28 January 2006

Observing Location	CSP Using a compass here is nearly impossible. I had three of them with me of different types and got different readings from each of them and different readings different places I stood. I tried backing off from the iron railings, benches and signs but even that didn't help. The presence of large masses of iron under the pavement, which is actually a bridge over the FDR Highway, is evident from the dip of the needle in my old Boy Scout compass. I had planned to take bearings on prominent landmarks to make it easier to locate object by their Alt/Az data but I think it is going to have to be done with map and protractor. This information is even more important given the unreliability of the compass here.
Observational Period	20060128.0545-0900 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	It was cold with a light wind, but again I was dressed for it so didn't mind it. Even my feet didn't get cold. Central Park Time Temp Wind Speed Gusts Wind Chill 0551 39°F SW 10MPH -- 39°F 0651 38°F SW 10MPH -- 38°F 0751 39°F Var 7MPH -- 39°F 0851 41°F SW 8MPH -- 41°F LaGuardia Airport Time Temp Wind Speed Gusts Wind Chill 0551 39°F SW 12MPH -- 39°F 0651 39°F SW 13MPH -- 39°F 0751 40°F SW 10MPH -- 40°F 0851 42°F SW 9MPH -- 42°F When I first arrived the only thing I could see showing through the clouds was Jupiter. The clouds broke up some and I eventually found Venus, Bootes, Spica, Vega, Polaris and the entire Big Dipper. At moonrise there was a thin band of cloud-free sky right about the rooftops then about 10° of clouds up to more clear sky. By the time the sun was rising the clouds were beginning to fill in and get thicker. When I packed up at 0900 EST the clouds were dense enough that I couldn't observe the sun because of them. Prior to that atmospheric boiling was terrible across the entire face of the sun. Transparency Poor Seeing Poor
Instruments	Canon 15x50 IS binocular with Baader AstroSolar filter film - Charlie SAR: Coulter CT-100 - Charlie SAR was extremely well behaved this morning. I think I got the best views out of it that I have ever had. Even Vega did not exhibit coma. The views of the planets were great. I think a veil of clouds agrees with it. When the sun woke up things got nasty though. I could see dust spots everywhere. They looked like floaters that didn't move. I don't know if it is the mirror or the eyepiece that needs cleaning but the mirror clearly has lots of dust on it. I tried observing the sun with my off axis filter and again couldn't find it at all. Wherever I look I see the buff color of the file folder that is holding the Baader film. I thought that light must be passing through it and lighting it up but when I think about how black the sky is right next to the Sun in my filtered binoculars this is clearly not the case. Light coming through the hole in the card is probably bouncing off the primary and lighting up the inside of the filter. I probably need to cover the inside with black paper. The easiest solution would be to get more filter film and make a full aperture filter. But I want to learn how the off axis filters work so will make some further modifications to this one. The last time I used the scope I put the red dot finder away turned on. The light isn't bright enough that I notice it when I am in a hurry packing up at the end of a night. I am going to have to put a label on it or something to remind me to turn it off. I don't want to have to needlessly spend $5.00 for a new battery every time I want to use the scope.
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target	Jupiter
Constellation	Lib
Category
Time	20060128.0610 EST
Comments	Initially Jupiter was just a big fuzzy ball but as the atmosphere cleared out a bit it took on a more defined shape. Ganymede was off to the east and easily seen. Io, Europa and Calisto were in a tight group to the west and much harder to detect due to their being inside of the illuminated ring of atmospheric moisture surrounding the planet. At first I detected one dot there then two and finally the third became visible in a tight triangle.

Target	Lyra
Constellation	Lyr
Category	Constellation
Time	20060128.0515 EST
Comments	I could see Vega naked-eye but getting it in the scope took a little bit of work since I couldn't use the red dot finder to get into the neighborhood. The first thing I found that I thought I recognized was the wide δ1 Lyr/δ2 Lyr double and the nearby close ζ1 Lyr/ζ2 Lyr double, which I was able to split. After determining that I was on the upper end of the lyre it was an easy hop down one field of view to Vega. I scanned around a bit looking for the stars at the lower end of the lyre near M57 but wasn't systematic about it and got too far away from the constellation and moved on.

