23 September 2007

Autumn officially arrived today at 0551 EDT and I slept through the event. For practical purposes Full began back on 3Sep07, which was labor day and the end of vacation rentals for those fortunate enough to be able to afford a share in a house on Fire Island, the Hamptons, or the Jersey Shore.

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Observing Location	McGraw Hill Building, Sixth Ave @ 5# St, New York, NY Lat.: 40° 45’ 32.57’ Lon.: -73° 58’ 52.03” Sixth Avenue used to be called Avenue of the Americas. Before that it was called … Sixth Avenue
Observational Period	1200-1300 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Clear Temperature 72°F Wind Calm Humidity Moderate Feels Like Hot It is a beautiful day. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. But it is hot if you are standing out in the sun. Transparency Excellent Seeing I
Instruments	Nikon CoolPix 990 digital camera – Charlie Fisheye Converter FC-E8 Wide Converter WV-E63 Tele Converter TC-E2 Brunton 8x21 compact binocular w/Welco gold welder’s filter - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway I was all by myself today. No Peter; no Kin; no wannabe Druids.

Target Sunspots Constellation Vir Category Solar Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20070923.1215 EDT Comments Distance Light Time 1.00 AU 8ms Angular Size 31'53" Altitude 49.1° Heliographic Latitude (B0) 7.02° Heliographic Longitude (L0) 190.60° Position Angle (P) 25.25° Carrington rotation number (CR) 2061 The Sun is still featureless   Groups Spots R North 0 0 0 South 0 0 0 Total 0 0 0 R = (Groups * 10) + Spots)

Target Sun Aligned with McGraw Hill Sun Triangle Constellation Vir Category Solar, Alignment Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20070923.1247 EDT Comments When I walked south along Sisth Avenue I saw some construction barricades and was worried that they might be doing work on the plaza and I would not be able to access it. Getting a little farther south I found that the barricades were along the north side of 49 St. But when I got to the McGraw-Hill building this is what I found: There was no access to the plaza and a sidewalk shed above the entrance to the office tower was obstructing the view into the plaza from the west, if you could even get back there. I had to settle for viewing the movement of the shadow from street level or from the elevated portion of the plaza north and south of the pit the sculpture is located in. The alignment is supposed to take place at 12:00 noon according to the descriptive sign engraved in the railing around the pit (there is also a description of an orrery fountain that no longer exists – the outdoor café is there now) but we messed with the clocks back in March and don’t unmess them until the November so noon is now 1300 EDT. But the alignments never occur exactly on the hour no matter whether it is Standard Time or Daylight Saving Time. So I suspect that when they figured out how to make the triangle and how it should be aligned they based it on the time for our time zone and forgot that NYC is not on the central meridian for its time zone (-75°). The sun triangle is east of that meridian by about 1° 1’ 9.97” of arc (1.1661666°). For every degree you are away from the central meridian things occur four minutes earlier or later, depending on which side of the meridian you are on. If you are east of the meridian things occur earlier than predicted and if you are west of it they occur later than predicted. In our case things will occur 4.68 minutes of time (4’ 40.8”) earlier. -75° 00’ 00’ Longitude of Central Meridian for our time zone + -73° 58’ 52.03” longitude of the Sun Triangle -0° 01’ 9.97” displacement from Central Meridian *  0004:00.00 correction factor/degree of displacement -0004:40.80 time correction for displacement +  1300:00.00 predicted time (EDT)  1255:19.20 Local Time When Kin loaned me the Sony Clié I plugged in the location of the plaza as best I could located it in Google Earth and Planetarium informs me that Local Mean Solar Noon is at 1247 EDT. 1235 EST 1242 EST This 42-second movie is a little shaky since the camera was hand held against the railing around the plaza, but you can see the small triangle of light next to the sculpture shrinking. It is also a little pixellated because I had to shrink it down to about half the normal YouTube size to get it to fit within the tables of the blog. 1242 EST The shadow of the top of the statue is fairly sharply defined on the eastern side but very fuzzy to the west. 1246 EST It is now one minute to Local Mean Solar Noon and the shadow is getting very thin, but is still sharper on the eastern side. 1247 EST – Local Mean Solar Noon The shadow is perfectly aligned with the statue. It has become more distinct but is still not perfectly sharp on either side. The degree of fuzziness is about equal though. 1250 EST Now the shadow is moving off to the east of the statue and that edge of it is fuzzier than the western edge. 1252 EST It is still three minutes to when my calculations said the alignment will occur and it is vary obvious that those calculations are in error somewhere. And this is something that is new to me. Apparently the US government has outlawed smoking at the US base in Antarctica.

