25 November 2005

Observing Location	CSP
Observational Period	0000-0230 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	The weather did me in tonight.  I checked the satellite and radar images before I left home and they indicated some haze with some cloud probably coming in later.  When I got to the park it was cold and very clear with a few clouds around on the horizon.  By the time the moon came up there was a stripe of cloud running through the sky from SW to NE right through the part of the sky I needed to observe in. NOAA graphic This enlarged portion of a NOAA GOES East IR satellite image made at the time I was observing shows my one band of cloud passing over NJ and NYC and ending in Long Island Sound. (I have decreased the image brightness a little and increased the contrast a lot to make the band of cloud stand out. The entire image was a lot grayer with atmospheric moisture.) It was really cold and windy too.  The cold froze the batteries in my digital recorder -- not to mention my feet.  I had dressed for cold weather but still could have used more clothes.  I had on full long underwear, a wool sweater, a poly sweater and my winter parka as well as insulated pants over my jeans.  My legs and torso were toasty.  My arms were cool, my shoulders, and elbows chilled and my feet frozen.  I forgot to pick up my weather instruments so don't know what the temperature and wind was on site but got the observed readings for Central Park: Time Temp Wind Gust Wind Chill 2351 25 12 24 -6 0051 24 15 25 -8 0151 23 12 20 -6 0251 22 10 23 -10 Since it didn't look like The moon was going to get into clear air and even &signa; Leonis, which was to be my brightest star for the night, was having trouble punching through the clouds I packed it in after its reappearance rather than waiting until after observing sunspots around 0730 EST as I had planned. Transparency Poor Seeing Good
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binocular - Charlie I anticipated trying to see some stars that might be beyond the limits of my optics, and on the bright limb of the moon as well, and wanted the best view I could get so brought the binocular even though I would have seen deeper with SAR.
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target	M42, Orion Nebula, NGC1976
Constellation	Ori
Category	Deep Sky Object
Time	25Nov05; 0010 EST
Comments	Lots of nebulosity, primarily above the stars.  Very clear.

Target	Saturn
Constellation	Cnc
Category	Planet
Time	25Nov05; 0015 EST
Comments	Very crisp.  Cigar shaped.  Looks like there may be some moons below and to the left of the planet.  Just a little too far away to get the planet and M44 in the same FOV.

Target	Moon
Constellation	Leo
Category	Lunar
Time	25Nov05; 0041 EST
Comments	I looked up and there was something that caught my eye and it was the moon rising through clouds to the right of the white building just to the right of the bridge.  Orange/yellow in color.  It looks very nice.  There is a lot of boiling when looking at it in the binoculars -- looks like you are looking through the bathroom shower door glass that has circular lenses all over it and the glass is being moved. The terminator looks kind of flat coming off the points of the horns then looks flat as it goes down the disk.  It went down past Copernicus which looked very dark with light catching the western crater wall and around Fra Mauro.  Down near Longmontanus and Clavius (or maybe it was Schiller and Longmontanus) it transitioned from a north-south orientation to heading directly to the southern horn. Graphic from USNO NASA Apollo 17 image No information is supplied in Virtual Moon Atlas but this image appears to have been made looking north across Copernicus on a waning gibbous moon. The effect on the crater wall is similar to what I observed but because more of the moon was in shadow it looked to me like the crater floor was in shadow.

Target	σ Leonis
Constellation	Leo
Category	Occultation
Time	25Nov05; 0054 EST
Comments	0054 EST I located the target star beneath the moon but was not able to locate Mag 6.69 HIP 55455 nearby. 0122 EST clouds covered the moon.  I was able to see the target star through them most of the time but there is no way I am going to see anything fainter even on the dark limb. 0123 EST There is a band of clouds running from the SW to the NE through the zenith. The sky is clear to the east and west of the band. It probably ranges from 10° to 20° across. 0124 EST σ Leonis is bright enough that I won't loose it on the limb. 0126 EST Thick clouds are obscuring the target star. 0127 EST The target star briefly popped out in a thin patch of cloud and immediately disappeared. 0130 EST This is the time Planetarium shows the occultation beginning but it is going to be late.  Thick clouds. 0132 EST Thick clouds are obscuring the moon.  Strong wind buffeting the binocular. 0134 EST The Moon is behind thinner clouds but I can't tell if the star is there and hidden by the clouds and glare of the moon or if the occultation has already begun.  I suspect the latter. 0136 EST The Moon is breaking out into the clear air.  I don't see any sign of σ Leonis on the bright limb or of HIP 55323 (Mag 9.2) that should be visible off the dark limb by now. 0140 EST The sky is clear where HIP 55323 should be and I can't see anything there. 0141 EST The batteries froze in the digital recorder.  I have given up on the disappearance and will wait for the reappearance and hope the Moon is at least in thin clouds if net clear air. 0220 EST Started watching for σ Leonis to reemerge.  Since the digital recorder is dead I am writing down every minute and trying to keep an accurate count of the seconds as they are announced. 0223 EST Nothing yet. 0224 EST When they announced the upcoming minute I looked away to write it down on my pad and when I looked back no more than a second or two after the minute σ Leonis was there shining brightly on the limb.  I don't know if I saw it emerge or if it had already emerged when the light entered the pupil of my eye.

