30 May 2004

Observing Location	The Great Lawn, Central Park, New York, NY We have been using the north end of The Great Lawn recently in lieu of Turtle Pond because it has been affording better views of Comet NEAT. I don't think there are as many people there as we get at Turtle Pond. The view of Midtown is great.
Atmospheric Conditions
Observing Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized Binoculars - Charlie TeleVue TV76 - Ben 102mm refractor-Peter 18x70 binoculars - Tom
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Ben Cacace Peter Tagatac Tom Clabough

Target	Jupiter
Time	30May04; 22:30 EDT
Category	Planets
Comments	J-Moons! was not agreeing with my observations tonight or with Planetarium or Jup. Later in the evening I couldn't get Jupiter to properly focus. It looked like an upside down mushroom no matter what I did.
Target	Moon
Time	04-5-30; 23:00 EDT
Category	Planets
Comments	Clavius (beneath Tycho) - I had trouble identifying it in Ben's scope until I had seen it in Peter's. I couldn't find it at all in my binoculars. There is an arc of craters horizontally across the central portion of the floor. They increase in size left to right (reversed image). There is also a string of smaller craters along the crater's southern rim. Aristarchus was easy to find in the binoculars being bright white just inside of the terminator. In the scopes it could be seen as a crater. Next to it in the limb side is Herodotus. It is lightly smaller than Aristarchus and darker. Arching out of the top of Herodotus is the sinuous Rille Vallis Schoteri which looked like the crater's rim rather than a valley. Above Herodotus is a horizontal ridge that appears quite large. Beneath and toward the midline as Mons Herodatus and near the terminator what appear to be a group of domes. Craters Billy and Hansteen are north of Mare Humorum and closer to the limb. Billy is the lower of the two and appears featureless. Hansteen is closer to the limb and appeared as though there might be a concentric crater inside of it.

Target	M 39, NGC7092
Time	30May04; 23:10 EDT
Category
Comments	I was pointing up at Cygnus and saw bunches of stars in the binoculars. I thought it might be an open cluster and wanted to check with Ben but he was Busy. Peter announced he was on M39 so I looked and it looked similar in density to what I was seeing. Peter couldn't see through the binoculars with my interocular setting so I adjusted them. When he looked there was nothing there at all. I apparently had moved the binoculars when adjusting them and the clouds rolled in preventing me from reacquiring it. I suspect that I had stumbled onto M39 but I can't be sure.