6 September 2006

Observing Location	Parkchester elevated subway station platform, #6 Line, Bronx, NY
Observational Period	1100-1115 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Warm and mostly clear with high haze; moderate humidity; no breeze. Transparency Good Seeing Good
Instruments	Brunton 8x21 compact binocular w/gold welder's glass - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target Sunspots Constellation Leo Category Solar Time 20060906.1100 EDT Comments Heliospheric Latitude (B0) +7.24° Heliospheric Longitude (L0) 195.50° Position Angle (P) +23.32° Carrington rotation number (CR) 2047 The Sun is out there sandwiched between Mars and Mercury on one side and Venus and Saturn on the other, spanning about 45 degrees of sky, but all I can see is the Sun. There is one spot that I can see just off of the eastern limb down around 7:00 where I detected plage two days ago. I interpret this to be a large spot since I can see it from a moving subway platform with my unsupported little binocular. Also, I saw on Space Weather yesterday that this is group 904, which rotated onto the away face of the Sun about two weeks ago. The Space Weather picture from SOHO is now showing group 908 farther into the center of the disc and much smaller. It is too small for me to see with this binocular. 904 Heliographic Latitude -19° Heliographic Longitude 129° McIntosh System Axx I can only see an easily detected dark splotch slightly off the limb. At this magnification I can not say if there is a penumbra or not. I place it in the southern hemisphere.   Groups Spots R North 0 0 0 South 1 11 11 Total 1 1 11 R = (Groups * 10) + Spots) It is hard trying to figure the heliocentric position of these spots since the program I am using to calculate it (Helio) doesn't rotate its depiction of the sun to what it would look like at the time I observed it. So I am having to rotate it mentally and then move the position of the spot to where I think it should be.

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NASA didn't get the Shuttle launched today due to a problem with a fuel cell. They also detected dangerously high concentrations of O₂ (remember Apollo 1, Mir) but that hasn't been indicated as a consideration in scrubbing the mission in the CNN news story I read. After the last Shuttle accident (Columbia) NASA put in place a rule that said they could only launch the shuttle during daylight so that they could photograph it and try to detect any damage caused by foam insulation shed from the liquid fuel tank. The agency was criticized at the time of that accident review for putting crew safety second to launch schedules. Now, with the Shuttle scheduled to be taken out of service in 2010 and NASA needing to get in a specific number of flights to meet its obligation to the international community that is funding construction of the ISS to finish that construction, NASA is considering abandoning the "daylight rule" so they can get in the required number of Shuttle flights before the fleet is supposed to be retired. It appears that NASA is lapsing back into their old ways.

See a St. Petersburg Times story from 2003 warning that this might happen.

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Shortly after the IAU voted on its definition of a planet I saw an article by one of the demote Pluto news sources quoting Clyde Tumbaugh's wife as saying that Clyde had seen this coming and wouldn't have been upset by it since it was an advancement of science.

Now there is an article from the protect Pluto faction saying that she has participated in a demonstration at the University of New Mexico and said that she is very disappointed by what has been done.

She is 96. I wonder if she knows what people are even asking her or is letting everyone put words in her mouth.

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Observing Location	MetOval I think I am safe from West Nile virus now. While I was sitting at the oval a police car came past broadcasting something unintelligible on its loudspeaker. It was immediately followed by a commercial pickup truck with a plastic drum in it and a pipe spewing a mist of something behind it. A few vehicles back was a Department of Environmental Protection SUV. I can only surmise that the noise emanating from the police vehicle was something to do with the imminent spraying. They certainly didn't give people who might be adversely affected by inhalation of aerosols any time to take protective actions like getting into a store.
Observational Period	0800-2300 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	I got burned again. CSC Said the clouds, which were heavy at 1700, would gradually dissipate and be gone by midnight. NOAA said there would still be 50% cloud cover by midnight. I came up to the oval to read and to participate in a ham radio net that began at 2100 EDT. They always ask for a weather report from me since I am the farthest north on the net. I was able to report that I could see the Summer Triangle and shortly what I thought to be a spotlight turned out to be a beautiful nearly full Moon rising behind the apartment buildings. I was hearing reports on the ham radio of operators driving into fog but did not notice fog any here. There wasn't any halo around the Moon. The air did smell moist a couple of times but that might be a local phenomena caused by the fountains in the center of the oval. Transparency Fair Seeing
Instruments	Naked-eye Observing - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target Moon Constellation Aqr Category Lunar Time 20060906.2300 EDT Comments The Moon looked so nice that I had to run downstairs when I got home and take a look with the Canon 15x50 IS binocular. Unfortunately the IS batteries were on their last legs and I could only observe for a few seconds before the IS shut down. It looks like libration is very favorable today for observing Mare Orientale. I can see a lot of detail on the limb below Gassendi where the limb should look very smooth from full through last crescent. I wish I had the additional magnification of SAR or, even better, had been out with Peter, whom I haven't seen for a couple of weeks now, with any of his scopes which are all better than anything I have. It is just nice comparing observations with him no matter what equipment we are using. We seem to key in on different things and I think we see more when we observe the Moon together than either one of us would see alone. I see from Planetarium that I am mistaken about the age of the Moon. There are still 15 hours to go before it is full. What I was seeing might be the normal terminator lumpiness, but I think not. This terminator looks much rougher than I ever remember having seen it and has a rounded concave look there. There was nice ray structure around Tycho and Copernicus. There is nice contrast between the bright crater Aristarchus and the dark craters Gassendi, Plato and Endymion.