There were more clouds above the Moon and none of the stars I was going to observe between the end of the σ Leonis occultation and sunrise were bright enough that I thought they would shine through the clouds so there didn't seem to be any reason to stand around in the cold for another five hours so I packed up and headed back home.  When I got off the subway in The Bronx the sky was completely clear.

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I gave Nvu another try and it mangled the formatting of my nested tables so bad that I had to scrap the post and cut and past from the source into my Notepad template. For all of its great features it doesn't work with my blog as it is currently formatted.

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Here is an interesting piece of information from the SpaceWeather.com Web site.

Photo Credit: JAXA
"The shadow of space-probe Hayabusa on asteroid Itokawa. What makes the ground around the shadow glow? That's the opposition effect. At the sub-solar point, the shadows of, e.g., rocks and pebbles and grains of dust are hidden directly beneath the rocks and pebbles and dust. The absence of shadows causes the brightening. The opposition effect has also been observed on Earth, the Moon and Mars."

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Observing Location	PSC
Observational Period	1430-1445 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	At 32°F the temperature feels almost balmy. There is no wind. The sky is littered with mares tales and lots of cirrus as well as one patch of stratus what is right over the Sun. There is no boiling. Transparency Good Seeing Good
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binocular with Baader AstroSolar filter film - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target	Sunspots
Constellation	Sco
Category	Solar
Time	25Nov05; 1430 EST
Comments	While concentrating on group 824 I thought for a moment that I saw a small spot on the western limb at around 3:00 but I was not able to find it again. 824 SE quadrant. This group is just approaching the meridian. The P spot is large enough to be easily seen but not large enough that I can tell if it has a penumbra. It appears to be circled by what I call a void area. I can see two F spots. One is above and slightly training the P spot and the other is at the P spot's 9:00. Both of these F spots are small and at the limits of my observability. This looks to me like it is a Zurich Class C group: a bipolar group with the principal spot surrounded by a penumbra. I should note here that the crosshairs I draw on my Sun diagrams do not represent the orientation of the sun's poles and equator. They are just a quartering of the disc as I see it in my binoculars that help me to draw the sunspots in the appropriate locations. Graphic from Active Region Explorer Decoding the pie chart for group 824 working clockwise from 1:00 I see: Magnetic Configuration Beta Growth History > +50% in the past 24 hours Size 100x1-6 to 500x1-6 of the solar hemisphere Flare History No Class C or greater flares in the past 48 hours CME History No CMEs in the past 48 Hours   Groups Spots R Northern Hemisphere 0 0 0 Southern Hemisphere 1 3 13 Total 1 3 13 NOAA Boulder Sunspot Number 30 R = 10 * Groups + Spots

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Observing Location	TotL
Observational Period	2030-0130 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	CSC was saying that transparency wasn't going to be that great and seeing would be so so also so still being tired from observing and documenting my occultation attempt this morning I wasn't really planning to observe tonight. But Peter emailed and said he would bring the 10" if other people were going so I told him I would show up if other people would be there. The sky was milky and we didn't look at much, but not because of that. Our hearts just weren't with it tonight. We were all packed up and ready to leave when Kin showed up around 2130 or 2200 EST so we stayed longer talking with him. Saturn was rising above the trees so Peter set the scope back up and we got some very nice views of it when the seeing was good. About midnight, when NOAA said it was going to start getting cloudy, it seemed clearer than it had been all night. Transparency Fair Seeing Good NOAA GOES East image The IR satellite image at 2315 EST tonight.
Instruments	Coulter CT-100 - Charlie Teleport 10" Dobsonian Refractor - Peter I haven't used it in a while so I brought SAR tonight. I still haven't used it in a while. I found that I had put the red dot finder away turned on and the battery was dead so it was going to take more work to find anything than usual and I just didn't have an observing plan for tonight, not that I really plan that much anyway. I am more of an opportunist observer. But I had thought I might try some double stars. The sky didn't inspire me to want to observe.
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Peter Tagatac Kin Lee

Naked-eye Limiting Magnitude Observations	I had thought about making a naked eye limiting magnitude count in a few specific areas of the sky but that never happened. I may have seen seven of the Pleiades and saw some dim stars in the head of Pegasus.

