14 December 2007

14 December 2007

Israfel

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
Whose heart-strings are a lute;
None sing so wildly well
As the angel Israfel,
And the giddy stars (so legends tell),
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice, all mute.


Tottering above
In her highest noon,
The enamoured moon
Blushes with love,
While, to listen, the red levin
(With the rapid Pleiads, even,
Which were seven)
Pauses in Heaven.


And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Israfeli’s fire
Is owing to that lyre
By which he sits and sings,
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.


But the skies that angel trod,
Where deep thoughts are a duty,
Where Love’s a grown-up God,
Where the Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in a star.


Therefore thou art not wrong,
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong,
Best bard, because the wisest:
Merrily live, and long!


The ecstasies above
With thy burning measures suit:
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
With the fervor of thy lute:
Well may the stars be mute!


Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely—flowers,
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.


If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.

Edgar Allan Poe



Observing LocationChief Dennis L. Devlin Park, Bronx, NY
Observational Period1200-1215 EST
Atmospheric Conditions
Cloud CoverScattered Clouds
Temperature36°F
WindLight Breeze
Humidity
Feels LikeCold

There is snow and ice everywhere, mostly ice. It is raining a monsoon under anything that is overhanging as the solid water above turns to liquid. It is supposed to be clear tonight but I already see light cirrus clouds, a harbinger of the nor'easter that is due to arrive tomorrow I suspect.

TransparencyGood
SeeingI
Instruments Brunton 8x21 compact binocular w/Welco gold shade 14 welder's filter - Charlie
Observing PartyCharlie Ridgway

Target Sunspots
ConstellationOph
CategorySolar
Time
yyyymmdd.hhmm		20071214.1200 EST
Comments
Distance
Light Time		0.984 AU
8m 11s
Angular Size32' 32.9"
Altitude26.7°
Heliographic Latitude
(B0)		 -0.81°
Heliographic Longitude
(L0)		 188.93°
Position Angle
(P)		 10.52°
Carrington rotation number
(CR)		2064

SPOTS! I AM SEEING SPOTS!

I can't make out any detail in the group because the individual spots are small and I am having to stand with the small binocular (the ice hasn't melted off of the park benches yet) so am in constant motion, but at least I am seeing the group as a large gray spot west of the meridian and close to the equator. I should extend my study into the resolving poser of my optics to figure out how many Earths or Jupiters a group has to be before I can see it with each of them.

 Groups SpotsR
North 0 0 0
South 1 1 11
Total 1 1 11
R = (Groups * 10) + Spots)

Group 978
Heliographic Latitude -10°
Heliographic Longitude 226°
Carrington rotation number
(CR)		2064
Mcintosh SystemAxx


Tonight is supposed to be a public observing night at Columbia University but they have cancelled before after a snowfall because they don’t shovel the roof of the observatory so I suspect that it will be cancelled again. I don’t expect that transparency will be as good as predicted with all the show melting and evaporating and sublimating.


NASA has another new launch date for Shuttle Atlantis. No earler than 2Jan08 has become 10Jan08 (but they haven't found the problem with the fuel sensors yet so that date is only a target right now). I haven't found a launch time yet, but since the 2Jan08 launch was set for 0541 EST this one should be 184 minutes (~3 hours) earlier or at 0237 EST, in the middle of the night. This should be a good opportunity to see it fly past NYC on launch but it looks like the orbital passes will be during daylight or in Earth's shadow during that timeframe.


OpticApertureResolutionSmallest
Feature		Equivalent
Distance
MoonSun
Brunton5.510.23971 kmNYC-LA
Golden Gate3.36.13282 kmNYC-LA
CT-1001.12.0779 kmNYC-Dayton
Canons
(defunct)		2.34.31668NYC-Miami

posted by Charlie at 12:55

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