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Observing Location	Met Oval
Observational Period	2100-2400 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Clear Temperature 71° - 67° F Wind Calm Humidity Moderate Feels Like Comfortably cool It would have been a great night to observe but for the spotlights illuminating the fountain. All I could see was Fomalhout and the Great Square. It meant some long star hops. Transparency Excellent Seeing II-III
Instruments	SAR: Coulter CT-100 Newtonian reflector - Charlie Celestron Omni 20mm (21x) Celestron Omni 2x Barlow
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target Moon Constellation Cap Category Lunar Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20070923.2115 EDT Comments Lunation 1048 Phase Waxing Gibbous Age 12d12h30m Distance Light Time (from earth) 369,924 km 1.23s Elongation 142.5° E % Illuminated 89.7% Morning Terminator Colongitude (λ E) 58.8 Evening Terminator Colongitude (λ W) 238.8 Libration in Latitude 2°25’ Libration in Longitude -6°16’ Magnitude -11.8 Angular Size 32'25" Altitude 31.6° Virtual Moon Atlas graphic The Moon is forming a shallow triangle with δ Cap and γ Cap, all of which just fit into the 22x FoV of SAR. Neptune is 4° away at 2:00 and Uranus is 23° away at 9:00. And (2) Pallas is 17° away at 10:30. The eastern marea and the craters off the SW terminator are the most prominent features tonight.       Power Object Diam- eter* km Class Com- mments 22x Terminator Babbage 144   in daylight but Oenopides & Pythagoras are faintly visible beyond the terminator Schiaparelli 24 1 just emerging from the terminator Vieta 87 2 a distance from the terminator but the floor is in deep shadow Schicard 227 5   Phocylides 114 3   Schiller 48x133 3   Segner 67 3 degraded Bettinus 71 1 Segner, Bettinus, Kircher & Wilson form a shallow frown above the southern terminator Kircher 73 young   Wilson 70 very old consider- ably degraded 43x Aristarchus (40 km, class 1, ray crater) Herodotus 25 5   Montes Agricola 160     Prinz 47 old remnant Diophantus 18.5 1   Delisle 25 1   Heis 14 young   Sinus Iridum Mairan 40 1 sharp rim Sharp 40 1   Biannchini 38 1 Foucault 23 young   Bouguer 23 young   Harpalus 39 1 ray crater Maupertuis 46 very old ruined crater La Condamine 37 5   Bliss 20     Copernicus (60 km, class1, rayed crater Kepler 32 1 ray crater Marius 41 5   Reiner 30 1   Marius A 15     Gassendi (110 km, 5, central peak Gassendi A 33 1   Merseneus 84 3   Merseneus D 34 Leibig 37 1   Cavendish 56 3   Vieta 87 2 Fourier 52 2   Schicard (227 km, 5) Lacroix 38     Drebbel 30 young Lehmann 53 very old consider- ably eroded Schiller 179x7 3 footprint- shaped complex of craters Nöggerath 31 very old   Mee 132 extremely old eroded Lacus Timoris 130     22x Mare Fecunditatis Goclenius 54x72 very old   Gutenberg 74 old this is the crater I think looks like a fiddler carb claw Messier A 13x11   two rays pointing west Taruntius 56 5 young with bright rays and a central peak * from Rükl, Atlas of the Moon

Target Neptune Constellation Cap Category Planet Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20070923.2147 EDT Comments Object Class Classical Planet Elongation 139.0° E Distance Light Time (from Earth) 29.3 AU 4h04m Distance (from Sun) 30.0 AU Angular Size 2.29" Magnitude 7.9 Altitude 34.5° I started my hop from Fomohot, which I found through the trees as it was going behind a building. I tried to add the Barlow and lost the FoV when I changed the focal length to get rough focus.

Target Uranus Constellation Aqr Category Planet Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20070923.2118 EDT Comments Object Class Classical Planet Elongation 165.5° E Distance Light Time (from Earth) 19.1 AU 2h39m Distance (from Sun) 20.1Au Angular Size 3.66" Magnitude 5.7 Altitude 31.4° I started hopping to this from way up at Markab, α Peg, since that was the closest star that I could find, but got stopped by some passers by who wanted to see the Moon. I explained what I was doing and that if I moved I would probably never get back to where I was so they just wanted to look at whatever I was seeing. I tried to go back to the last bright star I had seen and couldn’t find it where I thought it should be. By then I was totally lost so showed them the Moon then started the hop all over again. It looks a little bit bigger and grayer than the field stars. It is dimmer than (90) φ Aqr (Mag. 4.22) and brighter than HIP11445 (Mag. 6.96) both of which are in the FoV with it.