17 November 2005

Observing Location	Kenmere St & Mott St, New York, NY
Observational Period	0715-0725 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	Clear and crisp. Transparency Good Seeing Good
Instruments	Brunton 8x21 compact binocular with #14 gold welder's glass - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

I am going to try blogging this post from Microsoft Word. Peter told me about an add-in that will do it and I have installed it. I tested it on my blogging test bed and everything seemed OK so we will have to see how it does here with all the embedded HTML formatting. It seems a lot harder editing the HTML this way than doing it in Notepad where I can set it up not to wrap lines and have a much better sense of the spatial relationship of things in the post.

I had a computer seminar to attend today. When I checked the weather summary on my computer it said the weather would be cold but clear. I dressed for running from the subway to the seminar and back again and brought my compact binoculars along anticipating getting a look at the sun either before or after the conference.

I was having trouble standing still enough to tell much about the sunspots this morning other than that the groupings are huge. To me it looks like two groups, one composed of the leading western spot and the other the smaller trailing eastern spot. But SwpaceWeather.com is showing it as one group numbered 822.

Target	Sunspots
Constellation	Lib
Category	Solar
Time	17Nov05; 0715 EST
Comments

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Observing Location	Bowery & Broome St, New York, NY
Observational Period	0730 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	Clear and crisp. Transparency Good Seeing Good
Instruments	Naked-eye
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target	Moon
Constellation
Category	Lunar
Time	17Nov05; 0730 EST
Comments	On arriving at Broome St I caught something out of the corner of my eye and on looking down the street saw the pale moon hanging above the middle of the street. It does not look full any longer, the lower right corner being missing.

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Observing Location	CSP
Observational Period	1500-1830 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	Cold with a few scattered clouds. If Peter hadn’t had a down jacket with him that he changed into and lent me his poly lined shell I would have frozen in just my poly lined shell. This was a short observing session, not that it was planned to have been a long one to begin with, because of the cold weather. There was some wind, particularly before sundown, that made it feel colder than it was. It also buffeted the telescope affecting seeing. It took Mars a while to get above the haze and Peter likened it to looking at it under water. Venus passed over the Con Ed smokestacks over in Queens and they greatly affected seeing although Venus was at a much higher elevation. At one point we saw a large stream of white smoke coming out of the stacks and dropping down over the buildings to the north of them but at that time the wind on out side of the river was blowing briskly to the south. Transparency Good Seeing Fair
Instruments	Brunton 8x21 compact binocular with #14 gold welder's glass - Charlie Tacahashi 102 - Peter Fujinon 7x50 binocular - Peter
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Peter Tagatac

While at my conference this afternoon I got an email from Peter saying he was heading over to Carl Schurz Park to observe Venus and the Moon if I cared to join him. Since the subway goes up Manhattan on that side of the island I decided to stop off on the way home. My initial plan had been to head home and get dressed for a night observing session at TotL. I knew it would be chilly but hadn’t bargained on it being as cold as it was.

Target	Sun
Constellation	Lib
Category	Solar
Time	17Nov05; 1500 EST
Comments	I gave the sun another try with my little binoculars but didn’t have any better luck than I had had this morning. It is just too hard to hold the binoculars still enough to see the smaller sunspots. So although I can tell that there are small spots between the two large ones I can only claim the two spots.

Target	Venus
Constellation	Sgr
Category	Planet
Time	17Nov05; 1500 EST
Comments

Target	Mars
Constellation	Tau
Category	Planet
Time	17Nov05; ~ EST
Comments	As Mars rose it seemed to go up much faster than it went south. It did become visible in the neighborhood where I had predicted it but that prediction was for its rise which would have been farther north. Peter found it first in his binocular and after he told me where to look I eventually found it in mine but it was not easy at first due to the low contrast and haze.

Target	Moon
Constellation	Tau
Category	Lunar
Time	17Nov05; ~ EST
Comments	The Moon rose much closer to north than we were anticipating. It was way over behind the left segment of the Triboro Bridge. It looked like a big orange light bulb. It quickly rose into a layer of very dense clouds which blocked all light from it. Langrenus was very prominent tonight.