10 June 2006

Today for the NY Map Society meeting we went to Araader Galleries on Madison Ave at 78 St. They deal on marine paintings, nature illustrations, antique furniture, silver and maps. In the map area their primary focus is in early maps of the united states. But they also have some astronomical maps as well,

On the first floor us a pair of globes one of which is a celestial globe. Up in the map room is a 3-foot tall Newton celestial globe, part of another pair that sells for $27,000.

In the second floor painting gallery is another pair of globes that is probably about 3 feet in diameter. The political globe is very richly colored while the celestial glove, as with all of the others, is very faintly colored. They could only tell me who printed the globe but unless I miss my guess the depictions of the constellations are those of Bayer. These two globes can be had for a mere $1,200,000.

There were plates from broken atlases framed and hung on the walls in various places.

The staff did not seem to be welll versed in their astronomical holdings.

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Observing Location	TotL
Observational Period	2045-0100 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	When I got home at around 1730 it was mostly cloudy, a far cry from the clear skies forecast by CSC. By 1830 it was mostly clear. It was cool and very windy. The air was very clear with only a slight area of sky lit up around the Moon. The Gegenschein was not very visible. Transparency Excellent Seeing Fair
Instruments	Canon 15x50 IS binocular - Charlie Takahashi 102 Refractor - Peter Fujinon 17x60 binocular - Tom
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Peter Tagatac Tom Clabough Tonight was a big public interaction night. Several times during the night we had large groups gathered around the optics and they tended to stay for a while and ask questions. This resulted in us not seeing much more than the planets. And Moon

Late into the evening Peter and I made a star count in Ursa Minor to get an idea of how transparent the air was. We both came up with eight stars but I am not sure they were the same eight. We both saw a star to the west of Kochab that does not appear in Planetarium. I didn't see all of the handle stars. The dimmest bowl star and Pherkad Minor were both difficult for me.

Target	Robins
Constellation
Category	Fauna
Time	20060610.2045 EDT
Comments	As I crossed the East Drive just north of the museum I could hear the robins calling from the trees south of the path. By the time I got over to our normal observing location at the top of the lawn they had stopped. It seems like they stop singing very soon after it starts to get dark but start again in the morning well before it begins to get light. It would be interesting to see how their periods of singing correspond to the phases of morning and evening twilight.

Target	Mercury
Constellation	Gem
Category	Planet
Time	20060610.2050 EDT
Comments	When I arrived at the Lawn Tom was set up behind Ball Field 6 in the NE corner of the Lawn and was searching for Mercury. He had previously seen it but had to move when it set into the trees. When he again found it we discovered that he had actually found Pollux. Mercury was quickly found after we realized what we had been looking at and it was a much bigger target but didn't appear to be as bright. Shortly thereafter I was able to locate it naked-eye. I did not detect any phase and other than its size it was not very remarkable.

Target	Saturn, Mars and The Beehive Cluster (M44, Preasape)
Constellation	Cnc
Category	Planet and Deep Sky Object
Time	20060610.2100 EDT
Comments	Having accidentally found the Gemini Twins I started looking for Mars and Saturn. Saturn was quickly found naked-eye with Mars hanging to its lower right much farther away than I was expecting. I could fit both of them into the binocular FOV without having to move my eye around much but I did have to be right up against the eye cups. Mars was orange while Saturn was a cream colored cigar. After a while the Beehive started to become visible to the upper right of Saturn. Peter had arrived and was setting up in our usual location so I moved over near him. When he got on Saturn he was confused with the image reversal thinking that δ Cnc was part of the Beehive. I didn't get much time in his eyepiece to study the planet, stealing quick looks when there were groups there to keep the planet centered while Peter was talking with people. I did clearly see the rings but didn't look for the Cassini division, shadow on the rings, or the north pole I drifted the scope over to Mars and it appeared as a small burning ember.

