19 June 2004

Observing Location	The Great Lawn (north), Central Park, New York, NY
Atmospheric Conditions	It was pleasant and sunny all day today. At 2000 when I arrived at the location it was very windy and starting to get cool as the sun was behind the trees and buildings approaching sunset. The temperature was in the low 70s but the wind made it feel cooler. You could see the under sides of the leaves on all of the trees. But the only clouds were down to the south and below the tops of the buildings down there. The sky was not as blue or uniform in color as it should have been so there was some high cumulus up there too. When Ben arrived he brought the clouds with him and they managed to get in the way several times during the night. I left at about 2315 when it was 69 degrees and fairly cloudy.
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binoculars - Charlie TeleVue TV76 - Ben 102mm refractor - Peter
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Ben Cacace Peter Tagatac

Target	Moon
Time	19Jun04; 2038 EDT
Category	Moon
Comments	I observed the thin crescent moon first naked eye then through my binoculars. It was just past 2 days, four minutes in age at the time. By 2110 I was seeing faint earthshine on the remainder of the moon and the terminator passing through Mare Crisium. There appeared to be another large feature near the end of the lower horn. Castor and Pollux looked nice above the moon but were too far away to get all three objects in the same binocular field.

Target	Jupiter
Time	19Jun04 2043 EDT
Category	Planets
Comments	My first sighting of Jupiter was naked eye. When I looked back there with the binoculars there was only clouds. A short while later I saw it again for sure and picked out Ganymede to the east and two of the other moons to the west. In Ben's scope we were able to see Io, Calisto and Europa forming a tight triangle but they were too close to each other and to Jupiter for me to split them in the binoculars. Over the next two hours the positions of the moons relative to Jupiter and each other continued to change with Io and Europa getting closer to each other. At the end of the night I was only able to see one object on the west side of Jupiter.

Target	Iridium 41
Time	19Jun04; 2211 EDT
Category	Satellites
Comments	This flare appeared in Leo below and to the north of Regulus moving south to north. Its maximum brightness was -0.2 so it was not very remarkable.

Target	Antares
Time	19Jun04; 2241 EDT
Category	Star
Comments	In Scorpius. In my binoculars it appears as a very bright gold star.

Target	M80, NGC6093
Time	19Jun04; 2253 EDT
Category	Deep Space
Comments	In Scorpius. Through Ben's scope it was a faint smudge.

Target	Caph, β Cassiopeiae
Time	19Jun04; 2300 EDT
Category	Stars
Comments	This is currently my birthday star. The light leaving this star at the time of my birth is just arriving at earth now.

Target	Iridium 23
Time	19Jun04; 2338 EDT
Category	Satellite
Comments	This flare appeared in Lacerta just to the east of Cassiopeia. It moved west to east and brightened to magnitude -3.0 before dimming after having transited about 20 degrees. We were lucky that it was high enough to be out of the schmutz but not high enough to be behind the clouds that were passing through there.