21 November 2001

Observing Location	TotL The bathrooms and water fountains are closed for the winter.
Observational Period	1845-2345 EST We got started a little earlier than usual tonight and owing to the time change and earlier sunset were arrived well after sunset and were able to begin observing earlier. Around 2100 EST Peter commented on something that I had been feeling for a while: It seemed like we had been there a very long time.
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Clear Temperature 51° F falling to 47° F Wind Calm Humidity High Barometric Pressure 30.13" Hg Rising Feels Like Cool Transparency Good Seeing III- IV
Instruments	Naked-eye - Charlie Teleport 10" Donsonisn reflector – Peter 2" Pentax 40mm, 70° FoV, 31.8x 2" TeleVue Nagler 17mm, 82° FoV, 74.7x 1.25" TeleVue Nagler 13mm, 82° FoV, 97.7x 1.25" TeleVue Plossl 7mm, 82° FoV, 181.4x
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Peter Tagatac

Target Jupiter Constellation Cap Category Planet Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20091121.1900 EST Comments Object Class Classical Planet Elongation 113.9° E Distance Light Time (from Earth) 5.09152 AU m s Distance (from Sun) 5.0133 AU Angular Size 30.5" x 50.2" Magnitude -2.4 Central Meridian System I/II/III 77.3 °/305.4°/165.0° Altitude 28° 56' Stellurium graphic Planetary, Lunar and Stellar Visibility graphic When I arrived Peter was already set up with the usual passel of passers-by gathered around the scope. He was showing them Jupiter and the Moon. Every time a group would leave and we would wander around the sky trying to locate something a little less pedestrian another group of passers-by would pass by and want a look through the scope and we would end up back on Jupiter. It is at time like this that a go-to scope with the ability to bookmark a location in the sky would be real helpful. Then after the public leaves you could just press one button to return the scope to where you were in your previous starhop. The scope would have to compensate for the movement of the earth during the time when you were off target but all that should be doable. As we watched through the night Europa moved steadily closer to the planet and the last time we looked I was just able to separate the moon from the planetary disk in the constant wavering of the image due to very poor seeing at that altitude (disappearance scheduled for 2058 EST). I could see the Equatorial bands easily and at times picked out the South Temperate Band but did not see the polar hoods or anything that I could identify as a shadow on the bands and don't have any shadow transits marked on my calendar.

Target Moon Constellation Sgr Category Lunar Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20091121.1915 EST Comments Lunation 1076 Phase Waxing Crescent Age 5.21d Distance Light Time (from earth) 403,289 km s Elongation 45.9° W % Illuminated 24.1%% Morning Terminator Colongitude (λ E) 328.5° Evening Terminator Colongitude (λ W) 148.5° Libration in Latitude -0° 6' Libration in Longitude -8° 18' Magnitude -8.65 Angular Size 29.63' Altitude 12° 36' Virtual Moon Atlas graphic I was having trouble getting Virtual Moon Atlas to display the libration arrow until I realized that there is virtually no libration apparent tonight. The Moon was not worth looking at through optics tonight. It was low enough that there was constant boiling visible across the entire illuminated face of the disc. The larger features were discernible and identifiable but anything small was a total loss. Looking at the Moon up over the Time-Warner building it did not appear to be that low in the sky and even the altitude figures don't express it well. What really brings it home is when you see how close to laying parallel to the ground the tube of the Dob is.

Target M34 Constellation Per Category OCl Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20091120.1930 EST Comments We tried to get this object several times but kept ending up back on Jupiter. In an early attempt I happened to be at te eyepiece when a satellite leisurely drifted across the bottom of the low power FoV right to left. [The most likely satellite the I found on CalSky is the TecSAR rocket which passed through Tri at that time. The magnitude listed was invisible.] In a later attempt the cluster looked to me like a high tension power line support laying on its side and at high power it reminded me of a small Orion with two stars to the left, a row of three stars in the middle and pairs of stars for each foot. Cartes du Ciel graphic Stellarium graphic

Target Neptune Constellation Cap Category Planet Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20091121 EST Comments Object Class Classical Planet Elongation 87.3° E Distance Light Time (from Earth) 30.1136 AU h m Distance (from Sun) 30.0256 AU Angular Size 2.2" x 2.4" Magnitude 7.7 Altitude 31° 5' Cartes du Ciel graphic At some point early in the evening Peter located Neptune to use as a comparison object to Jupiter when there were some passers-by there. I think it would have been more impressive if the seeing had been better. It was soft, small and barely planetary.

