19 February 2010

... one can see most clearly that the moon is not of an equal,smooth, and limpid surface, as she and the other heavenly bodies are believed to be by the great multitude of people, but seen from a closer vantage is actually rugged and unequal and in sum the mooncannot be concluded in any sane siscourse to be other than covered by eminences and cavities, similar to but rather larger than the mountains and valleys distributed around the terrestrial surface. Galileo Galilei 7 January 1610

Observing Location	Drip Rock
Observational Period	2030-2130 EST
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Scaattered clouds to Overcast The forecast called for it to be less than 25% cloud cover by 2000 EST and to continue to decrease through 0100 EST. The clouds kept coming in from the NNW. When we left it had broken up a bit to the SE and was on the border between Scattered and Broken. By 2200 EST it was nice and clear. They were predicting a moderate breeze with gusts up to 30 MPH and it didn't seem like we had that although Central Park was reporting a moderate breeze while we were there. Temperature 38° F Wind Moderate Breeze Wind Chill Effect 30° F Humidity Moderate Barometric Pressure 29.91" Hg Rising Feels Like Mild but moist Transparency Nil Seeing
Instruments	Galileoscope and West Marine 7x50 Raiatea binocular - Charlie Nikon 10x50 binocular - Peter Peter had his Coulter CT-100 with him but the conditions were too poor to induce him to set it up.
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Peter Tagatac

Stellarium graphic

We got brief views of Mars, Castor and Pollux and Auriga as breaks in the clouds moved over them. We even got to see M44 in our respective binoculars for a few moments. But the clouds were a real problem.

Target Moon Constellation Ari Category Lunar Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20100219.2100 EST Comments Lunation 1078 Phase Waxing Crescent Age 5d 22h 38m Distance Light Time (from earth) 387,936 km 1.29s Elongation 66.43° E % Illuminated 30.0% Morning Terminator Colongitude (λ E) 343.4° Evening Terminator Colongitude (λ W) 163.4° Libration in Latitude -6° 10' Libration in Longitude -7° 48' Magnitude -9.1 Angular Size 30.80' Altitude 30.80° Virtual Moon Atlas graphic Catharina Terminator In Shadow Feature In Sunlight <<< Aristoteles >>> <<< Eudoxus   <<< Delambre     Theophilus >>>   Cyrillus >>>   >>> Statistics Name Feature Type Quadrant Area Long. ° Lat. ° Diameter/Length km Depth Height Age (Baldwin) Best Observed Day References Lunar Aeronautical Chart (LAC) USGS Geologic Lunar Atlas Lunar Topographic Orthophotomap (LTO) Atlas of the Moon (Rukl) Amateur Astronomer’s Photographic Lunar Atlas (Hartfield) Exploring the Moon Through Binoculars and Small Telescopes (Cherrington) Our first look at the Moon in the Galileoscope was with the Galilean eyepiece and the field of view was less than a full Moon diameter wide. With the Plossl there was breathing space around the Moon and the image was sharp when focused. I tried to combine the eyepieces to create the Barlowed Plossl but I didn't remember how the eyepieces fit onto the Barlow tube so we didn't get to evaluate the scope at high power.

Target M41 Constellation CMa Category OCl Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20100219.2120 EST Statistics Size 30' Magnitude 5 Surface Brightness 12/square ' Density medium Visibility 6 Distance 2,500 ly Location Where is M13 graphics Stellarium graphic References Karkoschka: E6 Comments Peter suggested we try M41 to see how the scope did on an open cluster and while he was talking me through the hop in the binoculars the gaps in the clouds closed up and we decided that was going to be it for the night.

We stopped off at a Starbucks near Peter's building and when we got to his house the sky was beautifully clear, at least that portion we could see of it between the buildings lining 56 St.