Target	Cyclops
Constellation	Tau
Category	Asterism
Time	25Nov05; ~2100 EST
Comments	I had the coffee cans set up and figured the Pleiades would be easy to find without a lot of sighting. I aimed the scope over there and found that it was pointing down in the trees. My perception of the elevation was way off. While sweeping up I came upon my Cyclops asterism in the Hyades. About that time some civilians came by and wanted to look through the scopes so I showed them the grouping of stars. Star chart from Cartes du Ciel I am not much at drawing with the mouse (I hope my Tablet PC gets repaired soon so I can do a better job at things like this) but here is a Cartes du Ciel chart with my Cyclops drawn on it. θ1 and θ2 in his left hand are the naked-eye double to the right of Aldeberan which is low and to the left of the right foot stars. Obviously we are looking at his front if I can tell that he only has one eye.

Target	Aldeberan
Constellation	Tau
Category	Star
Time	25Nov05; ~2115 EST
Comments	I swept in the wrong direction on leaving the Cyclops for M45 and came across Aldeberan. I panned around a little until I had it in the field with the nearby σ double (although I didn't realize that is what I was looking at) to see the color contrast between the gold Aldeberan and the rest of the stars in the area which are blue-white.

Target	Taurid Fireball
Constellation	Cet
Category	Meteor
Time	25Nov05; 2135 EST
Comments	I was standing facing Manhattan south talking with Peter when a Taurid fireball streaked down very low over the skyline. It came in at a 45°-60° angle and tracing its trajectory back took me to roughly the area of the Pleiades. I observed it cross about 10° of the sky ending about a finger-width (with gloves) above and just to the left of the GE building. The upper portion of its tail was very diffuse and fluffy like an ostrich or peacock feather. Then it became very compact for a short distance and flared again before going dark. It was very fast and there was no residual effect observed where it has passed but the sky is very light polluted there and it would have been hard to pick up.

Target	Saturn
Constellation	Cnc
Category	Planet
Time	25Nov05; 2400 EST
Comments	We had been all packed up ready to go and were standing around talking after Kin arrived. Greg was passing through on his way to work at the Met. Saturn was clearing the trees and Peter decided to set the scope up quickly for a brief look. The views we got of Saturn made the trip down and the frozen feet worthwhile. We did a quick collimation since it was only supposed to have been a quick look. I could see four moons out to the right and one to the left. There was good separation of the rings from the disc of the planet. Peter saw the C ring on the right side but the only place I could detect it was where the rings passed in front of the planet. There was a thin dark band separating the ring from the planet both above and below. The band above I interpret to be the C ring. Peter called my attention to the one below and said what he thought it was but I have forgotten now. The only thing I can think of is the shadow of the ring on the planet. On the left side of the planet I could see its shadow on the ring but it was very thin. The Cassini division was easiest to see at the extents of the ellipse of the rings but did fill in most of the way to the back side of the planet at times, particularly on the left side. There was a faint band across the face of the disc above the rings. We observed at 141x and 250x magnification. The 160x image was larger and not as crisp as the 141x image. North is down, east on the left. Graphic from Celestia I haven't learned how to work with this program well but I did find tonight that I could rotate the image any way I wanted so was able to make it look like what we saw in the telescope. Graphic from Stelarium Graphic from Starry Night Starter Graphic from Starry Night Starter Graphic from WinStars The Enchanted Learning web site has some nice information on Saturn and its rings. While setting up the Teleport two of the struts didn't extend when Peter pulled up the secondary cage. He says it happens more often in cold weather so it sounds to me like a differential cooling issue. The struts are carbon fibre tubes that have a metal (I think) plug stuffed in the end. A screw passes through the secondary cage flange and into the end of the plug. It looks like it is just friction that holds the plug in the tube and the plug must be shrinking to a greater extent than the tube when it gets cold.

Target	M41
Constellation	CMa
Category	Deep Sky Object
Time	26Nov05; 0050 EST
Comments	Looked like the Beehive cluster or M45 but without the stand out bright stars. Filled the eyepiece.