Target HIP 12645 A/B Constellation Per Category Double Star Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20091120 EST Comments On one of our several attempts at starhopping to NGC 1023 Peter found a double star off of a Mag. 4.22 star that we could see naked-eye. We spent a while observing it and could not come to agreement on which star was brighter. We both saw an orange and blue star in the same relative position in the eyepiece. I felt that the blue star was brighter and Peter felt that the orange star was the brighter. The Mag. 4.22 star was 12 Per. The star closest to it was the Hip 12645 B half of the double and the half farthest away was HIP 12645 A. Stellarium lists them as follows. Stellarium   Mag. Type HIP 12645 A 8.30 Am HIP 12645 B 7.50 B95.Vn

Target NGC 1023 Constellation Per Category SpGal Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20091121 EST Comments Not Seen Peter saw it but I couldn't pick it out. I thought I had seen it but when he showed me the star field in his Palm I discovered that I had misunderstood his verbal description and had been looking at a faint star that wasn't properly focused and where I was supposed to be looking I saw nothing. Cartes du Ciel graphic Looking closesly in Cates du Ciel I see that there were actually two galaxies there that I didn't see. Cartes du Ciel graphic

Target NGC 1528 Constellation Per Category OCl Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20091121.2145 EST Comments This was a strange sighting for me. I was describing what I saw to Peter and he took a look to understand what I was explaining. When I got back to the eyepiece I didn't at all see what I had described. It was as though we were looking at an entirely new cluster. I saw at least three levels of brightness in the cluster. Cartes du Ciel graphic Cartes du Ciel graphic

Target M31, Andromeda Galaxy, NGC 224 Constellation And Category SpGal Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20091121 EST Comments We landed here several times after the Moon had set and Jupiter was getting low and we needed something untrained observers could see. I am sure I looked at it at least briefly without focusing but have no recollection of it.

Target Almaak, γ And Constellation And Category Double Star Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20091121.2115 EST Comments While we were in the neighborhood we stopped off at Almaak, the last star in the strong chain of Andromeda. Peter had given me a copy of the 2010 Observer's Handbook earlier in the week and they had a new table of colored double stars and I remembered γ And as being the first star on the list. The stars are unequal (2.3/5.4), the brighter one orange and the fainter blue and are separated by 10".

Target M76, Little Dubbell Nebula, NGC 650 Constellation Per Category PlNeb Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20091121.2240 EST Comments Peter got the field and asked what I saw. At the top of the FoV was a bright star and beneath it I sensed an area of something that I couldn't describe. He wasn't sure about it and decided to try the nebula filter on it and see if it did anything. The filter darkened the view but increased the contrast between the nebula and the background sky. Up where I felt there was something I saw a brighter area of sky that looked like the fairly large top half of a ball with a dark lane in the lower center (like the fish mouth of the Orion Nebula). Beneath it and to the left I thought there was a broad slash of faint nebulosity like an irregular parallelogram. Cartes du Ciel graphic Of this object the Deep Sky Observer's Guide says Widely considered to be one of the more difficult Messier objects for observers using small telescopes, M76 lies just inside the NW border of Perseus. The best guide to hunting it down is the mag. +4.1 star φ Per, roughly midway between γ And and α Cas: M76 lies 40' to the NNE of &phi Per. Although quite extended (3' x 1' in angular size), M76 doesn't really show well at low powers. . . . The nebula appears oval, and with the long axis lying NW-SE. . . . It has the popular nickname of the Little Dumbbell, though it is a good deal more difficult to see than the Dumbbell itself. Like M27, it shows a couple of connected lobes of nebulosity; each has been given its own designation in the NGC. . . . Also known as the Butterfly Nebula, M76 lies at a distance of 3400 light years.

Target η Per Constellation Per Category Double Star Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20091121.2250 EST Comments This was another object from the colored double stars list. It is another orange/blue pair (all three of the listed doubles in RA 2h are orange/blue) with a separation of 28" of arc and widely unequal at Mag 3.8 and Mag. 8.5. At low power I thought the blue star was brighter but it high power the orange one appeared brighter as it is listed in the Handbook chart.

I am using a bunch of programs to get my ephemeris data and, as I have noted before, am finding that each program thinks the planets look and beave a little different from the other programs.

	Cartes cu Diel	Stellarium	Meridian	Planetary, Lunar and Stellar Visibility
Magnitude	-2.4	-1.9	-2.3	-2.2
Diameter	38.7"	38.7"	38.7"	44.1" (30.5" x 50.2")
% Illuminated	99.1		99.1%	99%
Distance	5.0914 AU	5.092051 AU	5.09152 AU
Sun Distance	5.0133 AU
Inclination	0.3°		0.3°
Central Meridian System I/II/III	74.47° 207.53° 329.95°		73.73° 206.83° --	77.3° 305.4° 165.0°
Altitude	28° 56'	22° 14'
R.A.	21h 29m 19s	21h 29m 13s	21h 29m 46s	7h 0m 23.8s
Dec.	-15° 53' 53"	-15° 50' 47.8"	-15° 50'
GRS Transit	5h58m 15h 54m		0535 1521