9 November 2004

Observing Location	Bryant Park, Avenue of the Americas and 42 St, New York, NY
Atmospheric Conditions	Scattered clouds and cold. We really lucked out as the Moon was in clear air at both the time when the Jupiter occultation began and when it finished.
Instruments	Brunton 8x20 compact binoculars and Golden Gate 7x35 binoculars - Charile TeleVue ranger - Peter Swarovsky binoculars - Ben
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Peter Tagatac Ben Cacace

Target	Moon
Time	9Nov04; 1030
Category	Lunar
Comments	The moon was a thin crescent hanging above the buildings of Manhattan south. It was not obvious as there was not a lot of contrast between it and the blue sky surrounding it. I could not detect any features.

Target	Venus
Time	9Nov04; 1045
Category	Planets
Comments	Once I had located the moon it was easy to find Venus by working out the ecliptic with my binoculars. After locating it in the binoculars it could be found naked-eye fairly reliably. It was very bright compared with either the Moon or Jupiter. Mars was out there even closer to the sun but not worth going to without a go-to scope because it is so faint anyway and because of the danger of straying onto the sun.

Target	Jupiter Occultation
Time	9Nov04; 1105 EST
Category	Occultations
Comments	Time EST Mag % Moon Illuminated Notes Disappearance 11:08 -1.7 11- duration 90 seconds Reappearance 12:11 -1.7 11- duration 85 seconds The moon was not obvious. If I hadn't had my compass with me I likely would not have found it. Once the binoculars were on it Jupiter could be see a little distance away. 1105 - First Contact This is earlier than the disappearance time noted above from the IOTA Web site but I think we need to subtract 90 seconds from that time to get first contact for EST then subtract another 4 minutes to correct for our distance from the central meridian for the time zone. When I called first contact I was seeing Jupiter flatten out against the edge of the Moon and may have been seeing the ink drop effect. Peter did not feel that first contact has occurred yet. 1106 - Second Contact Jupiter is completely hidden by the moon. Peter was still seeing a portion of the planet behind the limb. 1213 - Re-emergence I missed it. I was looking at Planetarium to see how close we were to it when Ben called it. Planetarium was showing Jupiter still well hidden by the Moon. When I got my eyes back behind the binoculars Jupiter was already in plain view. Pre-event information. Post event information.

Target	Sunspots
Time	9Nov04; 1115
Category	Solar
Comments	Peter had his solar filter with him so we spent the time between disappearance and reappearance looking at the sun. Sunspot 696, which has been sending out the CMEs that have been causing the recent auroras, appears to be dissipating rapidly. The central spot has either shrunk markedly over the past two days or pieces of it have broken off. In either case it appears as a large leading spot surrounded by a penumbra and trailed by a great number of small spots and smudges, some of them surrounded by a penumbra.