3 November 2005

Observing Location	Parkchester, The Bronx, NY I started out at PSC but the only place I could see the sun there I was looking through the branches of trees and did not trust my assessment so I moved up to Metropolitan Oval where I was again looking through trees and finally to Unionport Road and Guerlain St where I had a clear view of the sun and could lean against a street sign for some added stability.
Observational Period	EST
Atmospheric Conditions	Clear, seasonably cool, breezy; some boiling. Transparency excellent Seeing Good
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binocular - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target	Sunspots
Constellation	Libra
Category	Solar
Time	3Nov05; 1605 EST
Comments	No sunspots were seen. NOAA is still listing groups 818 and 819 on the thumnail SOHO image and the spots show up faintly on the high resolution image.   Groups Spots R Northern Hemisphere 0 0 0 Southern Hemisphere 0 0 0 Total 0 0 0 NOAA Boulder Sunspot Number R = 10 * Groups + Spots

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Observing Location	TotL
Observational Period	0800-2300 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	It wasn't that cold but it was very windy. I attached my backpack to the tripod to give it added weight to be sure a gust of wind wouldn't blow it over and damage the binocular again. I checked on the NOAA web site for the last 72 hours of observed weather (http://www.crh.noaa.gov/data/obhistory/KNYC.html) to see how windy it really was and calculated the windchill values. Time Direction Speed Gusts Temperature Windchill 1951 SW 9 24 58 46 2051 W 10 18 60 53 2151 SW 14 17 60 53 2251 Var 6 61 61 Now that I am home my ears and neck feel hot like they have been sunburned. There were some high cirrus clouds that covered up to 50% of the sky at times but by the time we were ready to leave the sky was clear. Transparency Good Seeing Poor
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binocular - Charlie Celestron 7x50 binocular - Kin I set my binoculars up and looked at Lyra and Mars through them but that is all.
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Kin Lee

Naked-eye Limiting Magnitude Observations

The following stars were all seen naked eye and without reference to a star chart which would have improved my seeing by suggesting that something should be looked for in a particular area. N 3.46 E 4.39 Zenith 3.97 W 4.49 S 2.83 Star Magnitude Andromeda, The Chained Maiden Alpheratz α And 2.07 δ And 3.27 Mirach β And 2.07 Almaak γ And 2.10 π And 4.34 Pegasus, The Winged Horse Scheat β Peg 2.44 Matar η Peg 2.93 μ Peg 3.51 λ Peg 3.97 Markab α Peg 2.49 Enif ε Peg 2.38 Algenib γ Peg 2.83 Ursa Minor; The Little Bear Polaris α UMi 1.97 Pherkad γ UMi 3.00 Kochab β UMi 2.07 Cassiopeia, The Queen Caph β Cas 2.28 Schedar &alpha Cas 2.24 Achird η Cas 3.46 γ Cas 2.15 Ruchbah δ Cas 2.66 Segin ε Cas 3.35 Perseus, The Hero Miram η Per 3.77 γ Per 2.91 τ Per 3.93 Mirfak α Per 1.79 ι Per 4.05 δ Per 3.01 κ Per 3.79 ε Per 2.90 Algol β Per 2.09 Gorgonea Tertia ρ Per 3.32 Atik ζ Per 2.84 Auriga, The Charioteer Capella α Aur 0.08 Al Anz ε Aur 3.03 Haedi ζ Aur 3.69 Hoedus II η Aur 3.18 Hassaleh ι Aur 2.69 θ Aur 2.65 τ Aur 4.51 ν Aur 3.97 Menkalinan β Aur 1.9 δ Aur 3.72 Taurus, The Bull Alnath β Tau 1.65 Ain ε Tau 3.53 Hyadym II δ Tau 3.77 Hyadum I γ Tau 3.65 θ1Tau 3.84 θ2Tau 3.4 Aldeberan α Tau 0.87 ζ Tau 2.97 The Pleiades M45 6 seen 2.85-4.30 Cetus, The Sea Monster Menkar α Cet 2.54 Kaffaljidham γ Cet 3.47 Diphda β Cet 2.04 Pisces Austrinus, The Southern Fish Fomalhaut α PsA 1.17 Aquila, The Eagle Altair α Aql 0.76 Tarazed Gamma; Aql 2.72 Deneb el Okab ζ Aql 2.99 Sagita, The Arrow β Sge 4.39 Sham α Sge 4.39 δ Sge 3.68 γ Sge 3.51 Cygnus, The Swan Alberio 6 Cyg 2.90 η Cyg 3.89 Sadr γ Cyg 2.23 Gienah Cygni ε Cyg 2.48 ζ Cyg 3.21 Deneb α Cyg 1.25 δ Cyg 2.86 θ Cyg 4.49 ι Cyg 3.76 κ Cyg 3.8 Lyra; The Lyre Vega α Lyr 0.03 Σ Lyr 4.59/4.67 ζ Lyr 4.34 δ Lyr 4.22/5.58 Sulafat γ Lyr 3.25 Sheliak β Lyr 3.70

With the wind being so strong I determined that tonight would be a Taurid Meteor observing night but was disappointed there in only seeing one meteor in the entire three hours.

Target	Lyra
Constellation	Lyr
Category	Constellation
Time	3Nov05; 2000 EST
Comments	I haven't been out early enough to see Lyra so put the binoculars on it just because it was there and in a cloudless part of the sky.

Target	Mars
Constellation	Ari
Category	Planet
Time	3Nov05; 2100 EST
Comments	There was no flare off of mars tonight. It just looked like a hole punched in black paper with an orange light behind it.

Target	Taurid Meteor
Constellation	Cam
Category	Meteor
Time	3Nov05; ~2230 EST
Comments	This was a long and fairly slow, dim meteor heading mostly vertical over the police precinct.

Ya gotta love spellcheck. I misspelled thumbnail as thumnnail or something like that and spellcheck picked up the error. It's suggested correction was toenail.