13 October 2007

Observing Location	HoS
Observational Period	1840-1910 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Clear Temperature 60°F Wind 10 MPH gusting to 15 MPH Humidity Moderate Feels Like Comfortably cool I kept loosing Cassiopeia so I suspect that there were some clouds up there that I could not see. Transparency Good Seeing
Instruments	Naked-eye - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target Jupiter Constellation Oph Category Planet Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20071013.1850 EDT Comments Object Class Classical Planet Elongation 56.1° Distance Light Time (from Earth) 5.77 AU 47m58s Distance (from Sun) 5.28 AU Angular Size 34.1"x31.9" Magnitude -1.9 Central Meridian I/II 186°/77° Altitude 18.7° I looked out to the west and could see two bright objects low on the horizon. The one farthest south was brighter so I figured it was Jupiter and the other Arcturus.

Target Iridium Flare Constellation Cep Category Satellite Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20071013/1905 EDT Comments This flare was two magnitudes brighter than the one last night so I was expecting it to appear brighter but it wasn’t. It did occur six minutes closer to sunset but I don’t think that should have had that much of an effect on the brightness. The satellite descended fairly vertically and flared then continued its descent before I looked away from it as it passed through UMi and I was not able to find it again.

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Observing Location	TotL
Observational Period	2130-0130 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Scattered Clouds Temperature 55° – 51°F Wind Light Breeze Humidity Moderate Feels Like Cool When I got to the park the sky looked slate gray, much brighter than it should have been that late at night. As I observed bands of clouds would pass over the sky. About 2400-0030 EDT the sky finally cleared off. Transparency Fair Seeing
Instruments	Golden Gate 7x35 binocular – Charlie Nikon digital camera – Peter Coulter CT-100 Newtonian reflector – Peter The sky wasn’t great when Peter got there and he started taking pictures and never stopped. The scope never got unpacked.
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

I didn’t make any observing notes tonight. I spent a bit of time talking with Hawaiian George who arrived just after I got there and left just before Peter arrived. We looked at a few things in the binocular but mainly talked. One of George’s questions was do I feel safe in the park observing by myself. I told him that I have only been uncomfortable a couple of times.

Among the objects I observed tonight were

• α Perseus Association
• Kemble’s Cascade
• M31, Andromeda Galaxym NGC224

  Not Seen

• Coathanger

  The asterism is a lot smaller at 7x than I am used to and I completely missed it. I had to hop to it multiple times before I picked it out.

• Frog and Dragonfly

  Since I am calling the broad smiling feature near M38 the frog I think it is more appropriate that the elongated group of stars above it, which we have always referred to as the leaping minnows, sould be referred to as the dragonfly. I know that frogs eat insects that they catch either on the wing or while the insect is resting on an object, but I am not aware of frogs eating fish. I don’t know if a frog can even open its mouth underwater or if the adhesive that catches the insect would work underwater or stick to the slime covering a fish’s body. The dragonfly asterism is slender to the east but then becomes boxy just like a dragonfly’s tail and body. There is one star out ahead of the body that could serve as the head or mouth. The only thing that is missing is a nebula to represent the wings which are hard to see when a dragonfly is in flight.
  Starry Night Starter graphic annotated in Photoshop

• Mars
• Hyades
• M35, NGC2168

  I spent a lot of time trying to find M35 but did not see any indication that it was there. The only thing I could find was 5 Gem. I also did not see Cr89.

• Castor and Pollux
• Aries and Musca

  Peter was asking about Musca Borealis since I had been trying to locate the defunct constellations. I remembered that it was above the rump of Aries but I wasn’t sure exactly which stars they were or even which end of Aries is the head. Seeing the charts in Starry Night Starter I see that Hamal and Sheridan are the horns of the ram and it looks like Musca would have been out around 41 Ari.
  Starry Night Starter graphic
  
  Reproduction of a card from a set of antique constellation cards. Image courtesy History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries; copyright the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma.
  Russian star atlas by Reissig from the 1800s A good site for information on obsolete constellations.

At the end of the night a police car came onto the lawn and we started to pack up. It was two officers we had seen earlier and who generally do not give us a problem about breaking curfew. The younger officer was really wanting to look at something through a telescope but we didn’t have anything set up by then. He told us that there was an area up around 102 St that is a lot darker than it is here. Peter asked if it was safe up there and he said not really. We said that one of the reasons we observe from TotL is that it is fairly safe. The other officer asked if we remembered what the park was like in the 80s and early 90s. I asked if he meant a place where you didn’t want to be at night and he said yes. His feeling was that the pendulum is swinging back in that direction. He thinks that if things go unchanged it will be a bad place to be within two years. There was another incident down to the south of us recently and they have been told by their higher ups to make sure no one is in the park after curfew. I take that and a couple of other comments that they made to mean they know us and don’t want to chase us off, but wish that we would be gone by curfew so they don’t get in trouble.

On the way out of the park Peter and I paused beside the Met to look at Gemini and Orion.