20 March 2010

Observing Location	McGraw Hill Building, New York, NY
Observational Period	1245-1345 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Isolated Clouds Temperature 71° F Wind Calm Wind Chill Heat Index °F Humidity Low Barometric Pressure 29.99" Hg Steady KNYC METAR Feels Like Warm Transparency Good Seeing
Instruments	West Marine Raiatea 7x50 binocular- Charlie Naked-eye - Peter
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Peter Tagatac

Target Sunspots Constellation Psc Category Solar Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20100320.1245 EDT Comments Distance Light Time 0.996 AU 8m 17s Angular Size 31' 10.2" Altitude 49.8° Heliographic Latitude (B0) -7.03° Heliographic Longitude (L0) 76.35° Parallactic Angle (P) -25.20° Carrington rotation number (CR) 2094 SOHO says there are spots on both limbs in the northern hemisphere but I can’t see either of them.   Groups Spots R North 0 0 0 South 0 0 0 Total 0 0 0 R = (Groups * 10) + Spots)

Target Sun Triangle Alignment Constellation Psc Category Solar Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20100320.1300 EDT Comments Distance Light Time 0.996 AU 8m 17s Angular Size 31' 10.2" Altitude 50.0° I measured the orientation of the Sun Triangle and if my compass is to be trusted it points to around 215° Magnetic or 228° True. That is 40° from due south where the sun should be at noon. Manhattan Island is oriented 29° from True North. If we add those 29°s to the 13°s of magnetic variation we come up with 42°. Subtract 2° from that for error in setting and reading my compass and you have 40°. I am not sure it makes any sense to do all that but the arithmetic seems to match up. May just be coincidence. The pit the triangle is mounted it is closed on weekends so we had to watch the alignment from above which was actually pretty good. As the time of alignment approached the shadow became more defined until it appeared to have a very sharp edge at abot 1302:55 EDT. Peter checked Planetarium and it says the Sun souths at 1303 EDT. Since they don’t give seconds it could be anywhere from 1302:45 to 1303:15 EDT. I checked Catres du Ciel and it says the Sun culminated at 1306 EDT. I have CdC set up for TotL so there would be a little difference but probably only seconds. I fiddled with Helio, which I have set up for 40° x -74° at the moment, and it shows the poles being lined up vertically at around 1303 EDT.

Vernal Equinox Cartes du Ciel graphic First Point of Aries Cartes du Ciel graphic

Target Venus Constellation Psc Category Planet Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20100320.1315 EDT Comments Object Class Classical Planet Phase Gibbous Elongation 16.41° E % Illuminated 96.1% Distance Light Time (from Earth) 1.62 AU 13m 29s Distance (from Sun) 0.723 AU Angular Size 10.4" Magnitude -3.9 Altitude 53.07° Meridian graphic I had forgotten to pick up the Palm when I left the house so was guessing about where Venus would be and swept the nearby sky looking for it but there was a stripe of cloud everywhere I looked. Peter had gorgotten his binodular so borrowed my and between both of our technologies we still couldn’t find Venus

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Observing Location	TotL
Observational Period	1800-2030 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Scattered Clouds Temperature 65° F Wind Calm Wind Chill Heat Index °F Humidity Moderate Barometric Pressure 29.96" Hg Steady KNYC METAR Feels Like Mild Transparency Fair Seeing II
Instruments	West Marine Raiatea 7x50 binocular – Charlie Galileoscope – Marcos Naked-eye - Tom
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway Marcos Rivera Tom Clabough

Tonight was International Sidwealk Astronomy Night. We didn’t think it was going to be a great observing night but Peter and I agreed to go out to participate in the event even if conditions were marginal. He wanted to go somewhere where we would have had a lot of pedestrian traffic and was leaning toward Central Park South but it is more work getting the scope there than it is to The Great Lawn so we agreed on either TPO or TotL at 1800 EDT. I arrived at TotL at 1800 and it was mobbed. I found Tom there and had recruited Marcos who had trouble finding parking and probably arrived around 1830 EDT. I kept scanning the walk leading into TotL and the area around TOP but didn’t see anything of Peter. It turns out he got stuck in traffic also and arrived at TPO right about the time we were leaving TotL.

Target Moon Constellation Tau Category Lunar Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20100320.1810 EDT Comments Lunation 1079 Phase Waxing Crescent Age 5d 1h 8m Distance Light Time (from earth) 380,395 km 1.27s Elongation 58.59° E % Illuminated 23.9% Morning Terminator Colongitude (λ E) 335.2° Evening Terminator Colongitude (λ W) 155.2° Libration in Latitude -4° 43' Libration in Longitude -6° 44' Magnitude -8.7 Angular Size 31' 32" Altitude 66° 06' Virtual Moon Atlas graphic I could see Cleomedes, Macrobius and Proclus around Mare Crisium. Palus Somni looked like a gray delta fanning out from Proclus. Up above Mare Serenitatis I could see Hercules and Atlas. Mare Nectaris was very distinctly circular beneath more irrefularly shaped Mare Fecunditatis. Tonight the Moon will be passing through the lower portion of M45 and the bright stars of the cluster looked very nice shining like a dipper ready to dip down through the dark portion of the Moon into the liquid illuminated it the bottom of the vessel. In the Galileoscope I could only see stars if I placed the Moon on the edge of the FoV. Virtual Moon Atlas graphic

Peter had asked me to research satellite passes which I dutifully did and put them into the Palm Desktop. But I forgot to sync the desktop with the Palm so I got to TotL without pass information. Tom had the information on the ISS pass but doesn’t use CalSky so didn’t know about the SkyMed 2 flare that preceeded it

Target ISS Visible Pass Constellation Category Satellite Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20100320.2010 EDT Comments     Starts Max. Alt. Ends H A e b a o v v e e n   s   Time 2012:51 EDT 2015:34 EDT 2017:28 EDT Alt. 10° 38° 16° Az. WNW SE SSE Mag -2.2 C a l S k y Time 2010:46 EDT 2015:33 EDT 2017:32 EDT Alt. horizon 38.2° 15.8° Az. 300.0° WNW 222.0° SW/td> 157.8° SSE Mag 2.4 -3.1 -2.5 This was a very long pass. At 2016:12.22 after already having flown through the legs of Orion ISS passed right above Sirius. There is always some discrepancy between Heavens Above and CalSky as to the brightness of the pass. Heavens Above is always more conservative. I think tonight’s pass was closer to the Heavens Above estimate than to that of CalSky, but with all the atmosphere up there I don’t think tonight would be a good night to try to make an evaluation.

Target Venus Constellation Psc Category Planet Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20100320.1855 EDT Comments Object Class Classical Planet Phase Elongation ° % Illuminated % Distance Light Time (from Earth) AU m s Distance (from Sun) AU Angular Size " Magnitude Altitude ° Meridian graphic

Target Mars Constellation Category Planet Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 2010 EDT Comments I picked up Venus by sweeping the horizon where I thought it would be. It was probably about 10 minutes before there was enough contrast for me to see it naked-eye. In the Galileoscope there was obviously more mass there than when looking at a star. Object Class Classical Planet Elongation 16.46° E Distance Light Time (from Earth) 1.62 AU 13m 29s Distance (from Sun) 0.723 AU Angular Size 10.4" Magnitude -3.9 Central Meridian ° Altitude 25.34°

Marcos got the Galileoscope on Mars but I didn’t look.

We didn’t have a lot of public interaction but there was enough to have made it worthwhile.