9 January 2006

Observing Location	TotL Tom Clabough came up from TotL where he was observing and reported that there had been a couple of recent armed robberies in the park. One was on the north end of the park where it is more expected but the other was down at the Bethesda Fountain. During that event the victim was beaten by six assailants after the robbery. There has been an greater than usual police presence in the park tonight.
Observational Period	1900-0100 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	It is hazy here today and NOAA is indicating that the RH will remain high through the day with a slight rise during the evening and that it will not get cold tonight so I think transparency is going to be bad tonight. And cloud cover is supposed to be around 25% but is that 25% of the sky completely blocked out or all of the sky 25% blocked out by cirrus and haze. We might not see anything but the brightest stars of the Pleiades. And it is supposed to be windy. NOAA graphic Lets hope the CSC is more accurate for tonight than it is for right now. At 1300 EST all I can see out my windows is white. Clear Sky Clock graphic It started out clear but with some light haze. Some stripes of cloud occasionally passed in front of the moon and on occasions I could see clouds in the scope pass in front of the moon that I could not see naked-eye. There was some wind, mostly out of the north but it did not seem to adversely affect seeing or make the temperature drop markedly. Transparency Good Seeing Good
Instruments	SAR: Coulter CT-100 - Charlie TeleVue TV76 - Ben
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Ben Cacace

Target	Occultation of M45
Constellation	Tau
Category	Occultation
Time	20060109.2000 EST
Comments	Star Mag. Event Predicted Date Time (UTC) Observed Date Time (UTC) Merope 4.14 D 10Jan06 01:48:17 10Jan06 01:48:07 Merope 4.14 R 10Jan06 02:05:45 10Jan06 02:04:21 Atlas 3.62 D 10Jan06 03:04:33 10Jan06 02:40:44 Pleione 5.05 D 10Jan06 03:21:06 10Jan06 03:21:56 Pleione 5.05 r 10Jan06 04:04:06 10Jan06 04:04:33 Atlas 3.62 R 10Jan06 04:12:28 10Jan06 04:12:29 Capital letters under Event indicate that it should be seen with a 200mm telescope, lower case that it should not. The only event that I saw through my telescope was the disappearance of Atlas. Times listed above for the other events are when Ben called out the event. Merope started to come and go about six minutes before the occultation and I lost it entirely at two minutes before it was occulted. I was not able to see Merope after it had reappeared until it was some distance from the bright limb. I lost Pleione two minutes before the occultation and did not see it reappear. Although I saw Atlas become occulted I did not see it reappear although I was able to located it easily off the bright limb after seeing where to look for it in Ben's telescope.

Target	Saturn
Constellation	Cnc
Category	Planet
Time	20060109
Comments	During a lull between events Ben showed a couple of dog walkers Saturn. I could not tell which side of the ring was toward earth and which side was behind the planet. It had an overall orange tint in Ben's scope.