Target	Jupiter
Constellation	Lib
Category	Planet
Time	20060610.2115 EDT
Comments	Jupiter was a recurring theme as groups of passers-by left and were replaced by new ones. After Saturn and Mars set Jupiter and the Moon were the only bright targets that the average person would relate to. Io and Europa were on the trailing limb and Callisto and Ganymede on the leading limb. As we continued to observe through the evening Callisto gradually approached the planet and finally disappeared as it beginning to transit. I had copied into my PDA the GRS and Jovian moon event times from S+T and found that they did not agree with the data in Peter's planetarium programs or with what we were observing. It wasn't until I was walking home from the subway that I remembered that the data I had copied was for July.

Target	Moon and Antares
Constellation	Sco
Category	Lunar
Time	20060610.2120 EDT
Comments	The Moon was a very nice sight rising from behind the large tree north of the walk at the NE corner of the Lawn. It was preceded by Antares which fit in the same FOV and was very similar in color. We looked at the morning terminator near Grimaldi under high power and there was some very nice relief there with what appeared to be mountains in front of mountains. The Teneriffe Mountains in Mare Imbrium underneath Plato were very obvious although there was no shadow to give them relief. Aristarchus looked like a small crater filled with chalk. At high power the prominent double ray coming off of Tycho headed toward Grimaldi looked like a canal filled with lava. It reminded me of a bicycle tire track in mud.

Target	USA 129
Constellation
Category	Satellite
Time	20060610.2159 EDT
Comments	We searched for three satellites tonight and saw three satellited but they were all a little strange. All of them appeared earlier than the clock on my PDA said they should have. My PDA clock doesn't drift much and was synchronized with my computer clock which, in turn, is synchronized with the internet. So all the clocks should be accurate to within a second or two. The PDA clock is in good agreement with my wristwatch which was set to the WWV time signal about 12 days ago and is very accurate. A satellite did appear on the trajectory predicted but a couple of minutes early. And it flared twice to brighter than Mag 0 while it was predicted to pass at Mag 2.8.

Target	Iridium 34 Flare
Constellation	Leo
Category	Satellite
Time	20060610.2220 EDT
Comments	We saw a satellite passing through Leo but it was farther west than I have been experiencing them. It was also earlier by my timepiece than predicted.

Target	Iridium 36 Flare
Constellation	Leo
Category	Satellite
Time	20060610.2229 EDT
Comments	Having almost missed the last flare I checked Planetarium to see exactly where this one should occur. It said right in fromt of Leo's front feet and it did flare up a bit to the east of there. I had set the binocular on the area and when I looked the satellite was flying through the FOV so I tracked it all the way until it went behind the big tree to the NW of the Lawn. I never saw it come out the other side and it may have gone into shadow by then.

Target	The Ring Nebula, M57
Constellation	Lyr
Category	Deep Sky Object
Time	20060611.0015 EDT
Comments	Peter wanted to try M57 so I went along for the ride. It was very high up and not easy in the tripod mounted binocular. In the scope I had to kneel and then bend over to get to the level of the eyepiece. A Dob or SAR would have been much more convenient. I did not see it in my binocular although Peter said that it was easy for him. In his scope I saw it even before I attempted to focus. I wasn't able to get the field stars to focus and a little while later Peter reported that he thought seeing had deteriorated.

Target	Alberio
Constellation	Cyg
Category	Double Star
Time	2006.0611.0030 EDT
Comments	From M57 I dropped down to Alberio. The primary was bright gold and the secondary a dimmer blue to its 8:30.

Target	The Coathanger
Constellation	Vul
Category	Asterism
Time	20060611.0045 EDT
Comments	I thought I remembered that the Coathanger was in this neighborhood and confirmed it with Peter.. My memory was that it was half way between Cyg and Aql (between Alberio in the head of the wean and Deneb el Okab, ζ Aql, the right wing tip of the eagle) and that some of the stars in it are at the limits of my naked-eye vision. I saw hints of stars in that neighborhood and lined the binocular up on it and found that I had dropped right on top of it.