It was cool and the forecast was for clear skies so Peter and I met up at TotL shortly after sunset.
I started out at TotLe and got Venus and Spica and then Saturn. Seen from that perspective it is a really long way from Arcturus down to Spica.
I moved over to TotL when Venus was about to set into the trees and met Peter there. He had his TelePort 10 and I spent more time looking through it than I did my own scope. I was not getting enough contrast out of my scope to find anything that wasn't really bright.
They were testing the World Trade Center towers of light in preparation for next weekend's festivities so they were a bit of a problem as the stars of Scorpius moved through them.
Around about 2200 three college-age guys arrived and asked if we were out to see the rocket launch. Neither of us know anything about it. I don't know how it hadn't hit any of the news outlets I use as much noise as NASA seems to have been making about its east coast visibility. Had I had access to this information I probably would have opted for going to Battery Park and not had as good a view as we had from TotL, it certainly would have been different. I was watching the sky over toward Columbus Circle where the Shuttle launches have come from when I heard a Wow! And looking east further say a "comet" rising out of the skyline over Park Ave. it was very bright with a long tail of glowing orange gas. It tracked up the east side and flamed out around the SSE. I stopped looking and I heard Peter say something and when I looked again the next stage had ignited leaving a puff of smoke where it had occurred. We continued to track it until it set into the trees in the SE. It probably wasn't visible for much more than a minute. If it hadn't been for those guys showing up and mentioning it we might have missed it altogether and certainly would not have known what we were seeing it we had happened to have seen it. The launch was from Wallops so we will know where to look should anything similar happen again. (Next launch scheduled for 17Sep2013 but don't know what time yet)
news storyNASA Launch profile video
YouTube video of LADEE over Manhattan from New Jersey
