HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: metares@well.sf.ca.us (Tom Van Flandern)
Subject: Re: Standard model of QSOsex
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 18:30:25 GMT


clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:

> The nearest quasar is about z=.1.  This is pretty close.  Say N(Z) =
> Integral of O to Z of Z^3*Z^2 (Z^2 for area of shell at distance Z), so
> N(Z) ~ Z^6. (I neglect here csomological-model dependent corrections to the
> integral).  With Zmax=3 as per observation, and N(.1)=1, as per
> observation, the N(Zmax)~ ... 730 million quasars.  Probably a bit high.
>
> Using N(Z) ~ Z^5 (to cover my cosmological sins - I'm too lazy to look up
> the exact formula for volume differential at Z - which was my motive for
> doing order of magnitude to Zmax first), then N(3)/N(.1) times one close
> quasar = 24 million quasars which is about right.

     Ignoring the fast and loose derivation, there are several quasars with z
= 0.01 or so, with the smallest z being somewhat less than this as I recall.
From memory, 3C273 has z = 0.016 and NGC 1068 (a Seyfert) has z= 0.0037.
Taking N(.01) = 1 seems to add five more orders of magnitude to your
prediction. Is it still within the number of orders of magnitude you expect
from standard cosmology?  :-)

> [Ronny Sheffer] also forgot to mention the prediction of the presence of
> black-holes - burned out quasars - in many galactic nuclei.  These are also
> on the verge of being observed by HST and NGTs.

     Bower, Richstone, Bothun & Heckman have been searching nearby galaxies
for such remnants for a couple of years now without success.  We already know
that the numbers of such dead quasars nearby is way below theoretical
expectations.  Does a negative result qualify as "on the verge of being
observed"?

> Can't resist a parting shot before your trip.  Does the Meta Model predict
> the existence of Tom Van Flandern and the Meta Research Institute from
> first principles deductively and without free parameters?

     Not only that, but it predicts that the big bang will be obsolete by
1996, and will thereafter be relegated to the role of an in-joke among
historians of science.  :-)  -|Tom|-

-- 
Tom Van Flandern / Washington, DC / metares@well.sf.ca.us
Meta Research was founded to foster research into ideas not otherwise
supported because they conflict with mainstream theories in Astronomy.
From: rushford@novax.llnl.gov
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: Laser guide star planning
Date: 17 Aug 92 21:11:16 GMT


	You are welcomed to attend a planning meeting
		to discuss observing the Laser Guide Star ..

	7:30 PM Friday 8/21/92 @ 1890 So. Livermore Av. Livermore, Ca.

We will help you understand the project and how to find the star.

We would like to come up with an experiment to do. I would like to monitor
the sodium weather, your suggestions are welcomed. At a minimum you
need binoculars, once you find the star you can then see it by eye.
If you know someone with an interest and equipment for recording the
stars, please fell free to invite them. We have radio contact with the
LLNL launch sight durring events. This helps us since we then know when
the star is made dim by LLNL as part of their experiment. ATV was also
avaliable and will be used to feed the Mt. Diablo repeter. Tune your
cable ready TV to cable channel 57. Point a vertically polarized antena
at MT D. durring the next event.

The next Laser Guide Star event is schedualed for 8/26-28/92 12:01-4:00 AM.

-- 
Michael C. rushford@novax.llnl.gov or

michae1222@aol.com

 510 423 2037
Newsgroups: sci.astro
From: jls2@teal.csn.org (Jeff Stoner)
Subject: Palomar Visits?
Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc.
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 22:00:27 GMT

I'll be visiting out in San Diego over Labor Day weekend and was wondering
what, if any, facilities Mt. Palomar has for daytime casual visitors? Any
info would be appreciated. Thanks!

