12 November 2012

While observing last night I counted the Pleiades as a way of judging transparency. On a good night I generally count at least five and sometimes six stars but last night I only counted four. And although I know the names of most of the brighter stars I don't know which star goes with which name. So I decided to design a table that I can use to check off which of the stars I can see based on their relative positions. In the process I found that 60% of the bright stars in the cluster are double stars and that, with the exception of Merope, they are all the brightest stars.

		Asterope 5.76
Pleioe 5.05		Sterope 6.44
Atlas 3.63 & 6.63
	Alcyone 2.86 & 6.29	Maia 3.88 & 3.88	Taygeta 4.30 & 8.10
			Celaeno 5.46 & 7.46
	Merope 4.17	Electra 3.71 & 5.71

When ultimately used the chart will be uncolored except for those stars which were seen.

11 November 2012

Since the Northern Taurids meteors are supposed to peak at 2300 EST tonight I went out to observe meteors again tonight. I may have seen three but I suspect that what I saw was not meteors. These were not the in your face, look at me - I'm a meteor meteors. On all three occasions what I saw was in downtown Taurus and always heading in the same direction. They were short and faint. Normally I would write this off to light bouncing off my glasses but since these sightings were made during three different hours and Taurus had moved during that timeframe it seems unlikely that street lights would cause reflections in the same area of the sky even though my head was tipped up at different angles. So I am going to call them possible but unconfirmed meteors.

hh / mm	00-29	30-59
19	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
20	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
21	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 1 ? 0 0 0
22	1 ? 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
23	1 ? 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Legend	NE N NW E Total W SE S SW

Southern Taurids Meteors	2 ?
Northern Taurids Meteors	1 ?
other meteors	0
Total Meteors Observed	3 ?

10 November 2012

7Nov2012 Nor'easter Summary

9 November 2012

I went up to TotL tonight specifically to watch for meteors. We are between the peaks of the Southern Taurids meteors and the Northern Taurids meteors so I thought I might have a chance of seeing a late Southern Taurid or an early Northern Taurid, or another early Leonid.

Meteor Stream	Active Dates	Peak	ZHR	Source
Orionids	15-29Oct	21Oct 0400 UT	20	Halley's Comet
Southern Taurids	17Sep-27Nov	5Nov 0500 UT	10	Comet Encke
Northern Taurids	12Oct-2Dec	12Nov 0400 UT	15	Comet Encke
Leonids	13-20Nov	17Nov 0800 UT	20	Comet Temple-Tuttle

hh / mm	00-29	30-59
19	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
20	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
21	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
22	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
23	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Legend	NE N NW E Total W SE S SW

Southern Taurids Meteors	0
Northern Taurids Meteors	0
other meteors	0
Total Meteors Observed	0

I had thought about traveling light with just extra clothes, binocular, and folding chair but since I didn't know if Peter would be going out I also took the Min Mak and tripod so I could get a good look at Jupiter. I am glad that I did. Io had just finished a transit when Jupiter rose above the trees at 1930 and when I left at 2400 Europa was preparing to be occulted by the planet so they appeared to be rotating the planet in opposite directions. Seeing was very good tonight which resulted in the bands not fading and also being visible over most of the diameter of the planet.

1930 EST
2030 EST
2130 EST
2230 EST
2330 EST

I did a lot better on judging my clothing needs tonight. My feet and hands were cold and my upper arms a little cold but my core was only a little cool. I think I will be in good shape once I dig the winter clothes out of storage and have the electric vest.

5 November 2012

. . . if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile. The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible . . . Ralph Waldo Emerson from Nature

I observed tonight from TotL

Immediately on entering the park I noticed more twigs on the grass than I normal see.  Walking north to TotL I didn't notice much storm impact until I got to The Great Lawn.  Along the east side of the lawn there was a large pile of tree(s) ready to be hauled away.

I observed for a couple of hours from TotL but had underestimated my clothing needs again.  The forecast was for 1% cloud cover but when I arrived the good part of he sky was covered with clouds.  They blew out quickly though and I was left with a clear but a bit hazy sky that radiated a lot of heat.  I had worn a cotton/wool shirt that I have found to be comfortable when the temperature starts to drop at home and my waterproof breathable rain jacket and had gotten to TotL without overheating.  I had packed a midweight fiber pile jacket that I put on under the rain jacket as soon as I arrived but needed more clothes up top.  It seems to be in my upper arms that I feel the cold the most.  I am going to have to dig in the closet and dig out the heavy weight clothes.

Looking down due south I could see a couple of stars to the right of Fomolhaut and when I got my binocular on them I could see fainter stars between them and streaming off below the horizon so figured I must be looking at something named.  Checking in SkySafari I found that I was looking at the right side of Pisces Austrinus and the top part of Grus.  I then located all the major stars of PsA and that portion of Gru that was above the horizon.

Looking to the NNE I saw something faint just above the trees that I suspected was the Pleiades and found I was right.  They looked nice in the binocular but are too big to fit in the telescope.  I started ruminating on their name: the Seven Sisters.  We only see six prominent stars today but there is speculation that when they got that moniker there were seven stars.  But according to the mythology two of those stars, Atlas and Pleione, were the parents of the sisters (Atlas was the father and Pleione the mother).  So that means that even if there were seven bright stars there at one time only five of them could have been siblings.  So why are they called the Seven Sisters.

Jupiter eventually broke over the trees.  Three moons were strung out trailing the planet and one leading it.  They were fairly evenly spaced and all on the same plane.  I could see banding on the planet that was most prominent on the leading edge and faded past the meridian.

