Interested in nature with a focus on birding and astronomy. Current project is a visual hunt for novae or exploding stars in the Galaxy from New York City. Got hooked on discovering things while birding and found that the hunt for novae in NYC is right up my alley.
Standard abbr. used for the U.S. (Calif. = California).
2-letter postal codes used for countries (CA = Canada).
Standard abbr. used for the U.S. (Calif. = California).
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2-letter postal code used for the U.S. (MO = Missouri) & for countries (NL = Netherlands).
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History of 5th Ave. Red-tailed Hawks |
Attached is the document ‘History of the Fifth Avenue Red-tailed Hawks as of 4/21/06’ produced by Jim Lewis and supplied to me by Marie Winn. I've uploaded the document to my site in order to make it available to the public.
Click on the title in quotes to view the chart ... Enjoy!
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Great Kills Park, Staten Island 20-Jan-2007 |
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The map above makes use of the Google Map Javascript API.
The marker descriptions relate to a recent outing to Staten Island's Great Kills Park on Saturday, January 20th. The experience was completely unexpected. I didn't realize there was a place like this so accessible from Manhattan. Needless to say it was good day!
Here's a link to the original report submitted to eBirds NYC. Public transportation was used to get to the site. We took the Staten Island Ferry to the S78 bus from ramp ‘D’.
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Daylight Venus Two Days in a Row |
Date: 26-Jan-2006 @ 12:30p EST
Magnitude/Size: —4.4 / 57.5"
Alt./Az. (Venus): 28.6° / 209.6°
Elongation: 20.7° West
Illumination/Phase: 6.2% / 151.1°
Alt./Az. (Sun): 30.4° / 185.9°
Conditions for viewing Venus in daylight today were exceptional. It was cold again and the skies were blue and cloudless. Needless to say no one was there in Bryant Park viewing Venus post inferior conjunction while the Sun was up!
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Venus is now west of the Sun. My last sighting of Venus was when it was 7° east of Sol — pre-inferior conjunction.
The recent sighting was made with 8.5x42 binoculars. After spotting it in the bins I found it naked eye. The optically unaided view was relatively easy. The planet was steadily seen without the difficulties I was having when Venus was only 0.7% illuminated.
My attempt to find it first, without binoculars, was frustrated by mentally swapping the elevation of Venus with the Sun's altitude.
Inferior conjunction (i.c.) occurred on the 13th of January 2006. Next i.c. happens on August 17th 2007. At the next i.c. Venus' elevation will be close to 55° as it crosses the meridian. This is approximately 25° higher than the recent pass.
Maybe attempts to see the crescent in August next year will be more fruitful.
Addendum: On the 27th of January the skies were clear again so I went out to get a quick glimpse of Venus. While walking along Madison Ave. I happened to look up to the place I thought Venus should be and there it was! This was around 12:10pm. Venus was 30° high. The altitude of the Sun was 31°.
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Naked Eye: Crescent Venus Redux |
Date: 10-Jan-2006 @ 12:50p EST
Magnitude/Size: —4.1 / 63"
Alt./Az. (Venus): 32.5° / 188.0°
Elongation: 7.0° East
Illumination/Phase: 0.7% / 170.4°
Alt./Az. (Sun): 26.4° / 192.0°
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Conditions for viewing Venus in full daylight, naked eye or with binoculars, were less than ideal. High haze and thin clouds were getting in the way.
At 12:35p I arrived at Bryant Park looking to spot Venus in binoculars and was making little headway. Glare from sunlight illuminating the surrounding haze was a problem.
After 10 minutes I moved to a spot where I could determine the azimuth of the Sun. Where the Sun was spotted Venus would arrive above the same point 14 minutes later and approximately 6 degrees higher. This would help pinpoint where Venus should be.
A location was picked so that the Sun, after a few minutes, would be safely tucked away behind a building reducing the glare near the planet's location. It took around 5 minutes to finally see Venus' thin crescent shining weakly through haze and thin clouds.
Looking at the image above produced at the USNO site I can see why a typically brilliant Venus seemed somewhat subdued. This and the haze combined to make this attempt more difficult than usual. This was no six second sighting!
Question: What is the surface brightness of a crescent this size compared to the surface brightness of a gibbous Venus near opposition where it was a relatively easy object (less that 4° from the Sun) in a pair of 10×70's?
Relocating Venus with the 8.5×42 binoculars after taking some notes wasn't easy even though I knew the exact position. A minute or two was spent glassing the area before recovering it again. The last time Venus was spotted was around 12:55p.
Viewing the planet naked eye was attempted but without success.
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Manhattan North: Naked Eye View |
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Overcast conditions with rain has predominated lately so it was good to see clear skies on Wednesday morning.
On cold northerly winds, around 1 o'clock in the morning, the clouds cleared and I spent some time looking towards the north to see how dim a star I could glimpse.
The image above is approximately 60° x 80°.
The ‘bright’ star between the Guardians of the Pole and the handle of the Big Dipper is Thuban (α Draconis). The star a bit above it was the dimmest star seen. This star (10 Draconis) is magnitude 4.6.
Alcor, a companion to Mizar in the bend of the Big Dipper's handle, was picked up but is too close to the brighter star to make out.
