24 June 2004

Observing Location	The Great Lawn (north), Central Park, New York, NY
Atmospheric Conditions	When I left home the sky looked white and it was over an hour to sunset. From the subway platform the sun was very orange. On arrival in the park there was haze to the south up to 20-30 degrees. Conditions went downhill from there. With sunset the air became very clammy. The Moon often had a ring around it and at times strings of cloud could be seen passing over it through the binoculars. By about 1100 hrs there weren't many stars visible without an optical instrument.
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binoculars - Charlie TeleVue TV76 refractor - Ben Tacahashi 102 refractor - Peter 18x70 binoculars - Tom
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Ben Cacace Peter Tagatac Tom Clabough

Target	Jupiter
Time	24Jun04; 2103 EDT
Category	Planets
Comments	Calisto was out to the west and very hard to see, Ganymede was a little easier but appeared small and dim. Europa was easiest to spot. Io, being closest to the planet, was difficult to make out in the glare. Later as Jupiter slid down the ecliptic to near tree line in the west the moons were no longer visible and the planet appeared very large, dull, and round.

Target	Moon
Time	24Jun04; 2117 EDT
Category
Comments	Moon's Age 7 days 3 hours, 41.7% illuminated. Vallis Alpes (alpine Valley) was easy to see in Ben's telescope and even in my binoculars after I knew what to look for. It appeared as a dark wedge running across an area of numerous peaks, the Montes Alpes. Archimedes was right on the edge of the terminator. Ptolemaeus was very prominent near the terminator in the south.

Target	Izar
Time	24Jun04; 2308 EDT
Category	Star
Comments	The last time we observed this double star in Ben's scope I could make out a diffraction ring and a tiny dot of light above and left of the primary star. Tonight the seeing was too poor to see the secondary star at all. I observed four spikes of light around the primary which must have been the diffraction ring.

Target	M92, NGC6341
Time	24Jun04; 2309 EDT
Category	Deep Space Object
Comments	Located in Hercules. The open cluster appeared as a light spot through Peter's telescope.

Target	Alberio
Time	24Jun04; 2311 EDT
Category	Star
Comments	Alberio is the head star of Cygnus, The Swan. It is a double star system. The primary is gold with a close blue secondary.

Target	Mizar and Alcor
Time	24Jun04; 2330 EDT
Category	Star
Comments	In the handle of the Big Dipper, part of Ursa Major, The Great Bear. Observed at 48x in Ben's scope, there was a nice separation between the double. Each of the stars in the double (Mizar A, Zeta 1 UMa and Mizar B, Zeta 2 UMa) is itself a spectroscopic double making Mizar a double double with rotation periods of 20.5 days and 128 days respectively. Mizar and Alcor were called The Horse and Rider by the Arabians. Mizar's Arabic name means The Groin, a reference to its location in The Great Bear. Alcor was up on top of the grouping. It is a variable star. Sinus Ludoviciana was out to the right a little and between them. It was once considered, at least by one scientist, to be a new planet. http://leo.astronomy.cz/mizar/article.htm

Target	Coathanger
Time	24Jun04; 2347 EDT
Category	Asterisms
Comments	In Ben's scope the asterism was dim in a bright sky. It filled the field of view with a line of six stars running from 11:00 to 5:00 and the hook extending out to 8:00. It is located in the constellation Volpecula, The Fox.