16 December 2005

Observing Location
Observational Period
Atmospheric Conditions	CSC says it is going to be clear tonight but that transparency will be worse than average and seeing will be poor. Clear Sky Clock graphic I am attributing the poor seeing to the forecast 10 MPH wind. It looks like we are under (or were this morning) with a fairly steep pressure gradient on its northern side which must be causing the wind. NOAA graphic This synoptic chart really takes me back. It reminds me of my junior high and high school days when they required that we read the newspaper and make reports in class. Back then the only color in the papers was on Sunday when there was a cartoon insert in the Daily News. But all the papers ran copies of these charts and I can remember cutting them out each day to follow the changing weather patterns. Peter turned me on to widgets from Konfabulator (new Yahoo! Widget Engine) which has all kinds of useful -- and sometimes not -- tools for your desktop. Now more of my CPU cycles are used keeping Konfabulator happy than in doing anything useful. Anyway, there are several weather and astronomy related widgets that I use. Weather Charts displays the synoptic charts from NOAA. It is mostly concerned with the Atlantic and Pacific oceans but the charts also cover most of the US. The widgets I have running are: Weather Yahoo! Weather Weather Station What To Wear Weather Charts Astronomy Sun Clock Sun ISS Locator Konstellation Time UTC Clock timezoneabulator TachClock EleeNo G Fuzzy_Clock Anyway, the plan for tonight is to start off at Columbia University for their public observing session and then stop in Central Park on the way home.
Instruments
Observing Party

For the past few years I have spent New Years Eve in Central Park observing. It started when one of the planets was going to be at its closest or something on that night and I hosted a gathering at TotL. In thinking about this year I decided the theme would be the insertion into the calendar of possibly the last leap second. It was a great idea until I realized that the leap second will not be added at the start of my new year but at the start of the new year in England (and other assorted countries spanning the Prime Meridian). I still plan to be in Central Park for the new year -- weather perbitting -- but will have to listen to WWV at 1900 EST to observe the leap second.

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Observing Location	Columbia University Observatory, New York, NY
Observational Period	2000-2130 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	The sky wasn't looking too bad although the just-past-full Moon was making it kind of bright. When exiting the dome I was struck by a wall of warm air that was coming from the open stairwell door immediately opposite. With all that heat coming up the stairwell the building must be radiating heat through its shell in all directions creating an envelope of warmer air around it that would be affecting seeing. Also, whenever anyone opens the door to the dome a blast of warm air must be entering that would disturb seeing until it has exited through the slit. Transparency Good Seeing Good
Instruments	Mead 12" SCT - Columbia Mead 12" Dobsonian - Columbia 16x70 binocular - Tom
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Tom Clabough Columbia grad students the public

Target	Mars
Constellation	Ari
Category	Planet
Time	16Dec05; ~2000 EST
Comments	I was not able to tell much other than it was a big orange ball since it was not in focus for me and it was dancing in the scope too much to even bother trying to focus. There were quite a few people in the dome at the time and their constant movement was really affecting the seeing.

Target	M42
Constellation	Ori
Category	Deep Sky Object
Time	16Dec05; ~2015 EST
Comments	I first observed M42 through the SCT in the dome and found that I could not see it either with or without my glasses. All the stars looked like donuts. Later out on the roof I focused the Dob for my eyesight and was able to resolve the stars and some nebulosity but not as much as I have seen through Peter's optics at TotL. I could indentify the fishmouth easily and thought I saw one of the wings extending past a row of three stars. Nobody was able to tell me where to look for M43. Image of M42 and M43.

Target	M31
Constellation	And
Category	Deep Sky Object
Time	16Dec05; ~2145 EST
Comments	M31 was never found. My sense was that the GoTo had gone to the wrong place, but I find working in the done to be very isolating and I can't really tell where I am looking when only seeing that little slit of sky. It seems like it really makes you dependant on having the motors point the scope at a specific RA/Dec where you know your object is. That may explain why when they slew the scope they go right to the eyepiece expecting the object to be there rather than to the finder scope to nudge the object into the center of the FOV.

Target	Geminid Meteor
Constellation
Category	Meteor
Time	16Dec05; ~2115 EST
Comments	I happened to be looking to the SW when a meteor streaked down in that direction. It was lower down toward the horizon than most of the ones we have seen from TotL and also yellower, which I attibute in part to the transparency.

One of the graduate students said tonight that it was the first time he had ever seen M45 in a telescope. He said he has imaged it in IR and x-ray but never pointed a telescope at it or much of anything else.

He also said that Columbia only teaches two astronomy courses a semester. One of them is a 1 credit introduction to astronomy course that doesn't even fulfill Columbia's science requirement but is taught for Barnard college which is an all women's school which explains by observation at the Miss Leavitt's Stars lecture that the classes the grad students brought down were almost all women.

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Observing Location	TotL
Observational Period	2200-2330 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	Conditions were not too bad when I arrived byt deteriorated rapidly. By 2230 I was looking at the Moon through a veil of light cloud. By 2300 I couldn’t see Orion’s Sword and by the time I left his Belt was intermittently obscured. There was some light wind – enough that I had to use my hood to keep the back of my head and neck comfortable -- but I did not detect any boiling. Transparency Fair Seeing Good
Instruments	Canon 15x50 Image Stabilized binocular - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Naked-eye Limiting Magnitude Observations

I took a look around Gemini to see what stars could be seen close to a 96% illuminated Moon. N E Zenith W S Star Magnitude Distance* Castor α Gem 1.58 9.33° Pollux β Gem 1.16 10.82° ι Gem 3.78 6.49° Alhena γ Gem 1.93 12.00° 30 Gem 4.49 15.1° κ Gem 3.57 11.25° Wasat δ Gem 3.50 7.77° Mebsuta ε Gem 3.06 3.72° Tejat Posterior μ Gem 2.87 9.11° Propus η Gem 3.31 10.69° 1 Gem 4.16 12.57° * angular distance of the star from the center of the Moon Here is a quick scatter plot of the brightness of the observed stars vs their distance from the Moon. It doesn't mean much since the bright and dim stars are not distributed evenly around the Moon.

Target	Saturn
Constellation	Cnc
Category	Planet
Time	16Dec05; 2215 EST
Comments	Saturn appeared to be scintillating when observed naked-eye but was stable in the binoculars.

Target	Moon
Constellation	Gem
Category	Lunar
Time	16Dec05; 2230 EST
Comments	The limb appears rough between 11:00 and 4:00 but is smooth the rest of the way around. Tycho looks out of place over around 4:45 and farther up on the disk than it appears when it is at the bottom of the clock. There are rays emanating from it going in all directions. It looks like a peeled navel orange. The moon looks compressed from the sides. The clouds are passing over it and all appear to get closer to it on the leading limb before its light makes them disappear and they don’t reappear until a farther distance away on the trailing limb, almost like they are being blown onto the moon and then away from it.