31 October 2005

Observing Location	PSC
Observational Period	1540-1555 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	Mild, clear, breezy Transparency Good Seeing Good
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binocular with Baader AstroSolar filter film - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target	Sunspots
Constellation	Vir
Category	Solar
Time	1540-1555 EST
Comments	The little sunspots from yesterday have grown a bit and I am now seeing five of them easily. I did an experiment with tripod stability today. I started out performing my count of spots with the binocular hand held, with image stabilization turned on, while sitting on a bench and was able to see four spots. Next I mounted the binocular on the tripod but used it like a monopod, still from the seated position and without image stabilization and it was difficult to see the three largest spots. Turning the image stabilization on greatly improved my seeing and I was able to easily see the fifth spot. Lastly I splayed the tripod legs and used it in its intended manner and without image stabilization and did not see any improvement in the view. So I get reasonable views with the hand held binoculars when seated and using image stabilization. I can increase the quality of the view by using a monopod while seated. Adding a tripod may increase the quality of the view a little above a monopod but the increase appears to be negligible. The main advantage the tripod affords is the ability to let go of the binocular to make notes and have the target still in the FOV when I come back to it. 818 quadrant. There are two larger F spots high and one P spot low with two smaller spots between them. SpaceWeather.com is showing this as two groups (818 and 819) but I interpret it as one group.   Groups Spots R Northern Hemisphere 0 0 0 Southern Hemisphere 1 5 15 Total 1 5 15 NOAA Boulder Sunspot Number R = 10 * Groups + Spots

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Observing Location	TotL The spotlights from the top of the GE building are still going.
Observational Period	2030-0120 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	It was fairly clear and not as cool as last night. We remarked that the wind out of the south was chilly on the back of our necks. Transparency Good Seeing Good
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binocular with Baader AstroSolar filter film - Charlie Teleport 10" Dobsonian Refractor - Peter TeleVue Pronto - AAA Orion 6" Newtonian reflector - AAA Binocular - AAA
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Peter Tagatac AAA

A while back Rich Rosenberg sent an email to Team TotL asking if we had any concerns about him holding an AAA public observing session at TotL. Although both Peter and I had some missgivings about it neither of us replied. Ben sent him an email in reply saying it was OK with him which it probably would have been with me had it been anyone but AAA, at least as a trial. When I arrived in the park tonight my first impression was that there was nobody there but on approaching our location I found that there were so many people there I just wasn't picking up Peter's silhouette among them. Tonight was an AAA event and we were subsumed into it whether we wanted to be or not. From our point of view it was a fiasco although they declared it a great success.

I guess over the course of the night they had 10-15 people there and only had two telescopes and one pair of hand held high magnification binoculars. Peter basically could not use his own scope because Mike O'Gara kept telling AAA people to go look through it. At one point I asked him if he wanted to look at anything through my binocular, if he expected to be able to use his own equipment tonight, and if he got a 50% discount on it because he was only getting to look through it 50% of the time. And we were not even involved in the AAA event.

Only having a binocular I was much less bothered by AAA and will have to remember not to bring my scope on days when they are going to be there in the future.

There are some nice people in AAA, but the organization is a pain. There has been constant political turmoil and they have this attitude that astronomy doesn't exist in NYC unless they do it. Unfortunately it is difficult to separate the nice people from the organization.

Target	Kemble's Cascade
Constellation	Cam
Category	Asterism
Time	31Oct05; 2100 EST
Comments	Kemble's is in the north where the sky isn't too light polluted and is relatively easy to find so makes a good first target to get me going.

Target	Caldwell 14, NGC869 & NGC884, the Double Cluster
Constellation	Per
Category	Deep Sky Object
Time	31Oct05; 2110 EST
Comments	It showed up as a Caldwell object in my new Planetarium catalog and I didn't pick up on the double NGC number or recognize its shape. Once Peter told me what I was looking at it was obvious.

Target	Caldwell 10, NGC663
Constellation	Cas
Category	Deep Sky Object
Time	31Oct05; 2110 EST
Comments	An open cluster is Cas. No descriptive notes made.

Target	M103, NGC581
Constellation	Cas
Category	Deep Sky Object
Time	31Oct05; 2110 EDT
Comments	Another open cluster in Cas. No descriptive notes made.

Target	Caldwell 13, NGC457
Constellation	Cas
Category	Deep Sky Object
Time	31Oct05; 2115 EST
Comments	Another open cluster in Cas. Just to the left of a double star.

Target	HIP115990
Constellation	Cas
Category	Double Star
Time	31Oct05; 2120 EST
Comments	No descriptive notes made.

Target	M38, NGC1912
Constellation	Aur
Category	Deep Sky Object
Time	31Oct05; 2155 EST
Comments	It has been a long time since I have been able to find the clusters in Auriga so the conditions must be pretty good tonight. I am picking up only two stars. It forms an equilateral with the right eye and right end of the smile of the Cheshire Cat.

Target	M37, NGC2099
Constellation	Aur
Category	Deep Sky Object
Time	31Oct05; 2155 EST
Comments	A bright sprinkling of stars between two brighter stars. Later in Peter's scope I said it looked like an amoeba but a starfish would probably be a better description.

Target	M36, NGC1960
Constellation	Aur
Category	Deep Sky Object
Time	31Oct05; 2155 EST
Comments	I saw it but didn't write down anything about it.

About this time the last of AAA left and Peter and I commiserated a bit about the experience as we did several times before we left.

Target	13 Lep
Constellation	Lep
Category	Double Star
Time	1Nov05; 0030 EST
Comments	This is a wide, unequal double. There is something written just above this entry but I can't tell at all what I wrote so don't know if it relates to this star or this star relates to it, or if they are totally separate.