Newsgroups: sci.astro
From: hillig@U.Chem.LSA.UMich.EDU (Kurt Hillig)
Subject: Re: Re^2: Cleaning Eyepieces
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 13:30:32 EDT
Organization: Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

In article <1992Aug18.174000.12866@tellab5.tellabs.com> jcj@tellabs.com (JCJ) writes:
>J. D. McDonald writes:
>
>>... Try to get reagent grade isopropyl ("ACS Certified" in the US) or USP
>>grade ethyl alcohol 100% (200 proof). I use the ethyl, its cheap in our 
>>storeroom ...
>
>Just a nit, but can you get 200 proof?  I vaguely recall a ChemE roommate
>once saying alcohol forms an aliotrope (?) such that the best you can
>get is 90%.  A chemist I'm not, however...
>

FYI the ethanol-water azeotrope is about 95% EtOH - 190 proof.
It's the easiest almost-pure ethanol to make, just needs simple
distillation.  USP or reagent-grade ethanol has been further
processed to remove the water.  Note - reagent-grade EtOH often
contains traces of benzene, as a residue from the drying process,
and is NOT suitable for human consumption!

By the way, 95% ethanol is about 6.5% water - since by convention
these are v/v percentages (volume ratio) and not w/w (weight ratio),
and 95 ml of EtOH will mix with 6.5 ml of H2O to give 100 ml!

Newsgroups: sci.astro
From: gill@physics.ubc.ca (Arnold Gill)
Subject: Re: Anthropic Principle?
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 22:48:03 GMT

clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:

>What do you netters think of the anthropic principle? (AP for short)
>That is the idea that the universe is the way it is because
>we are here to observe it.  If it were different we wouldn't
>be here.

     I think it is something to seriously consider.  I find this especially
     true in those cases where someone says "this could never happen over the
     lifetime of the Solar System", and throws out a theory because of that.
     Perhaps the odds are something like that, and perhaps life evolved on 
     Earth because our solar system was the one in a billion with the right
     conditions.  Observing here, we can only see the one positive case, not
     the billion negative ones.  Perhaps life is extremely unlikely, but it
     did happen at least once -- here.

--
Arnold Gill --- astrophysician trainee in exile             gill@physics.ubc.ca
Newsgroups: sci.astro
From: gmcquary@Ingres.COM (George F. McQuary)
Subject: Evaluation of Filters for Urban Areas?
Reply-To: gmcquary@Ingres.COM (George F. McQuary)
Organization: Ask Computer Systems Inc., Ingres Division, Alameda CA 94501
Date: 17 Aug 92 20:43:25 GMT

I keep seeing these ads proclaiming "Suddenly, there it was --The Veil 
Nebula!" So of course now I want to ask those who actually know. 

Are the results from filters really that dramatic in urban areas? What if I'm
not doing photography but only my own direct visual observations?

How close to dark sky performance can I get in a moderately urban area?

Is it really necessary to have a whole palette of filters for emission,
reflection and whatever else nebula or is there a single compromise filter
that does a general overall good job?

What are the best filters for the budget concious that would allow me to see
the most for the buck?

Thanks in advance!
 

--
George F. McQuary 
"He is mad, bad and dangerous to know." -Lady Caroline Lamb
Newsgroups: sci.astro
From: jcj@tellabs.com (JCJ)
Subject: Re^2: Cleaning Eyepieces
Organization: Huh?
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 17:40:00 GMT

J. D. McDonald writes:

>... Try to get reagent grade isopropyl ("ACS Certified" in the US) or USP
>grade ethyl alcohol 100% (200 proof). I use the ethyl, its cheap in our 
>storeroom ...

Just a nit, but can you get 200 proof?  I vaguely recall a ChemE roommate
once saying alcohol forms an aliotrope (?) such that the best you can
get is 90%.  A chemist I'm not, however...

Newsgroups: sci.astro
From: ron@mlfarm.com (Ronald Florence)
Subject: Re: Quasars: near versus far
Organization: Maple Lawn Farm, Stonington, CT
	<1992Aug12.231703.29339@mlfarm.com> <phfrom.241@nyx.uni-konstanz.de>
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 21:31:57 GMT

Hartmut Frommert writes:

   It's not true that Einstein wanted to obtain a static universe
   [...]  Contrary to what (e.g.) ron@mlfarm.com (Ronald Florence)
   writes and is published in most books, he had *not* in mind any
   astronomical facts, but only theoretical arguments, at that moment
   (of course he realized this fact later, before Hubble's
   observations).

   \begin{thebibliography}
   [1] A. Einstein,
   >          "Kosmologische Betrachtungen zur allgemeinen Relativatstheorie,"
   >          Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, Sitzber.  142-152.

