuclear war."

The Oregon Petition,"...sponsored by the OISM, was circulated in April 1998 in a bulk mailing to tens of thousands of U.S. scientists. In addition to the petition, the mailing included what appeared to be a reprint of a scientific paper. Authored by OISM's Arthur B. Robinson, Sallie L. Baliunas, Willie Soon, and Zachary W. Robinson, the paper was titled "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" and was printed in the same typeface and format as the official Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Also included was a reprint of a December 1997, Wall Street Journal editorial, "Science Has Spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth, by Arthur and Zachary Robinson. A cover note signed "Frederick Seitz/Past President, National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A./President Emeritus, Rockefeller University", may have given some persons the impression that Robinson's paper was an official publication of the academy's peer-reviewed journal. The blatant editorializing in the pseudopaper, however, was uncharacteristic of scientific papers..."

"Robinson's paper claimed to show that pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is actually a good thing. "As atmospheric CO2 increases," it stated, "plant growth rates increase. Also, leaves lose less water as CO2 increases, so that plants are able to grow under drier conditions. Animal life, which depends upon plant life for food, increases proportionally." As a result, Robinson concluded, industrial activities can be counted on to encourage greater species biodiversity and a greener planet..."

"..In reality, neither Robinson's paper nor OISM's petition drive had anything to do with the National Academy of Sciences, which first heard about the petition when its members began calling to ask if the NAS had taken a stand against the Kyoto treaty. Robinson was not even a climate scientist. He was a biochemist with no published research in the field of climatology, and his paper had never been subjected to peer review by anyone with training in the field. In fact, the paper had never been accepted for publication anywhere, let alone in the NAS Proceedings. It was self-published by Robinson, who did the typesetting himself on his own computer. (It was subsequently published as a "review" in Climate Research, which contributed to an editorial scandal at that publication.)"

"None of the coauthors of "Environmental Effects of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" had any more standing than Robinson himself as a climate change researcher. They included Robinson's 22-year-old son, Zachary, along with astrophysicists Sallie L. Baliunas and Willie Soon..."

Details at


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/oregon-institute-of-science-and-malarkey/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine

Mark Norby said:

Here's what I know: There has been a warming trend in global temps over the last 150yrs or so. This rise seems to be a rebound from the "Little Ice Age". It's been demonstrated that since 1940 or so, industry started to produce considerably more CO2, released into the atmosphere.However, most of the increase in temps came before 1940. Here's my last link, for now. It pretty well demonstrates how and why I believe as I do. The summary is also provided on this page, should you not care to read the entire paper: http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

I'm tempted to responed, "..ask someone who lives on Venus.."

But seriously, good question. Take a look at

TROPICAL ‘RUNAWAY GREENHOUSE’ PROVIDES INSIGHT TO VENUS

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2002/02_60AR.html

Release: 02-60AR

TROPICAL ‘RUNAWAY GREENHOUSE’ PROVIDES INSIGHT TO VENUS

A region in the western tropical Pacific Ocean may help scientists understand how Venus lost all of its water and became a 900-degree inferno. The study of this local phenomenonby NASA scientists also should help researchers understand what conditions on Earth might lead to a similar fate here.

The phenomenon, called the ‘runaway greenhouse’ effect, occurs when a planet absorbs more energy from the sun than it can radiate back to space. Under these circumstances, the hotter the surface temperature gets, the faster it warms up. Scientists detect the signature of a runaway greenhouse when planetary heat loss begins to drop as surface temperature rises.Only one area on Earth – the western Pacific ‘warm pool’ just northeast of Australia – exhibits this signature. Because the warm pool covers only a small fraction of the Earth’s surface, the Earth as a whole never actually ‘runs away.’ However, scientists believe Venus did experience a global runaway greenhouse effect about 3 billion to 4 billion years ago.

"Soon afterthe planets were formed 4.5 billion years ago, Earth, Venus and Mars probably all had water. How did Earth manage to hold onto all of its water, while Venus apparently lost all of its water?" asked Maura Rabbette, Earth and planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. "We have extensiveearth sciencedata to help address that question."

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Another related story:

Venus possibly habitable for billions of years

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4136

The hellish climate of Venus may have arisen far more recently than previously supposed, suggests new research. If so, pleasant Earth-like conditions probably persisted for two billion years after the planet's birth - plenty of time for life to have developed.

Venus is virtually the same size as Earth and, on average, is our nearest neighbour. Today, its atmospheric temperatures are hot enough to melt lead and concentrated sulfuric acid continuously drizzles down from thick sulphurous clouds that completely block out the Sun.

But the planet once had a climate similar to Earth's and vast oceans of water. Planetary scientists agree that period ended when Venus lost its water due to a runaway greenhouse effect, but the question is when.

