12 August 2005

Observing Location	Cedar Hill, Central Park, New York, NY
Observational Period	0400-0600 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	I didn't look at the satellite image when I got up at 0200 EDT this morning and it was completely overcast when I got downstairs. But as long as I was already dressed and out of the house I kept going figuring it might clear by 0400, if it didn't go in the other direction and rain. The trains were messed up due to construction and were only making express stops which meant I got downtown earlier than I had planned but didn't get as far downtown as I had wanted. It was still overcast when I got back above ground. I watched all the way over to the park but didn't see any meteors. I waited outside the park for Tom until 0350 EDT and went up to Cedar Hill and he had either snuck in before me or through another gate. He reported having seen around 4 meteors through breaks in the clouds. He had checked the satellite and said it was supposed to clear which it did -- at sunrise when it was too light to see meteors. The hole in the clouds filled in before 0430 and then there were some gaps until is started to open up to the SW and a little to the NW. By sunrise it was mostly clear east of us. The temperature was very pleasant for laying out in the grass in shorts and a t-shirt and there weren't a lot of biting insects to contend with. Being below the crest of the hill there was no wind. Transparency Poor Seeing Poor
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binocular - Charlie 16x70 binocular - Tom
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Tom Clabough Marie Winn Naomi Machado

Target	Perseids Meteor Storm
Constellation
Category	Meteors
Time	12Aug05; 0400-0600 EDT
Comments	Not Seen We had two things against us it now seems. Not being able to see the sky for most of the morning certainly didn't make seeing meteors easy. But I just found an article on SpaceWeather.com saying that the shower, which some articles have said would be stronger than usual, was actually weaker than usual. "MILD PERSEIDS: By almost all accounts, the 2005 Perseid meteor shower was subdued. Sky watchers saw fewer meteors than expected, and the ones they did see were mostly faint. ... The shower, which peaked on August 12th, is subsiding now, but it's not completely finished. Earth is still in the outskirts of the Perseid meteoroid stream. Watch the sky this weekend for Perseid stragglers; the best time to look is after local midnight." Space.com says "Meteor 'Outburst' Expected Friday Morning". Space.com How To on the Perseids. NASA prediction

Target	Clouds
Constellation
Category	Weather
Time	12Aug05; 0445 EDT
Comments	The bottoms of the clouds turned faint orange for a short while

Target	ISS visible Pass
Constellation
Category	Satellite
Time	12Aug05; 0450 EDT
Comments	The ISS came out of the SW and tracked toward the NE but was lost in the clouds before it went into the Earth's shadow. It appeared to pulse in brightness as it passed behind thicker and thinner portions of the cloud layer. A very interesting pass.

Target	Owl
Constellation
Category	Fauna
Time	12Aug05 ~0500 EDT
Comments	I sighted an owl swooping down the hill from behind us and disappear behind the pine trees tour east. Later we saw the same bird fly from that area toward the area of the Great Lawn. It was a large, heavy bodied bird with a buff or gray or white underside. Very good camouflage for hunting prey on the ground at twilight.

Target	Bats
Constellation
Category	Fauna
Time	12Aug05; 0520 EDT
Comments	Bats started to fly overhead. They were big bats with chunky bodies.

Target	Taurus
Constellation	Tau
Category	Constellation
Time	12Aug05; 0528 EDT
Comments	I IDed Aldeberan so Tom and found the Hyades and Pleiades in my binoculars so Tom set up his tripod-mounted binoculars and we all looked at them until around 0600

Target	Mars
Constellation	Ari
Category	Planet
Time	12Aug05; 0550 EDT
Comments	Mars is getting difficult to see.

Target	Robins
Constellation
Category	Fauna
Time	12Aug05; 0550 EDT
Comments	A juvenile Robin landed on the grass not far from us. It has an orange belly speckled with burnt orange spots. Its back is mottled and there is a white patch on the wing. There is a large black patch below and extending behind the eye.

