21 July 2004

Observing Location	The Great Lawn I started out at Belvedere Castle before sunset to look for Jupiter and birds; then moved to the King Jagaello statue and hung out for a while with a couple people from the Irish Arts Center who were playing fiddle and pennywhistle; and finally moved to TotL to end the night
Atmospheric Conditions	It was bad. The air was hot and humid. There was a thunderhead moving in from NJ as I was heading up to the park and I figured I would be getting wet but it was moving toward Brooklyn and I lucked out. The clouds were really bad all the way around the horizon. I had wanted to try for C/2001 Q4 NEAT but the sky was barely dark enough to make out both of the guide stars of the Big Dipper most of the time.
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binoculars - Charlie TeveVue TV76 - Ben 16x70 binoculars - Tom
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Ben Cacace Tom Clabough

Target	Moon
Time	21Jul04; 2007 EDT
Category	Moon
Comments	I saw the crescent of the 4 day 14 hour moon during early twilight. It was seen through a haze and looked a little blue. There was nice definition near the terminator in the south. Mare Crisium was plainly evident. As the night wore on and the moon dropped a little in elevation it turned very orange and the definition decreased.

Target	Jupiter
Time	21Jul04; 2026 EDT
Category	Planets
Comments	I started looking for Jupiter once I saw the moon but wasn't able to located it until the sky got a little darker. When I did find it it was not a blown out point source the way it normally appears but rather appeared very round and flat - almost as though a hole had been punched in a sheet of light gray paper and I was seeing a sheet of white paper through the hole. I was hand holding the binoculars and using the image stabilization but was not able to detect any moons.

Target	C2001 Q4 NEAT
Time	21Jul04; 2130 EDT
Category	I looked for the comet several times but there was just too much cloud up there to pick it out. It is supposed to be directly between the pointer stars of the Big Dipper and nearly opposite 42 UMa. I would have needed more contrast than my binoculars provide to have any chance of finding it in that sky. I was having trouble picking out α UMa naked-eye.
Comments

Target	δ Lyrae
Time	21Jul04; 2143 EDT
Category	Double Stars
Comments	Vega was visible so I figured I would give the Ring Nebula a try. I didn't really expect to find it hand held under those seeing conditions. The δ Lyrae double was easy and I didn't spend a lot of time on them, using them just to fix my position. Looking diagonally across the parallelogram of Lyra from them I found a pair of stars which I think were ν 1 and ν 2 Lyrae. The upper one was a pale blue and the lower gold. I didn't see anything bright enough to have been β Lyrae though.