Target	Venus
Constellation	Sgr
Category	Planet
Time	20060128.0625 EST
Comments	Initially Venus was very large and obviously showing phase. As the atmosphere cleared a little the planet shrank some. It looked like a 33% moon (amazingly Planetarium says we are actually only seeing 8% of it illuminated) with the horns pointing down toward 8:00, so they were actually pointing up to around 2:00, away from the horizon and the coming Sun. As it climbed higher the view got better but I lost the sense that there was a complete disk there.

Target	Last Crescent Moon
Constellation	Sgr
Category	Lunar
Time	20060128.0649 EST
Comments	This was the reason for getting up at 0400 EST, bundling up like a toddler being sent out to play in the snow, and lugging a ton of gear on the subway and bus. The last crescent moon is actually tomorrow morning but the Moon doesn't rise then until after the Sun already has and it only 0.2% illuminated it will be impossible to find without a properly aligned scope and setting circles or GoTo. So I decided to give today a try at 2%. Peter thought we would be unlikely to find it as it would just be getting into the area where we have clear air as the Sun would be breaking the horizon. He was right, although for a while I thought I might have a chance. Shortly before Moonrise the horizon turned all shades of pink and orange but it looked like there was some clear air right on the horizon and another stripe of it between the lowest clouds and a 6-8° deck of clouds higher up. I was hoping to catch sight of the Moon as it passed through one of these areas of clear air. Unfortunately, with the unreliability of my compasses I wasn't sure where to look. The one thing that was clear was that the ecliptic is much farther south than it was the last time that we attempted a last crescent here. It looked like the moon would be rising a bit to the right of the lighthouse on the north end of Roosevelt Island. I scanned the horizon with my binoculars beginning at the time of Moonrise but never saw anything that looked like a sliver of reflected sunlight. Finally the Sun broke the horizon and the Moon should have been in the clouds by then. I waited until the Sun was at the top of the clouds and used my new protractor/Alt setting circle to adjust my scope to the Moon's altitude and begin to sweep the sky in azimuth but still didn't have any luck.

Target	Sunspots
Constellation	Sgr
Category	Solar
Time	20060128.0835 EST
Comments	The Sun rose today a bit to the left of the lighthouse as viewed from the space between the Finny Walk sigh and the first bench just to its south. There was a tremendous amount of boiling as the Sun began to rise. I could detect atmospheric movement across the entire face of the Sun's disk. About the time it got high enough that the boiling was subsiding the clouds began to thicken and the Sun was no longer strong enough to cast a shadow. I made my last observation as the sun moved through a sparser patch of cloud and was not able to detect any sunspots. These conditions are the worst I have ever attempted an observation in and do not consider them to be reliable.   Groups Spots R North 0 0 0 South 0 0 0 Total 0 0 0 Groups * 10 + Spots = Relative Sunspot Number

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Observing Location	Hugh J Grant Circle, Parkchester, The Bronx, NY I was standing up against a row of storefronts that all had illuminated windows and/or signs, with street lamps in the median of the avenue and rows of fluorescent lights illuminating the elevated subway platforms in the center of the traffic circle so unless I shielded my eyes from the lights could only see the brightest stats.
Observational Period	20060128.2200 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	I knew it was supposed get cloudy and rain on Sunday so had written off the sky for tonight. I was surprised when I walked out to get dinner and could see Orion very clearly. Transparency Good Seeing
Instruments	Naked-eye observing - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Naked-Eye Limiting Magnitude Observations

I didn't make a systematic study of the sky tonight since I was without my PDA or a pad to make notes in and was just able to observe briefly while my food was being prepared. Star Mag. Comments Betelgeuse α 0.45   Bellatrix γ Ori 1,64   Alnitak ζ Ori 1.74   Alnilam ε Ori 1.69   Mintaka δ Ori 2.25   η Ori 3.35   42 Ori & 45 Ori 4.58 & 5.24   The Trapezium #.##   ι Ori 2.75   Rigel β Ori 0.18   κ Ori 2.07   Aldeberan α Tau 0.87 solitary star mistook it for Mars Mars 0.1   Capella α CMa -1.44 high overhead ε Aur 3.03   ζ Aur & η Aur 3.69 & 3.18   Sirius -1.44   Castor α Gem 1.58   Pollux Beta; Gem 1.16   Mebsuta ε Gem 3.06   Tejat Posterior υ Gem 2.87   Propus η Gem 3.31   Alhena γ Gem 1.93   Saturn -0.2   I got a hint of the stars of the animal skin in Orion's left hand but couldn't tell how many of them there were let along which ones.