1 July 2006

Observing Location	Bryant Park
Observational Period	1115-1130 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	It is already hot and humid. There is some haze in the air. Transparency Good Seeing Good
Instruments	Canon 15x50 IS binocular w/Baader AstroSolar filter film- Charlie. Yesterday I noticed a dark circle that nearly filled the FOV. It was covered with transparent spots and filaments that I assumed were dust. Closing one eye and then the other I determined that the circle is coming from the right tube of the binocular. I got rid of most of the spots and filaments by cleaning the right ocular, but the spot remained. Today it was there again. It only occupied 50-66% of the FOV and its position in the FOV was dependant on the location of the sun. When the sun is at the top of the FOV the circle is at the bottom. I am not aware of any other defect in the binocular, it seems to focus as usual. The right lightpath is the one which was damaged when the cyclist ran into my tripod about a year ago. I am bot aware of the binocular having been bimped recently and it has not been dropped. I will need to see if anything looks strange when it is used at night.
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target	Sunspots
Constellation	Psc
Category	Solar
Time	2006 EDT
Comments	I am not sure which hemisphere these spots are in. It seems to me like the small spot should be slightly south of the solar equator and the large one slightly north of it but wherever they are they seem to be close to the same latitude. 897 I am only picking out one spot in this group today 898 The big spot appears to be surrounded by a penumbra today. I can't make out any smaller spots around it.   Groups Spots R North 1 1 11 South 1 1 11 Total 2 2 22

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Observing Location	Bryant Park, New York, NY
Observational Period	1730-1745 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	It is sunny and warm, but comfortable. Mostly clear with cumulous clouds and a light haze that was very obvious in the binocular. A nice breeze. No boiling. Transparency Fair Seeing Excellent
Instruments	Canon 15x50 IS binocular w/Baader AstroSolar film- Charlie I have discovered the source of the defect in my binocular. It is actually a problem with the filter film. There is a small tear that I have missed when I have examined it before using it. Because of the way it was torn the edges are turned up on one side and only let light pass when it comes from a certain angle. I haven't noticed a change in my vision as a result of the hole but it is over my non-dominant eye so it is there and is subtle it might be hard for me to detect without having an eye doctor look for damage on my retina.
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target	Sunspots
Constellation	Gem
Category	Solar
Time	20060701.1745 EDT
Comments	Nothing has changed since this morning except for the relative position of the spots. I did check on the Web and found that the small spot is just north of the equator and the large spot is slightly south of it.   Groups Spots R North 1 1 11 South 1 1 11 Total 2 2 22

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Observing Location	TotL
Observational Period	2030-0030 EDT It was a long night, but due to the weather conditions, there wasn't a lot to be seen,
Atmospheric Conditions	It cooled off nicely and there was a moderate breeze that felt good but seeing wasn't good. Even in the binocular the moon kept going soft then coming back into focus. Clouds seemed to increase after sunset and few stars were visible. The wind picked up around 2388 EDT with it blowing at ~15-20 and gusting higher. The scope was being buffeted by the wind all evening which was not helping seeing. Transparency Poor Seeing Fair
Instruments	SAR: Coulter CT-100 -Charlie I wanted to test SAR with my new Celestron Omni 2x Barlow. I am satisfied with its performance on that scope. I should compare it at some point with Peter's TeleVue Barlow and see how much difference there is. Kin reported seeing Jupiter's Equatorial Bands with the barlow, a claim I can not make with certainty. He also was not aware that he was viewing through the Barlow. I tried using Jupiter to do a drift test to determine my True Field of View but could not get it to traverse the whole FOV as it was sliding down the ecliptic. I then switched to Antares, Antares was conveniently just past the meridian so was moving nearly horizontally across the FOV making it an ideal star for the test.   Celestron Omni 20mm Celestron Omni 20mm with Celestron Omni 2x Barlow Star Transit Time 10m11.53s 4m31.21d Star Dec -26° 25.9' Apparent FOV 52° 48° (est) True FOV arc-minutes 146.45' 2.4° 55.37' 0.9° True FOV = transit time * 0.2507 * Cos(Dec) With the Barlow the Moon nearly fills the FOV and I am able to see more features. Vega and ε Lyr crowd opposite edges of the FOV.   Celestron Omni 20mm Celestron Omni 20mm with Celestron Omni 2x Barlow Magnification 21.6x 43.2x Magnification = telescope focal length / eyepiece focal length The edge of the FOV is very crisp in the 20mm. Adding the Barlow causes it to feel soft but the star both appeared and disappeared cleanly. There were not enough stars visible to get a sense of the center to edge sharpness with the Barlow but it can only be improved over what I see with the 20mm alone since it uses a smaller percentage of the center of the mirror. Canon 15x50 IS binocular - Charlie I had the binoculars along so that I could try spotting tumbling Iridium satellites. Unfortunately when NASA scrubbed the Space Shuttle launch this afternoon and I cleaned out PDA alarms for shuttle related events I appear to have also cleared out my tumbling Iridium alarms for tonight so the binoculars went largely unused.
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Kin Lee The Regulars: Carol & Doggie, Hawaiian George

The main goal for the evening was to see the Space Shuttle following ISS across the sky. But weather was too bad in FL for NASA to launch the Shuttle. Weather is supposed to be much better there tomorrow and they are planning to launch around 1525 EDT. There are teo visible ISS passes here tomorrow but the observing conditions predicted for here for tomorrow are worse than conditions today.

Target	Moon & Stardust
Constellation	Leo
Category	Lunar & Satellite
Time	20060701.2046 EDT
Comments	Not Seen The satellite was only 0.2 arc-seconds in diameter so I wasn't really expecting to see it. The moon kept going soft and coming back into focus in both the telescope and the binocular.

Target	Jupiter
Constellation	Vir
Category	Planet
Time	20060701.2050 EDT
Comments	There was a passer by there from somewhere in South America who wanted to look at the moon. After that I swung it ip onto Jupiter where we could see two moons on each side of the planet and a star beneath the plane of the moons that everyone took for a fifth moon. The view is crisp at 22x and goes soft at 43x. Kin reported seeing the EBs at 43x.

Target	Mars
Constellation	Cnc
Category	Planet
Time	20060701.2055 EDT
Comments	With the binocular I drifted down the ecliptic from the Moon and came to something bright that I thought must be Saturn, but on going a little further I saw something bigger and red that was obviously Mars so the first object was probably Regulus. Mars was in a stripe of cloud and kept disappearing and I was never able to find it in SAR.

Target	Saturn
Constellation	Cnc
Category	Planet
Time	20060701.2100 EDT
Comments	Drifting down the ecliptic further I bumped into Saturn above the treetops. It was in and out of the clouds but, being brighter than Mars, was more persistent. I was able to get it in the scope but the view was very soft, I could tell that it was oblong nut not much more.

Target	ISS
Constellation
Category	Satellite
Time	20060701. EDT
Comments	This was the pass that was supposed to be followed by the Space Shuttle. ISS came from behind the big tree to the NW of TotL and coursed across the entire Manhattan North sky finally disappearing behind the big tree to the NE, This was a much longer pass than was predicted in CalSky.

I missed two Iridium flares while talking with a group of passers by.

The last ISS pass of the evening was also missed. I suspect that it was below the tree line in the NW, this would have been an interesting one to have seen since the last pass was going W to E and this one was going N to W.