| Observing Location | BP | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Observational Period | 1640-1705 EDT | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Atmospheric Conditions |
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| Instruments | Celestron C70 Mini Mak spotting scope- Charlie
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| Observing Party | Charlie Ridgway |
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| Observing Location | TotL | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Observational Period | 2045-2300 EDT | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Atmospheric Conditions |
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| Instruments | Celestron c70 Mini Mak spotting scope
Celestron Outland 8x42 binocular Planetarium for Palm on Tungsten|T3 Empire Magnetic Polycast Protractor | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Observing Party | Charlie Ridgway |
Lost without a moonthe night sky, And the moon that used to shine Brighter than any star, The moon that used to bring to me This beautiful light, For this moon used to lighten up My heart, Now that this moon is gone I must rely on the stars to bring me light, This moon left me alone, alone to suffer and think empty thoughts, And now i know that I am lost, Oh where has this moon gone? Oscar Aceves |
The Moon was New this afternoon at 1440 EDT so the sky should have been at its darkest. As Scorpius moved west I was able to see stars low over the southern skyline.
The only objective I had for this session was to try to see Vesta, which is currently at opposition so at its brightest but doesn't clear the treetops until around 2200 EDT.
Since it was very hot today, the start of another heat wave, and I wasn't going after anything in particular I traveled light. Walking past the McGraw-Hill building the thermometer there read 90&def;F although the Central Park weather station was only reporting 83°F. It was uncomfortable making the walk whatever the temperature was.
I was able to get several targets into the eyepiece but it isn't easy. My tripod isn't tall enough to get the eyepiece at a convenient height for pointing at anything much above 30° altitude which doesn't leave many targets. The easiest way for me to find anything is to figure out where it is relative to the horizon, point at that spot on the horizon, then look up the object's altitude in Planetarium and elevate the scope using my protractor. From there I have to sweep the neighborhood until I find the object or something I can identify so I can start a star hop. Using the binocular to identify the major stars of Capricornus I was able to star hop to Vesta with the Mini Mak.
A fair number of people stopped to take a look early in the evening so I kept the scope pointed at Saturn, which is the only thing in the sky that I can find with that scope that is worth looking at. Later, after foot traffic subsided I pointed at
- Aldeberan
- the Sting of Sco
- Porrima
Around 2200 EDT, after I was by myself, I moved over to TOTLW to search for (4) Vesta.
By 2300 EDT the sky had filled with small puffy clouds and it looked like it was heading towards overcast so I packed up and walked the West Drive out of the park. Along the way at 2320 EDT down near Sheep Meadow the sky was perfectly clear and remained so through the rest of my walk home.