Bert_Rust_x3811 <bwr@cam.nist.gov> writes:

   Years ago, when I took GR from the late G.C. McVittie, he went to
   great pains to point out that the cosmological constant is not just
   an extra term tacked on by Einstein to preserve a static universe.

Hmmm.  I haven't looked at the original paper, and the translation of
Albert Einstein, "Cosmological Considerations on the General Theory of
Relativity" by W. Perrett and G.B. Jeffrey in _The Principle of
Relativity_ (Dover, 1952) may be incorrect.  Or perhaps I'm
misunderstanding Einstein's statement that he introduced Lambda, the
cosmological constant, "...only for the purpose of making possible a
quasi-static distribution of matter, as required by the fact of the
small velocities of the stars."  (p. 188).

I suspect that Einstein's motives were complex.  If he included Lambda
for the mathematical and theoretical reasons cited by Hartmut and
Bert, Einstein was also sufficiently aware of the importance
astronomers at the time attached to the apparently random proper
motions of stars, that he felt it important not to ignore their
evidence.  Introducing the cosmological constant produced the static
universe which astronomers everywhere accepted as a `given' in 1917.
-- 

				Ronald Florence
				ron@mlfarm.com
Newsgroups: sci.astro,rec.radio.amateur.misc,rec.radio.shortwave
From: oler@rho.uleth.ca (Cary Oler)
Subject: Daily Solar Geophysical Data Broadcast for 12 August
Organization: University of Lethbridge
Date: 13 Aug 92 02:53:51 GMT

!!BEGIN!! (1.0) S.T.D. Solar Geophysical Data Broadcast for DAY 225, 08/12/92
10.7 FLUX=128.3  90-AVG=125        SSN=060      BKI=3343 3120  BAI=012
BGND-XRAY=B3.9     FLU1=4.3E+05  FLU10=1.1E+04  PKI=3333 3222  PAI=010
  BOU-DEV=020,036,046,026,021,008,010,003   DEV-AVG=021 NT     SWF=01:002
 XRAY-MAX= M1.0   @ 0234UT    XRAY-MIN= B3.5   @ 2259UT   XRAY-AVG= B5.8
NEUTN-MAX= +003%  @ 1840UT   NEUTN-MIN= -002%  @ 2335UT  NEUTN-AVG= +0.1%
  PCA-MAX= +0.2DB @ 1250UT     PCA-MIN= -0.2DB @ 1220UT    PCA-AVG= +0.0DB
BOUTF-MAX=55260NT @ 2331UT   BOUTF-MIN=55219NT @ 1659UT  BOUTF-AVG=55247NT
GOES7-MAX=P:+676NT@ 0142UT   GOES7-MIN=N:-004NT@ 0617UT  G7-AVG=+068,+044,+008
GOES6-MAX=P:+094NT@ 0238UT   GOES6-MIN=E:-009NT@ 0946UT  G6-AVG=+077,+006,+030
 FLUXFCST=STD:123,118,110;SESC:120,110,100 BAI/PAI-FCST=010,005,005/015,010,010
    KFCST=3332 2222 3332 2222  27DAY-AP=016,008   27DAY-KP=2225 4333 3301 2222
 WARNINGS=*SWF
   ALERTS=**MINFLR:M1.0@0234UTC;**245STRM:1031-1206UTC
!!END-DATA!!
From: combs@vaxr.llnl.gov
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: Cleaning Eyepieces
Date: 17 Aug 92 16:00:03 GMT
Organization: LLNL_LIS

> 
> What techniques do others of you use and recommend?
> (to clean eyepieces.)