Until now, the best estimate, calculated 15 years ago by James Kasting, of the Pennsylvania State University, was four billion years ago - just 600 million years after the Solar System's birth.

But new work by David Grinspoon, at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, suggests the momentous transition may have occurred much later. He points out the Kasting's estimate was just a lower limit on when the change happened, because it did not include the effect of clouds in the Venusian atmosphere.

Reflected sunlight

Clouds reflect sunlight back to space and therefore cool a planet's surface, and Grinspoon's preliminary calculations indicate that the effect can be dramatic - keeping the atmosphere 100 Kelvin cooler than without them.

Although more detailed modeling remains to be done, Grinspoon says the difference could mean that oceans and pleasant temperatures may have persisted on Venus for at least two billion years.

This also suggests that another global transformation on Venus about 700 million years ago, in which the whole planet's surface appears to have melted and reformed, may actually have been a continuation of the same greenhouse warming that dried out the planet.

Once the water was lost, Grinspoon says, plate tectonics would have stopped completely, and with it the most efficient way for the planet to shed its internal heat. This could have led to a buildup that eventually caused the whole crust to melt and then reform.

More generally, if this analysis is right, it means that the "habitable zone" for planets around other stars may be much wider than has been assumed, since Venus had been thought to be far outside it.

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A somewhat related page:

The Discovery of the Greenhouse Effect

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Venus.htm

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Darren Drake said:

Is there a point when the level of CO2 in the atmosphere no longer adds to the amount of energy that becomes trapped? In other words could we already be at or near a point where it won't matter any more if there is any more CO2 added and that all this climate change is all hype?

Beginners will find the monthly star charts at the web site below extremely useful - it is a 2-page sheet that has a all-sky map that shows you what constellations are up in the evenings of that month, and a list of objects to look at with a telescope, binoculars or nothing but your own 2 eyes. It is also a monthly calendar of astronomical events, glossary and tips for beginners. It is something I hand out at all our outreach events (author is ok with educational usage) and is one of the best things you can hand to someone just getting started:

http://www.skymaps.com/

http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html

You'll need a Adobe Reader to open the downloaded files.

Unless you're looking at large galaxies - like M31 - try using a 2mm exit pupil. That's the conventional wisdom and it seems to work. I notice much more detail when doing so on galaxies, whether I'm using my 11" of 16" dobs.

It can be calculated by dividing the focal length of the eyepiece by the focal ratio (f-number) of the telescope. More simply, it is the diameter of the objective lens divided by the magnification.

See

http://www.saguaroastro.org/content/EYEPIECE.htm

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/howto/basics/3304201.html

http://www.astromart.com/articles/article.asp?article_id=30




K. Michael M.

Oceans cooling? Perhaps not. From:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/ocean-cooling-not/


"...A lot has been made of a paper (Lyman et al, 2006) that appeared last year that claimed that the oceans had, contrary to expectation, cooled over the period 2003-2005. At the time, we (correctly) pointed out that this result was going to be hard to reconcile with continued increases in sea level rise (driven in large part by thermal expansion effects), and that there may still be issues with way that the new ARGO floats were being incorporated into the ocean measurement network. Now it seems as if there is a problem in the data and in the latest analysis, the cooling has disappeared. "

Long discussion of this at the above link.

KMM

William Cheng said:

Here is the latest. link from NPR http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025 They try to explain it many ways but No Global Warming is not one of them.

I have a 16" and a 20". There's a noticable difference between the 2 in image brightness, of course. A fairly big difference, too. I love the views my 20 inch gives of deep sky objects - easily brighter, more detailed in the 20. My 17 mm T4 nagler in my 20" focuser has given me some of my favorite views ever...truly "Wow" stuff. But...

...It's a pain to transport. For one thing, it doesn't fit through the doors of my house. When I do move it, I need to use composite ramps to get them into my pickup. There's no way I can use that 20 without the ramps, so I have to take them with me. Even with help, ramps are a must.

At one time I had a "home" for it - the 20 inch stayed out at my sister's house that was in a fairly dark location. When she sold that house, though, I had to find a new "home" for the 20 inch - will probably have to get a tool shed in my city home to house it. Currently it's sitting in my GF' apartment - it's too big to fit through the doors of my house!

Way back in 1996 I bought a Meade 16 inch Starfinder and about 3 years ago found a used Night Sky Scopes truss structure on Astromart and transplanted the 16" mirror into that and it works fine. Fits in my house, too, and I can get it in & out of my truck bed with my ramps quite easily.

But, much of the time I'm not in the mood to wrestle with ramps at all, so I bought Starmaster 11" EL on astromart and that's light enough to get it into my truck withour ramps or help of any sort. It's about the limit for me in terms of how much weight I feel comfortable picking up and moving. Still, kind of a hassle..

