9 October 2006

Observing Location	Port Washington Boat Basin, Port Washington, NY Lat.: 40.82632906741597°, Long.: -73.6554229259491°
Observational Period	0800-0815 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Clear Temperature Cool Wind Calm Humidity Low Feels Like Pleasant Transparency Excellent Seeing I
Instruments	Canon 15x50 IS binocular - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target Moon Constellation Ari Category Lunar Time 20061009.0800 EDT Comments Lunation 1036 Phase Waning Gibbous Age 17d0h14m Elongation 146.75°W % Illuminated 91.8% Magnitude -12.0 Altitude 21.34° The contrast between the early morning blue sky and the moon is nearly perfect, it looks great. The terminator is right in the edge of Mare Crisium.

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Observing Location	Calf Island, Greenwich, CT Lat.: 40.99245129256678°, Long.: -73.63886833190918°
Observational Period	1015-1030 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Clear Temperature Warm Wind Light Breeze Humidity Low Feels Like Beautiful Transparency Excellent Seeing I
Instruments	Canon 15x50 IS binocular w/Baader AstroSolar filter film - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Tom, KC2CBA Art, Rob, AB2UV

Target Sunspots Constellation Vir Category Solar Time 20061009.1015 EDT Comments Heliphraphic Latitude (B0) +6.25° Heliographic Longitude (L0) 118.13° Position Angle (P) +26.28° Carrington rotation number (CR) 2048 Two tiny spots just easy of the meridian. The view is very stable.   Groups Spots R North 0 0 0 South 1 2 12 Total 1 2 12 R = (Groups * 10) + Spots) Group 915 Heliographic Latitude -19° Heliographic Longitude 106° McIntosh System Bxo I have not seen these spots before. They are two, small, faint spots which I interpret to be a bipolar group. They appear to be about 1/3 of the way from the equator to the southern pole and just easy of the meridian.

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Observing Location	CSP The Moon would be high enough to see it from TotL when the occultations start, but I expected that all I would see would be the reemergances which did not take place until after curfew so opted for CSP where we have never been bothered by the police about curfew.
Observational Period	2300-0200 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Clear Temperature 64°F Wind Light Air Humidity Low Feels Like very Comfortable Conditions appeared great although there is a lot of ambient light around so it is hard to assess. Still, I saw at least three stars in the Alpha Perseus association. The image of the Moon kept jumping around but I think that is a result of the cars passing under me on the highway rather than seeing. Transparency Good Seeing II
Instruments	SAR: Coulter CT-100 - Charlie Grundig YachtBoy 400 short wave radio -Charlie . Olympus digital voice recorder - Charlie Blackberry 7500 - Charlie I found that the best way to get a good, quick fix on the approximate time of an event was to create an autotext entry with the Long Time macro (%T) in it and enter that into the BB but not press space. At the time of the event I press the space bar and the BB converts the autotext and converts the macro to the nearest whole second. The BB is time synchronized with my computer which is in turn synchronized with an internet time server. The BB differs from the announced time on WWV by being about 8.5 seconds fast. I didn't play with the BB in the field to see if I can reduce that error, but it is easy enough to subtract 8 seconds from the recorded time to get a quick estimate and it will make decoding the digital recording a mot easier. Some time I will have to go out with the YachtBoy and experiment with setting the Bb to see if I can manually reset the seconds or if that can only be done at synchronization with software.
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target Occultation of M45 by the Moon Constellation Tau Category Occultation Time 20061009.2300 EDT Comments Lunation 1036 Phase Waning Gibbous Age 17d15h14m Elongation 138.34°W % Illuminated 87.4% Magnitude -11.8 Altitude 33.17° I didn't think I was going to have enough glass to see the disappearances but it turns out my limiting factor was the collimation of my scope. I lost the stars when the entered the ghost image of the Moon's limb moments before they were occulted. I think I would have seen the stars all the way until they disappeared behind the bright limb if my scope had been properly collimated and didn't have the ghost image. Disappearance Star Mag. Alt. Estimated Time Electra 3.72 44.08° Planetarium 0000 EDT Space.com 2359 EDT WinOccult 0400:24UTC Celaeno 5.45 46.08° Planetarium 0010 EDT Space.com   WinOccult   Maia 3.87 51.37 Planetarium 0038 EDT Space.com 0036 EDT WinOccult 0437:53 UTC Taygeta 4.30 51.54° Planetarium 0040 EDT Space.com 0040 EDT WinOccult   Reappearance Star Mag. Alt. Estimated Time Electra 3.72 57.23° Planetarium 0112 EDT Space.com 0105 EDT WinOccult 0506:13 UTC Celaeno 5.45 58.42 Planetarium 0117 EDT Space.com   WinOccult 0512:34 UTC Taygeta 4.30 60.21 Planetarium 0127 EDT Space.com 0120 EDT WinOccult 0521:16 UTC Maia 3.87 60.07 Planetarium 0152 EDT Space.com 0145 EDT WinOccult 0539:27 UTC 0359 UTC I never saw Electra 0437 UTC I Lost Maia in the ghost image of the Moon's bright limb. 0439 UTC I lost Taygeta in yhr ghost image of the Moon't bright limb 0508 UTC Electra was there off the Moon's dark limb when I looked. I think I missed the reappearance but am not sure. 0513:26 UTC Celaeno reappeared 0521:27 UTC Taygeta reappeared. 0546 UTC Maia reappeared. By this time my Palm had killed all of my batteries and I didn’t know where to watch for the star so missed it at the instant of its reappearance.