I recommend a product called Sparkle, available at True Value Hardware
stores.  I spray a very small amount on a tissue for large lenses, or a
Q-tip for the smaller lenses, and then wipe the surface in a circular
motion, ending at the outer edge. Usually takes two wipes, changing the
tissue/Q-tip each time.  This product leaves no residue, and apparently
does not have the suspended wax that Windex is famous for.  It is said to
be approved by Zeiss to clean microscope objectives.  Does an excellent job
of removing eyeball grease.  I clean my eyepieces often, and have seen no
deterioration in the coatings.
    You should be careful of other solvents such as acetone or rubbing
alcohol, since they may contain additional additives.  Rubbing alcohol for
instance usually contains lanolin, which leaves a film on the eyepiece, and
acetone, as used to remove nail polish, probably has similar additives.
Try the Sparkle.  If you don't like it you can clean the windows in your 
house.  Works good for that too!                      .....RICH
Rich Combs                           combs@vaxr.llnl.gov
From: tonya@hpldsla.sid.hp.com (Tony Arnerich)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: Re: Fossil Paradox (was: Structure of Time)
Date: 11 Aug 92 17:37:32 GMT
Organization: HP Scientific Instruments Division - Palo Alto, CA

hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi writes:

   > Suppose we could build a "device" by which we could travel in time.

A time machine will *never* be built by our civilization. My proof of
this is that the stock market, horse racing, and gambling casinos have
not been drained dry by time travelers.

This is the World's Most Elegant Proof.   :-)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
From: ron@mlfarm.com (Ronald Florence)
Subject: Re: Quasars: near versus far
Organization: Maple Lawn Farm, Stonington, CT
	<Bsr5v0.EzF@well.sf.ca.us> <16brrcINNn40@smaug.West.Sun.COM>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 23:17:03 GMT

Richard M. Mathews writes:

   Einstein was already aware that GR requires expansion/contraction
   of the universe in 1917 when he wrote
	   "Kosmologische Betrachtungen zur allgemeinen Relativatstheorie,"
	   Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, Sitzber.  142-152.
   Friedmann Cosmology was born with Friedmann's 1922 paper
	   "Uber die Krummung des Raumes," Z. Phys. 10, 377-386.
   The same idea was derived independently by Lemaitre in 1927 (sorry, no
   reference).

   On the other hand, the observation of the redshift-brightness correlation
   was not made until 1929, published by Hubble as
	   "A relation between distance and radial velocity among extragalactic
	   nebulae," Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S. 15, 169-173.

An ironic story, this ... Einstein was indeed aware that GR requires
expansion/contraction.  The notion so troubled him (Newtonian at heart
that he was!) that he introduced the cosmological factor, lamda, which
even he admitted served no purpose except to make the equations work
without expansion/contraction.  It wasn't until the 1930s, when
Richard Tolman was already working on a cosmology based on Hubble's
and Humason's observations, that Einstein admitted, initially in a
letter to Millikan, who had been his host at Caltech, that `perhaps'
the cosmological factor wasn't needed after all.

Abbe Lemaitre, who put it all together from Vesto Slipher's initial
observations of red-shifts long before Hubble's observations were
published, was ignored as an outsider.  Who would believe a Belgian
priest/mathematician in 1927?
-- 

				Ronald Florence
				ron@mlfarm.com
From: gmcquary@Ingres.COM (George F. McQuary)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: Re: Fossil Paradox (was: Structure of Time)
Date: 12 Aug 92 19:44:13 GMT
Reply-To: gmcquary@Ingres.COM (George F. McQuary)
Organization: Ask Computer Systems Inc., Ingres Division, Alameda CA 94501

In article <75960056@hpldsla.sid.hp.com> tonya@hpldsla.sid.hp.com (Tony Arnerich) writes:
>hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi writes:
>
>   > Suppose we could build a "device" by which we could travel in time.
>
>A time machine will *never* be built by our civilization. My proof of
>this is that the stock market, horse racing, and gambling casinos have
>not been drained dry by time travelers.
>
>This is the World's Most Elegant Proof.   :-)

Well, that's assuming that such gain would be of use to people in the future.