So, I'm contemplating an 8-inch fast dob for ease of transport and setup and/or a 4-inch TV 102 on a Gibraltor as a truly "grab n' go" scope.

Do you see a pattern?

But to summarize, is it worth it? Yes, if you are aware of and prepared to deal with the increased setup & transportation hassle with such a large scope, or you have a permanent observing location for it. Storing, transporting and using a ladders with such a beast is something to consider carefully.


K. Michael M.

Scott Ayer said:

Well, Im running a fever again. Any one got the cure?
Im Thinking of Buying a 20" truss dob. Just concerned if it would be worth the cost (stepping up from a 15") Any thoughts?
:S

Unfortunately, with fast scopes it really becomes apparent that "you get what you pay for".

If you can find one used for a good price, the 2 inch 30mm GSO Superview might be able to tie you over until you buy something good. I have one and use it all the time as a public star party eyepiece in a f/5.4 newtonian and while it has alot of seagulls, it still elicits "Wow!" responses from beginners if I show them something large, like M45 or M44. New I think they go for around $63 - if you can find one for $30-40, it might be worth it if you plan on doing public events - believe me, you do not want snot on your naglers!

Knight_Owl Services (GSO) Eyepiece Review

http://www.astromart.com/articles/article.asp?article_id=154

Other comments at

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1199488/page/229/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1

http://cs.astronomy.com/asycs/forums/p/17159/293857.aspx

http://excelsis.com/1.0/entry.php?sectionid=22&entryid=624

Can be bought new at

http://www.agenaastro.com/GSO-SV-30-mm-SuperView-Eyepiece-2-inch-p/e-gs-sv30.htm

The other option is to just save your beer & fast food money for a good used eyepiece like a nagler, panoptic, Pentax XL or a Vixen/Orion LVW.

K. Michael M.

David Alexander said:

Hi all, I have searched and researched for some type of advise on what type of eyepieces I should get for my 10" f/4.7 Dob. I think i have decided on a 17mm Hyperion, but I am struggling with a low power EP. I have read numerous reviews, but most are using slower scopes and I hear alot about how the lower power EP's dont perform very well in the fast scopes...so there is my dilema. Basically, I want a wide field EP at low power for DSO's...and I dont think I can afford a Nagler yet. Looking in the $100 to $200 range, and something I will be satisfied with for a little while. I have never looked through a Nagler, so I am not spoiled yet, and don't know what I am missing. :S

What used to be called Planet X - 2003 UB313 - I had the good fortune of being only one of about 8 people that have ever seen it in the eyepiece. It is far, far from the inner solar system and will stay there for a long, long time. However, I think this is not what you have in mind.

Online you can find a seemingly never ending amount of fruitcake ideas about Planet X, 2012, Niburu - it's all completely BS and no one in their right mind ought to be paying any attention to it. It all looks to me like a plot to sell books to the gullible.

Here are some things I came across on Nibiru, Sitchin, 2012 and related topics that might be worth reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zecharia_Sitchin

Mayan prophecy (2012) at the skeptic's dictionary:

http://www.skepdic.com/maya.html

You should look at the web sites under the "Critical of Sitchin" at the bottom of the above page:

http://skepdic.com/sitchin.html

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/8148/zindex.html

http://www.sitchiniswrong.com/sitchinerrors.htm

at

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/8148/hafernik.html

You'll find "Sitchin's Twelfth Planet" which says in the abstract:

"...Sitchin's work is a masterpiece of linguistic maneuvering and allegorical interpretation. He is clearly well-read in the archeology and mythology of ancient Sumeria and related lore. His work conflicts, however, with mainstream archeological opinion. In fact, in Usenet discussions of Sitchin's work, several well-published, respected archeologists familiar with this period have called Sitchin a fool and an idiot (but in less polite terms). While he's well-read, he lives in his own little world when it comes to translation of ancient texts. He also takes certain liberties in his translations and interpretations that are not usually allowed by the scientific community. His work completely falls apart, also, when modern science is brought to bear. Sitchin's interpretations of Sumerian Epics and other writings describe events that simply couldn't have happened. "


For a debunking of the Mayan aspect, you might want to look at

http://www.giagia.co.uk/?p=249

and various wikipedia articles, such as the one at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar

which says:

" ...The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar forms the basis for a New Age belief, first forecast by José Argüelles, that a cataclysm will take place on or about 21 December 2012, a forecast that mainstream Mayanist scholars consider a mis-interpretation."

There's a thread on it at

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/02/25/looks-like-id-better-get-on-2012/

This will be one of many, many failed end of the world predictions. To get an idea of the history of them, see

http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl2.htm

K. Michael M.

Johann Glansdorp said:

Any news about this planet. Seems to be a lot of rumors going around. One I heard stated that we are doomed in the year 2012 due to planet X.