At about 2018 a bright meteor appeared between the fish hook of Per and Capella.  Based on my remembrance of observed Iridium flares I am estimating that it was around mag. -6, it was much brighter than Jupiter (-2.8).  It's tail was short and fat and had a green or blue tinge on it's upper edge.  The track was from west to east and descending.  The impression was that it was nearby.  The only streams that are currently active are the Leonids and the Northern Taurids, neither of which could emit a meteor on the observed trajectory.  The  Leonids are the next stream to become active in a week (peaking on the morning of Sunday, 18Nov) and the radiant's location makes it the likely origin of this meteor.  The only information I have on the stream is that it is dust Cromwell Comet Temple-Tuttle and that he ZHR is variable.  If this meteor is characteristic of the upcoming stream it will be worth watching for.

Around 2045 I decided to move down to TPO.  From there I would get an earlier view of the Moon, which was scheduled to wake up at 2222.  Walking around the west side of the Lawn I found that he Robin dormitory tree had been uprooted and had taken out a large section of Lawn perimeter fence.  All that is left is a few feet of it's base and the roots sticking up out of the ground.  Further south I found an area where several trees had been uprooted.  At least one of them had fallen across the path and demolished a section of benches.  At the bottom of the Lawn I met a parkie who asked if the bright star was a planet and went with me to TPO to look at Jupiter.    In talking with him it appears that the Great Lawn is the most severely impacted portion of he park although he hasn't been into the Rambles yet.  He says that the pile of trees I saw on the east side is what is left of three trees that fell on and flattened the batting cage of ballfield #4.  It looks like around a dozen major trees were toppled around the Great Lawn, more on the west side than on the east.  He said that they had clocked winds of 120 mph on the lawn (no information on how they did that) and the weather station at Belvedere Castle overlooking the Lawn only had a peak gust of less than 90 mph.

By 2200 I was chilled enough that it wasn't worth standing there for another hour to see the Moon rise.  On my way south I noticed several times that the area I was walking through seemed to be more open than it used to be.  I couldn't identify and areas where a tree was obviously missing so don't know if something was blown down or if it is just that the leaves have been blown off the trees.  In the Mall the pavement on the west side of he walk was covered with pulverized vegetation that smelled like sawdust but there were no gaps visible in the columns of trees or crushed fences so it might just have been crushed leaves.  The fence on he other side of the walk had about 4" of leaves piled up against it's base.

And they have changed the traffic pattern in he park again.  Now they have it down to one vehicle lane, three cycle lanes and two pedestrian lanes.  The cycle lane is marked off for two lanes of cyclists and one lane for the kamikazes.  In aggregate they are only as wide as one traffic lane.  The pedestrian lanes are very wide, one traffic lane each, and are marked off for northbound and southbound runners.

With all the traffic lanes that have been removed from motor vehicle service lately this is going to be a horrendous holiday season.

4 November 2012

It was just 0159 but now it is 0100. Today we switch from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time.
That means that at 0200 we turn the clocks back one hour to 0100.
And in another hour it will be 0200 so we should turn the clocks back to 0100 then.
And in another hour it will be 0200 so we should turn the clocks back to 0100 then.
And in another hour . . .
Think of how much money will be saved by not having to buy holiday gifts. The greeting card and florist industries will be bankrupt.

The MacBook and iPad are set up to strike ships bells on the hour and half hour but neither of them struck any bells at 0200/0100. The MacBook also announces the time on the hour and it was silent at 0200/0100. The MacBook, which gets its time from an NTS, reported the time as 0100 at 0200. The iPad is supposed to get its time from an NTS but runs 20-30 minutes fast when it does so I had already manually set the time back to 0000 at 0100. My digital wall clock/weather station that is supposed to get the correct time via radio signals, but not from WWV, says it is 0200. And this blog post, which was published at 0213/0113 was tagged with the new time. I wonder what happened to my End of the World countdown timer over there on the right. Maybe we have an hour longer to live now.

At the new 0130 neither the MacBook nor the iPad struck ships bells and the wall clock/weather station says it is 0230.

I checked the MacBook and iPad and the ships bells and time announcement settings look fine. By the new 0156 the wall clock/weather station had adjusted itself to the new time. At the new 0200 the MacBook struck four bells but the iPad only struck two. It appears that even though the iPad is set for manual time configuration it still knows to adjust the time for DST/ST so I had to go in and set the time forward by an hour.

I have had to reset the clocks on 15 devices that do not connect to an NTS and I know of at least one more that still needs to be reset but that is an Arduino so I should be able to figure out how to have it check the time from the attached GPS unit and reset itself as necessary. Should being the operative word there.

---

So I am standing there washing dishes, which is pretty much a mindless task, and my mind, not having much else to to, begins to wander. It only wanders as far back as to early this morning when we switched out time reference from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time when it became engaged. And I begin thinking: what happened to the stars when we set the clocks back. The conventional wisdom is that there is no change in their motion. But who among us has empirical evidence that that is a fact. I, for one, have never made that observation. I know that if I had gone out and observed the stars at 2200 last night [3Nov2012] and had gone out to observe them again just now [2200 4Nov2012] they would be in very different locations. Far different than what my past experience with night to night star position change would lead me to anticipate. So did the stars jump when we changed the clocks. I propose to rectify that deficit in my knowledge by going out to observe the sky at the moment of the next clock change, weather permitting, if I remember. I am sure that the stars will continue to rotate in their stately motion as they have for countless millennia. But then I myself have no empirical evidence that that has taken place either, or even that there have even been countless millennia.

1 November 2010

Hurricane Sandy: What the storm looked like

This data is for the Central Park automated weather station. That station usually gets tired and stops reporting wind data several times a day so there are several gaps in the wind data that do not represent periods of no wind. That station also seems to have a very optimistic view with regard to cloud cover.

25Oct2012
26Oct2012
27Oct2012
28Oct2012
29Oct2012
30Oct2012
31Oct2012