What good is the confederate currency of the south now that the government
that backed it no longer stands? As for barter, who would travel back
to the 1970's to steal an Apple II for it's great (for it's day)
computing power?

One could certainly take, say, a modern car for noveltys sake, but then
there are the problems of the supporting technology network no longer
being present --gas refineriess, highway systems to drive them on, etc.
As useless as a crank telephone from 1920 is with our current touchtone network.

Finally, there is the fantasy of going back to the past to be the one-eyed king
in the kingdom of the blind. But most people today would have difficulty
living in the classist, racist societies of the past. Add the plague, the
fact that everyone was infected with lice, ticks and worms, and that the food
was horrible --in this light, it is probably very egotistical of us to assume
that our decendants with have even the slightest passing interest in us
after our comparable backwardness to them, and that whatever interest that
persisted would be quenched quickly at first exposure to the harsh reality.


--
George F. McQuary 
"He is mad, bad and dangerous to know." -Lady Caroline Lamb
From: paulsoj@atlantis.CS.ORST.EDU (Justin Paulson)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: Re: Perseids
Date: 12 Aug 92 14:42:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: leela.1992Aug12.144209.9742
Distribution: na
Organization: Computer Science Outreach Services - Oregon State University

Went out again this morning (just outside Corvallis, OR) between 3:15 am and
5:00 am and lost count somewhere in the 50s.  Viewing was limited due to the
nearly-full moon, but most of the Perseids appeared to be magnitude 1.5 or
brighter.  Quite a few were of negative magnitude, many left visual "trails,"
and one looked like it exploded.  All but one of the meteors I saw were
Perseids.

Best meteor shower I've ever seen!

						Justin Paulson
						paulsoj@atlantis.cs.orst.edu
From: metares@well.sf.ca.us (Tom Van Flandern)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: Re: A super-blue branch of super-massive stars?
Date: 18 Aug 92 03:14:31 GMT
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link


fischer@physun.physics.mcmaster.ca (Phil Fischer) writes:

> how do you explain that we don't see supermassive stars nearby (i.e. in the
> galaxy, in the LMC). That is, in an unredshifted sense.

     Small dwarf galaxies generally don't produce supermassive stars.  The
best candidates would be relatively blue galaxies with lots of young O-stars.
Apparently M87 is the most prolific producer among "nearby" galaxies.
     -|Tom|-

-- 
Tom Van Flandern / Washington, DC / metares@well.sf.ca.us
Meta Research was founded to foster research into ideas not otherwise
supported because they conflict with mainstream theories in Astronomy.
From: tomrice@netcom.com (Tom R. Rice)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: Re: Laser Guide Star observations
Date: 14 Aug 92 02:24:18 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

Reports of townspeople streaming out in search of three wise guys
and a manger are unconfirmed.

At ~1:10 AM, 8/13/92:
Observing from Vasco Rd, a few hundred yards N of Tesla:  the
variations as the beam passed through differing densities
of haze were very dramatic, looking like variations in
beam thickness rather than brightness.  Unfortunately, the hazy
skies and very bright moon reduced the contrast so much that the
beam was very hard to see from five miles away as I travelled
out Mines Rd. into the mountains.  Still trying to spot the "star".

Thanks, trr


-- 
"Start off every day with a smile and get it over with."  --W.C.Fields
Tom R. Rice   WB6BYH                   Holler Observatory - 
tomrice@netcom.com                     Longitude:  121 d  30 m  20 s W 
CIS: 71160,1122                        Latitude:    37 d  25 m  10 s N 
Newsgroups: sci.astro
From: chaloux@accordion.mitre.org (Dave Chaloux)
Subject: Re: Evaluation of Filters for Urban Areas?
Reply-To: chaloux@accordion.mitre.org (Dave Chaloux)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, McLean, Va
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 11:53:37 GMT

George F. McQuary asks:

>I keep seeing these ads proclaiming "Suddenly, there it was --The Veil 
>Nebula!" So of course now I want to ask those who actually know. 

