11 March 2008

Observing Location	McGraw Ave @ Virginia Ave, Bronx, NY
Observational Period	0200-0245 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Scattered Clouds Temperature 37°F Wind Calm Humidity Moderate Barometric Pressure 30.23" Hg Falling Feels Like Cold NOAA was saying it would be mostly cloudy tonight but I had seen a nice smiling moon with earthshine when I was out around 2000 EDT so I got trussed up and went out to give Endeavour a try anyway. The clouds appeared to be thinning a bit but were concentrated in the area I need to be looking in. I think there may also be some haze up there. Transparency Poor - Fair Seeing
Instruments	Naked-eye - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target STS-123 Launch Constellation Category Satellite Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20080311.0228 EDT Comments Not Seen The clouds were thickest low in the south. It would have helped if I had had ephemeris data so I would have known exactly where to have been expecting it to appear.

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Observing Location	Parkchester Regional Branch Library, Westchester Ave, Bronx, NY
Observational Period	1200-1215 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Clear Temperature 41°F Wind Calm Humidity Moderate Barometric Pressure 30.12" Hg Falling Feels Like Cool Transparency Good Seeing
Instruments	Brunton 8x21 compact binocular w/Welco gold shade 14 welder's filter - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target Sunspots Constellation Sgr Category Solar Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20080311.1200 EDT Comments Distance Light Time 0.993 AU 8m 16s Angular Size 32'14.7" Altitude 44.1° Heliographic Latitude (B0) -7.22° Heliographic Longitude (L0) 110.53° Parallactic Angle (P) 23.91° Carrington rotation number (CR) 2067 Nothing Seen. SpaceWeather is indicating group 953 over on the western limb but it is too small and to close to the limb for me to see it with any of my optics.   Groups Spots R North 0 0 0 South 0 0 0 Total 0 0 0 R = (Groups * 10) + Spots)

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I checked the STS-123 visible passes on Heavens Above and they are not indicating any before docking. The passes that do occur 12-20Mar08 are all poor passes. It is like this whole mission is a "dark operation."

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Observing Location	PKR – Parkchester Regional Branch Library
Observational Period	1845-1900 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Scattered Hazy Temperature 41°F Wind Light Breeze Humidity High Barometric Pressure 29.97" Hg Rising Feels Like Cool Transparency Good Seeing
Instruments	Naked-eye - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target Iridium 55 Flare Constellation Orion Category Satellite Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20080311.1855 EDT Comments Not Seen The sky was too bright. It also seems like Orion should be lower down and farther east since we played with the clocks over the weekend. This event was not listed in Heavens Above. That usually means that their computer considers it as a daytime event or that it is an out of control or spare bird. CalSky always tells you when they are predicting an unreliable satellite and they are not saying anything like that for this prediction. I would say that this was a daytime flare and may have been too faint for the Heavens Above computer, which seems to always rate magnitudes below the CalSky computer, to list it. -5.5 Alt. 53.9° Az. 192.3° Mag.

1857 EDT	Sunset Civil Twilight begins
1925 EDT	Civil Twilight ends Nautical Twilight begins
1956 EDT	Nautical Twilight ends Astronomical Twilight begins
2028 EDT	Astronomical Twilight ends