28 May 2006

This afternoon I decided to try to straighten out the bend in the end of my tripod leg.. I put the handle of my diagonal cutter in the tube and applied pressure. The kink straightened a little, but not enough, I judged to rectify the situation. I gave it another try and this time the remainder of the metal tore through and the tube was about two inches shorter. This was a calculated risk that I thought was worth taking since the tripod couldn't be used in its current state and the leg segment would need to be replaced anyway. The outcome was goof though since without the tube beyond the kink the leg segment now fits into the next one up and it looks like the tripod will be fully functional although an inch or two shorter. The tube wall is 1.5mm thick but at the groove where the failure occurred it is only 0.5mm thick. It doesn't look like a great night but I plan to take all the gear when I go downtown for Manhattan Henge and test it out at TotL on the way home.

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Observing Location	Park Ave @ 34 St
Observational Period	1930-2030 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Mild with haze and some stratus clouds.
Instruments	Minolta X-700 SLR camera with 35-70mm lens – Charlie Fujinon 10x50 binocular - Peter
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Peter Tagatac Kin Lee

Target	Manhattan Henge
Constellation	Tau
Category	Solar
Time	20060528.2015 EDT
Comments	Today is the first of two days during the year when sunset is aligned with the Manhattan street grid. This is because the streets are laid out perpendicular to the length of Manhattan Island, but the island is tilted the right relative to the lines of longitude. If you were to drive along n avenue at sunset you would see the sun setting between the buildings lining each numbered through street that you crossed (named streets are all below 14th Street and often are not aligned with the grid of the rest of Manhattan). The other day when this happens is either 11July06 (according to Neil de Grasse Tyson of the American Museum of Natural history) or 12July06 (according to NASA). It seems like the sun should rise 180°: from where it sets and sunset should also be aligned with the street grid on those days but I have found no references on the Web to an opposing sunrise event on these or any other dates. I arrived early and scouted out the location I wanted to use. I knew that I needed to be on the crest of the hill in the middle of Park Ave and wanted to be on the North side of 34 St where I would get a good view of the Empire State Building in my pictures. I checked out the NE corner of the intersection and thought I could use it if necessary but that the island in the middle of the avenue would be better. I went over to the SE corner to wait since there were some walls there that I could sit on. After a little while I noticed people gathering on all the corners and a few of them spent some time on my island like they were checking it out. About 1915 EDT I decided that I needed to take up residence on the island to assure my place there. The crowd continued to grow and the island, which is small, became crowded with spectators and people trying to cross Park Ave. Every time the light would change in favor of the Park Ave traffic people would cross between islands and stop in the middle of the street to take pictures. There was one guy there on rollerblades who had a Digital Elph stereo photograph outfit. Once the sun became visible the intersection became very crowded and cars on 34 St had trouble getting through when they had the light. Once the sun had dropped below the horizon the crowd evaporated quickly. The sun came from behind the buildings very low over the street and had dropped below the horizon in about five minutes. It was burning through clouds all the time and was very red. Neither Mercury nor the crescent moon was seen naked eye or by Peter with a hand-held binocular. I guess the reason the event happens twice each year is to give you a chance to mess up the pictures the first time. I was using ASA400 film, which is much too fast for taking pictures into the sun, and I let the camera determine the exposure. But most of the picture was sky, which it exposed pretty well, while blowing out the sun. I should have set the exposure for a sunset as per Kodak and bracketed my exposures. These are the best of the pictures that were returned (I marked the bag for a 24 exposure roll of film so they gave me back 24 frames of film even though there were at least three pictures of the crescent moon on the roll behind what they returned). If you look closely you can see a little glow from the sun amidst the snarl traffic at the other end of 34th St. Peter has a report on the event and better pictures in his blog.

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Observing Location	TotL
Observational Period	2100-2400 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	It looked very hazy down low; cirrus or stratus up high. Moderately cool but comfortable. Maybe a little increase in humidity which would track with the clouds. Transparency Fair Seeing Good
Instruments	Canon 15x50 IS binocular - Charlie Fujinon 10x50 binocular - Peter Pentax 20x60 binocular - Kin
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Peter Tagatac Kin Lee

Target	Moon
Constellation	Tau
Category	Lunar
Time	20060528.2100 EDT
Comments	Nice earthshine ; No identifiable features, the crescent was too thin; The horns appeared to be about 0:05 on the clock from a full 180°. When the horns went below the horizon I could see the earthshine on the nighttime disk.

Target	Jupiter
Constellation	Lib
Category	Planet
Time	20060528.2135 EDT
Comments	Calisto, Europa and Io were preceding the planet through the sky in that order; Ganymede was transiting

Target	Zi Yuan 2
Constellation	CMa-Dra
Category	Satellite
Time	20060528.2135 EDT
Comments	This one was below my threshold for putting it in the calendar to be looked for but Peter happened to be looking where it was and picked it up. naked-eye. Faint and fast

Target	Saturn and M44
Constellation	Can
Category	Planet and Deep Sky Object
Time	20060528.2140 EDT
Comments	Saturn is right below M44. M44 is looking very subdued and the sky a little brown. Titan was visible and Peter thought he might have seen another moon on the other side of the planet. There were a couple of field stars a good way distant

Target	ν Draconis
Constellation	Dra
Category	Double Star
Time	20060528.2200 EDT
Comments	A wide, bright, blue-white double; equal in brightness.

Target	ρ Her
Constellation	Her
Category	Double Star
Time	20060528.2205 EDT
Comments	Peter was trying to figure out how close a double we can split with my binocular. I just don't remember things like that or what objects I have seen before. It all -- or mostly anyway -- gets documented here, but there is no easy way to get it back. There is that little search box at the top of the page that is supposed to search this blog, but once something scrolls off the bottom of the page the search box is useless. The format of the blog was designed with the idea that it would be moved into a database so that it would be searchable. But I am better getting things into databases than I am at querying them back out. And I wouldn't have either the blog or the database in the field for searching. I saw where someone has created a life list for the Palm but it requires a list manager and isn't as flexible as a database, but it least you could carry some data with you. I could not split it but when I rocked it out of focus the bottom mushed out before the top. so I am inferring two stars in an 11::00 to 5:00 orientation.

Target	Satellites
Constellation
Category	Satellites
Time	20060528.2214 EDT
Comments	Peter again happened to be looking in the right place at the right time. He picked up two satellites one after the other. The first was Envisat at about Mag 3 which I had been looking for in the S but had not seen. He picked it up as it was going into the E. The other was below my threshold level and was also on a S to N track disappearing above the police precinct. Going backwards in Heavens Above it looks like it might have been USA 129

Target	Iridium Flare
Constellation	Leo
Category	Satellite
Time	20060528.2310 EDT
Comments	This Mag -5 flare was very bright and persisted long after it faded