>Are the results from filters really that dramatic in urban areas? What if I'm
>not doing photography but only my own direct visual observations?

etc.

Speaking from my experience the results of using a filter can be dramatic. The
operative words are "can be". I live under relatively good skies that get
down to about 6.1 or 6.2 on the best nights at the Zenith. Poorer skies to the
NW-NE.

I have a Orion Deep Sky Filter. When used with my Celestron 8" SCT the results
were frankly disappointing. Not quite bad enough for me to want to sell it but
disappointing. The only objects that showed any improvement were nebula. They
showed only small gains. The biggest help was with faint Planetary nebula for
identification purposes. Even there the help was marginal.

I now have a large Dobsonian working at F5. I decided to try the same filter on
some objects. BIG HELP. I couldn't believe the difference. The veil was there
with or without the filter but was much prettier and more detailed with the
filter. Same with the Lagoon, Swan, Trifid, and Eagle.

In terms of which ones to get, "The Backyard Astronomer" says that the Orion
Deepsky and UltraBlock filters are basically equivalent to the Lumicon
Broadband and Narrowband filters. The same is NOT true about the Meade and
Celestron filters which basically take the middle ground. I have heard very
good things about the OIII filter but have not used one. It will probably be
my next purchase for a filter.

My thinking is that once I get the OIII I will probably use it the most. However
I will still want the Deepsky filter for use on Nebula involved with star clusters
such as the Planetary in M46, the Eagle, etc.

I guess my real advice would be this. Don't buy unless you can return them.
From my experience the results can be very different on different scopes.
On some they really pay off and on others the benefit is pretty marginal.
Newsgroups: sci.astro,rec.radio.amateur.misc,rec.radio.shortwave
From: oler@rho.uleth.ca (Cary Oler)
Subject: BULLETIN: Monthly Reports for July 1992 Are Now Available
Organization: University of Lethbridge
Date: 15 Aug 92 21:06:27 GMT

                  /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

                                SOLAR BULLETIN

                                15 August, 1992

                        Monthly Reports for July 1992
                                 
                  /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\


MONTHLY REPORTS OF SOLAR GEOPHYSICAL ACTIVITY FOR JULY ARE NOW AVAILABLE:

     The monthly reports of solar and geophysical activity for the month of
July 1992 are now available through anonymous FTP from the following sites:

solar.stanford.edu <-->   36.10.0.4   <--> "pub/1992" and subdirectories
nic.funet.fi       <--> 128.214.6.100 <--> "pub/dx/solarreports" and subdirs
xi.uleth.ca        <-->  142.66.3.29  <--> "pub/solar/1992"

Also, preliminary monthly ionospheric data are available from either of the
last two sites above (nic.funet.fi or xi.uleth.ca).  Data reported includes
M(3000)F2, foF2, MUF(3000)F2, and TEC.

The files to get are:

     "julflr.doc"     - Summary of Solar Energetic Events for July 1992.

     "julmag.doc"     - Summary of Global Geomagnetic Activity for July.

     "iono-jul.zip"   - Summary of Ionospheric Data, compressed using ZIP.

     "iono-jul.zoo"   - Summary of Ionospheric Data, compressed using ZOO.

     "iono-jul.tar.Z" - Summary of Ionospheric Data, TAR'd and COMPRESSed.

     "jultec.zip"     - Summary of Global Total Electron Content (TEC),
                        compressed using ZIP.

     "jultec.zoo"     - Summary of Global TEC, compressed using ZOO.

     "jultec.tar.Z"   - Summary of Global TEC, TAR'd and COMPRESSed.

     "sgdb-jul.zip"   - Archive of all Daily Solar Geophysical Data
                        Broadcasts (SGDBs) for July using ZIP.

     "sgdb-jul.zoo"   - Archive of all SGDBs, compressed using ZOO.

     "sgdb-jul.tar.Z" - Archive of all SGDBs, TAR'd and COMPRESSed.


**  End of Bulletin  **
Newsgroups: sci.astro