Target	Chimney Swifts
Constellation
Category	Fauna
Time	12Aug05; 0550 EDT
Comments	A flight of around six Chimney Swifts passed overhead. [Having forgotten most of my ornithology I originally posted these as Chimney Sweeps but was corrected by Marie.]

Target	Orb Spider
Constellation
Category	Fauna
Time	12Aug05; 0555 EDT
Comments	Looking for birds in a large pine tree down the hill to our east I spotted a spider seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It was a black dot silhouetted in space with sticks stretching out fore and aft. It was impossible to see the web in the backlighting.

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Observing Location	Belvedere Castle, Central Park, New York, NY
Observational Period	0615-0830 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Overall it was partly cloudy, but the cloudy part was in front of the sun at the outset. As the sun rose the sun started to climb fairly quickly. Light wind, enough to make the flag partially stand away from the pole. Transparency Good Seeing Excellent
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binocular - Charlie 16x70 Fujinon binocular with Baader AstroSolar filter film - Tom
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Tom Clabough

Target	Sunspots
Constellation	Cnc
Category	Solar
Time	12Aug05; 0700 EDT
Comments	According to Spaceweather.com groups 794 and 795 are still on the disk of the sun but they appear in the satellite image to be small and close to the limb where they are foreshortened. I looked long and hard and was not able to detect them. 797 SE quadrant. This spot is just rotating onto the sun and is small. I did not see a penumbra but saw indications of plage around it.   Groups Spots R Northern Hemisphere 0 0 0 Southern Hemisphere 1 1 11 Total 1 1 11 NOAA Boulder Sunspot Number 47 R = 10 * Groups + Spots

Target	Mallard Ducks
Constellation
Category	Fauna
Time	12Aug05; 0625 EDT
Comments	We watched a mother and seven large ducklings feeding between the island and the Delacorte Theater. During the morning I found three duck families, one without ducklings.

Target	Canada Geese
Constellation
Category	Fauna
Time	12Aug05; 0630 EDT
Comments	A flight of three geese flew overhead heading Downtown.

Target	Juvenile Starlings
Constellation
Category	Fauna
Time	12Aug05; 0725 EDT
Comments	There are huge floodlights in cement pillboxes below the castle and they attract lots of insects. When we arrived Tom noted several large moths that could not get out from behind the grate on the light below us. A while later he saw a juvenile starling that had caught one of the moths and pulled it through the grate. He had it by one wing and the moth was still alive and furiously flapping its wings furiously. The starling couldn't do anything to get control of the moth so it could eat it. Eventually it lost control and the moth went flying off with the starling in hot pursuit. The starling caught it on the wing but lost it again. By this time several other birds were in on the chase and I couldn't tell who ultimately had breakfast. Nova at 45 minutes past the hour: some animal becomes a meal for the star.

Target	Red Eared Sliders
Constellation
Category	Fauna
Time	12Aug05; 0820 EDT
Comments	There were several turtles, Red-eared sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans) I think, sunning themselves on the rocks at the water's edge below the castle. One of them seemed to be having spasms of its legs. They would flail in a rapid swimming or walking motion. Initially I thought it had gotten itself somewhere where its plasteron was grounded out on a high point of rock and prevented its legs from reaching the ground, but then it moved somewhere else on the rock and the spasm started again. Then another, older turtle started doing the same thing. The turtles looked like they had a smooth plsateron and a translucent, light yellow or green stripe around the margin of the carapace that glowed when backlighted.

I stopped off at Home Depot on the way home and picked up the screws I need to hold my telescope together. They are not exactly what I wanted, but they will work while I assess the condition of the scope and are a lot cheaper that the ones I want from McMaster Carr. Now I need to clean the mirror and decide if I am going to try to recenter it on the backing plate which should result in easier and better collimation. I knew there was something else I was supposed to buy at Home Depot and couldn't think of what it was. I need some drill bits to use with my Dremel tool to make a collimation tool. Another day.