17 July 2011

Observing Location	Bryant Park
Observational Period	0800-0830 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Light Haze Clear Temperature 72° F Wind Calm Wind Chill Effect Heat Index 72° F Humidity 73% Barometric Pressure 30.18" Hg 1 KNYC METAR 171151Z AUTO VRB03KT 10SM CLR 23/18 A3020 RMK AO2 SLP218 T02280178 10244 20222 51008 TSNO Feels Like mild Transparency Good Seeing II
Instruments	Celestron C70 Mini Mak - Charlie Celestron stock 20x-75x zoom eyepiece Kendrick #6004 filter cell with Baader AstroSolar filter film Helio-Pod Celestron tabletop tripod
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Session Objective	sunspot count ISS across disk of Sun

Target ISS crosses the disk of the Sun Constellation Gem Category Satellite Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20110717.0809 EDT Time 0809:38.48 EDT Separation 0.205° Position Angle 162.8° Transit duration 0.86s Angular diameter 34.5" size=109.0m x 73.0m x 27.5m Satellite at Azimuth 83.9° E Altitude 26.1° Distance 801.9 km In a clock-face concept, the satellite will seem to move toward 7:47 Angular Velocity 22.9'/s CalSky graphics Comments When I woke up there were no shadows or bright light in my little sliver of sky so I figured it was cloudy enough that I wouldn't have a chance of seeing a shadow pass behind the clouds. I checked the visible and IR satellite imagery in WeatherBug and they both showed clouds extending well to the east so I didn't hurry getting out of bed. Then all of a sudden the sun appeared. I was thinking the pass wasn't until 38 or 48 minutes past the hour so didn't hurry getting out of the apartment. When I got to the first floor I remembered that I had forgotten to add an event alarm to my Palm and had to ride the elevator back up to check the time to set the alarm at the right time. That is when I discovered that I had 10 minutes to get to the park and get set up. I made it in the nick of time and shortly after my wrist watch alarm went off I thought I saw something whispy with a dragonfly shape appear on the Sun's disk. The two occurrences were in the right relative positions. But I think they were too big to have been the ISS.

Target Sunspots Constellation Gem Category Solar Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20110717.0810 EDT Distance Light Time 1.02 AU 8m 27s Angular Size 31' 31.4" Altitude 26° 10' Heliographic Latitude (B0) 4.48° Heliographic Longitude (L0) 174.70° Parallactic Angle (P) 4.33° Carrington rotation number (CR) 2112 3D Sun graphic Comments Initially I picked up the three most prominent groups and even saw indications of smaller spots next to the primary spot. I was not able to detect penumbra around any of the spots at any magnification. Later I located the group I labeled as 4 in my diagram, which appeared as a smudge. I did not see group 1256.   Groups Spots R North 2 3 23 South 2 3 23 Total 4 6 46 NASA Sunspot Number 75 R = (Groups * 10) + Spots) Group 1250 (1) Heliographic Latitude -17° Heliographic Longitude 127° Carrington rotation number (CR) 2112 Mcintosh System Axx Helio graphic Unnumbered Group (2) Heliographic Latitude 35° Heliographic Longitude 125° Carrington rotation number (CR) 2112 Mcintosh System Axo Helio graphic Group 1251 (3) Heliographic Latitude 20° Heliographic Longitude 172° Carrington rotation number (CR) 2112 Mcintosh System Axx Helio graphic Group 1254 (4) Heliographic Latitude -30° Heliographic Longitude 194° Carrington rotation number (CR) 2112 Mcintosh System Axo Helio graphic I performed a count based on the images below and came up with a Sunspot Number of 73. SOHO graphics from SWx Monitor Unnumbered Group, Group 1250 and Group 1250 (clockwise from top) Group 1251, Group 1256 and Group 1254 (top to bottom)