31 December 2006

Observing Location	PSC
Observational Period	1230-1415 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Scattered Clouds and building Temperature 42°d&F Wind Calm Humidity Moderate Feels Like Cool but pleasant As I sat there the clouds built and the temperature seemed like it dropped. We are supposed to have a major rain event beginning after midnight tonight and extending through at leafy the morning tomorrow. Transparency Good Seeing II
Instruments	SAR: Coulter CT-100 Newtonian reflector - Charlie Celestron Omni 20mm Celestron Omni 2x Barlow Baader AstroSolar filter film Brunton 8x21 compact binocular - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target Sunspots Constellation Sgr Category Solar Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20061231.1300 EST Comments Heliographic Latitude (B0) -2.94° Heliographic Longitude (L0) 102.55° Position Angle (P) +2.37° Carrington rotation number (CR) 2051 After a two week passage across the away side of the Sun Group 930 rotated back onto the visible face of the disk yesterday and has been renumbered 933.   Groups Spots R North 0 0 0 South 1 2 12 Total 1 2 12 R = (Groups * 10) + Spots) Group 933 Heliographic Latitude -7° Heliographic Longitude 41° Mcintosh System Bxo This is the group that two weeks ago was throwing off major bursts of energy which disrupted satellites in orbit and caused auroras and disrupted radio communications here on earth. It is currently just off the trailing limb where it is foreshortened so I can't make out any structural detail about it. There is a larger primary spot down low and a smaller secondary spot closer to the equator and trailing slightly. I could not detect the group without magnification and did not try to locate it with the 8x21s.

Target Venus Constellation Sgr Category Planet Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20061231.1355 EST Comments Having previously determined in Planetarium that Venus would pass through the FoV about 55 minutes after the Sun I centered on the Sun and say down to wait. I would occasionally offset from the Sun and sweep the sky with my binocular but saw nothing. About 50 minutes later I estimated where I thought Venus would be and started sweeping the sky with the scope to increasing extents. On about the third sweep I ran into Venus right in the area where I thought it should be. It was small and shone like a diamond on a light blue sky. Occasionally it would get lost in a passing cloud. I swept the area with the 8x21S but was not able to locate it. I suspect that the focus was far enough off that the planet mushed out into an indistinguishable haze.

---

New Years at TotL

Chick here for larger image
The rest of the fireworks pictures The sky was white tonight. They were predicting rain starting after midnight and being heavy at times. But they are not saying if after midnight means 0001 hours or 0300 hours. Peter's family is in Japan for the holidays and he wanted to do something tonight, and I wanted to photograph the Central Park New Years fireworks from TotL so we arranged to meet there at 2300 EST.

I left the house earlier than I needed to and arrived at 2200 EST. I had thought about sitting on one of the benches beneath a street lamp and reading but set up my gear right away and made a series of pictures to stitch together into a panorama that I will try to add some fireworks to.

I had most of the Great Lawn to myself until Peter arrived. Mark, the publisher arrived with champagne and port wine and Kin arrived around 2345 EST shortly after 2300 EST. About 2345 the people started multiplying like rabbits. There were easily 100 people gathered around the top of the Lawn, mostly in small groups. There was a blast that must have been a one-minute warning and people started counting down prematurely then the Fireworks started. They came up farther over to the right than I was anticipating them, like they were being set off around the bob bridge or from the middle of the lake to the west of the bridge.

The crowd was strangely quiet. There was a short cheer at the start of the fireworks but no OOHs and AHHa or other sounds of appreciation or enjoyment.

I took pictures as fast as I could until I ran out of memory but it is difficult to catch a burst due to the shutter delay.

The display lasted for 15 minutes and everyone disappeared as quickly as they had arrived. Jun had looked at the weather radar before he left the house and said the rain was on the way and he wanted to get home before it got here so left before the end of the display. Personally I would be more worried about drunk drivers that a little rain but the combined effect would also be a concern. There were a couple of times that I felt a few sprinkles of rain during the display but it was nothing to be concerned about at that time.

Peter, Mark and I stood around talking and about every five minutes between 0015 and 0030 EST a shell or two were launched. It was like they had to keep rebooting the Windows computer running the display to get it to finish.

We left shortly after 0100, starting the new year off right by breaking curfew even if we couldn't observe. There were still several other groups of people around, and no sign of the police. By then the sidewalk was appearing moist from accumulated rain drops but we were not getting wet.

The rain held off until after I got home, but as I lay in bed writing this I can hear it drumming lightly on the window sil.

It was a nice end to 2006 and start of 2007.

---

Sunspot Count

---

Summary of Observing Time for the Year to Date:

I tally my observing hours in quarter hour increments. I use the beginning and end of astronomical twilight as a rough break point for deciding how much of the time gets credited as daytime or nighttime hours.

	Day			Night			Total
	Hours	Days	Avg	Hours	Days	Avg	Hours	Days	Avg
Jan	3.25	4	0.81	17.50	6	2.92	20.75	9	2.31
Feb	1.00	1	1.00	10.25	6	1.71	11.25	6	1.88
Mar	2.00	1	2.00	12.00	7	1.71	14.00	8	1.75
Apr	12.5	12	1.04	40.75	14	2.91	53.25	16	3.33
May	3.00	4	0.75	27.00	10	2.70	30.00	10	3.00
Jun	7.00	7	1.00	18.50	12	1.54	25.50	13	1.96
Jul	10.50	14	0.75	43.50	15	2.90	54.00	19	2.84
Aug	7.25	13	0.56	47.50	16	2.97	54.75	20	2.74
Sep	8.75	20	0.44	34.75	10	3.48	43.50	20	2.18
Oct	6.00	17	0.94	2925	7	4.18	40.49	19	2.51
Nov	12.50	17	0.74	41.75	11	3.80	54.25	18	3.01
Dec	11.25	19	0.59	47.00	18	2.61	58.25	23	2.53
TOTAL	85.00	129	0.67	382.25	136	2.84	467.25	181	2.59

In the chart below I count a daytime or nightime observing session only once on a day even if I observed more than once during daylight or darkness that day. If a session spanned sunrise or sunset it was counted as both a daytime and a nightime session. If a session began in the evening and continued into the next morning it was only counted on the day during which it started. There is a little bit of inconsistency there but that is the way I started doing this and plan to continue counting. So

On a day when I

• observed before sunris
• continued with solar observing after sunrise
• later observed the Sun again at mid-day
• observed the Sun and Venus before sunset
• continued observing into a nightime session
• and ended the nightime session at 0200 the following morning

would all be tallied as one day session and one night session on one day.

The chart below shows the percentage of days during which I observed during 2006. As in the above chart gold represents daytime observing, blue is nighttime observing and red is for a day when I observed either during the day, at night or both.

	Day			Night			Total
	TOTAL	Days	Avg	Hours	Days	Avg	Hours	Days	Avg
2006	83.25	128	0.67	372.25	134	2.84	455.50	178	2.59
2005	67.00	88	0.76	281.75	102	2.76	348.75	137	2.55

Good-by kind year, we walk no more together, But here in quiet happiness we part. Sarah Doudney