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4 Vesta in Gemini: 30-Dec-2005 |
Position of 4 Vesta on 30 December 2005
I thought I would ‘officially’ add one of the easier asteroids to my short list. Tonight at 8:45p, from my NE (Manhattan north) facing window, I spotted the asteroid with Fujinon 10x70's.
Vesta is currently situated around the ‘waist’ of the eastern twin in the constellation Gemini.
The two images below were generated with ‘Planetarium for the Palm’ (PftP).
The first image is a wide view with a limiting magnitude of 6.0. The asteroid is the rock symbol. The telrad circles on both images are 5.3° & 7.4°.
The second image is a detailed view with a limiting magnitude of 7.5. The brightest star below and to the left of Vesta is δ Geminorum (Wasat).
δ Gem and the 4 bright 5th - 6th mag. stars below it form a ‘kite’ shape. Vesta can be seen as the tail of the kite.
The stars surrounding Vesta form another smaller / dimmer kite. If the δ Gem kite is pointing downwards then the three 7th mag. stars along with Vesta form a kite that points to the left.
Vesta appears, to my eyes, as bright as the star to the right of the Vesta kite. This star is the 6.4 magnitude high proper motion star HIP 34608 or LTT (Lyten Two Tenth's) 11989.
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Naked Eye Attempt: Crescent Venus |
On Tuesday (27-Dec) during lunch break I attempted to see if Venus' crescent would be visible naked eye. It's close to 55 arc seconds across! A few minutes were spent searching. It was found but it was a few degrees higher than expected. This goes to show how critical it is to be looking in the right spot.
Seeing Venus in full daylight is not as difficult as you would think. My latest sightings were made as Venus transited the meridian (azimuth = 180° — due south). Viewing Venus when it is at its highest point during the day may make or break sighting the crescent.
The attempt was made around 1:40pm. The crescent was not spotted and I would like to meet the person that can distinguish Venus' crescent naked eye. This would seem to require a rare level of visual acuity or one may need to view Venus when it is higher than a mere 30+ degrees above the horizon. This would place the planet above the haze.
Click the image below to view a chart of the Pleiades along with a depiction of the relative size of Venus compared to the distance of Pleiades members Pleione and Atlas — separation 5'04" (304 arc seconds). This distance is equivalent to stacking Venus five and a half times end to end. With Venus at nearly 55 arc seconds this works out to ~302 arc seconds.
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Asterism in Auriga: Cheshire Cat |
I decided to write up the details for an asterism I discovered in Auriga back on November 7th 2002.
Discovery details appear at the end of this post.
‘Click for more ...’ below to view two charts. The first is a wide field chart and the second is a close up of the ‘Cheshire Cat’ asterism.
Next time you're out give this asterism a shot. When Auriga is rising the image of the face is upright. Most binoculars will show this object at its best.
This is my first astronomical discovery albeit a minor one but one I'm happy to have made. It is an asterism in the constellation Auriga which resembles a smiling face. I named it ‘Cheshire Cat’ on November 7th, 2002.
Here is the original text from a message #13510 on the Yahoo! Groups list ‘StarryNights’:
Date: Fri Nov 8, 2002 11:57 am
Subject: Asterism in Auriga [7Nov2002]
Last night while looking through Auriga for M36 and M38 with 8.5x42 binoculars I came across a binocular asterism located SSW of M38. It is centered on RA 5h 27.5m / Dec +35 degrees. I viewed it at ~10p EST. The object is made up of 8 stars ranging in magnitude from 5.08 (phi Aur) to 6.86 (TYC 2411-515-1). The entire asterism can fit inside a 2° circle. This asterism looks like a face -- 2 eyes (mags 6.15 & 6.52) and 6 stars for the mouth. I am calling it "Cheshire Cat" ... unless, of course, there is another Cheshire Cat up there. If so then I would call it Frog Face keeping with the alliterative theme. The face is oriented "properly" at this time of night/year.
If this asterism has been named already please let me know if the details exist somewhere.
Also, on the left edge of the "smile" (nearer to M38) is the eclipsing binary star LY Aurigae which varies from 6.7 - 7.4 with a period of 4.002 days.
Let me know what you think.
Ben Cacace
Manhattan, NYC
P.S. - with the binoculars M36 was an easy target. M38 was not an obvious open cluster.
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Paul Couteau's Double Star List |
| Stars Processed | Total Time | % Cleansed |
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| 315 of 744 | 1d 05h 00m | 42.3% |
I'm currently updating Paul Couteau's double star list from his 1978 book ‘Observing Double Stars‘ in order to create a catalog of doubles for use with planetarium programs. The first catalog is going to be for ‘Planetarium for the Palm’ (PftP).
Couteau's catalog contains 744 doubles in order of right ascension. Updating the list involves updating his entries with current information from the Washington Double Star Catalog (WDS).
The process involves confirming the data on Couteau's list and linking this data to an Excel version of the WDS. I make use of SIMBAD and various desktop planetaria (Cartes du Ciel & SkyMap Pro) to help with the confirmation process.
After analyzing 130 stars I've found 5 stars needing an ‘update’ to Couteau's designation. Each star takes approximately 5 minutes to update. Total time for updating the list will take at least 70 hours.
To Couteau's original I will be adding the Aitken Double Star (ADS) number, coordinates for epoch 2000.0 with the addition of a difficulty index for star separations between 1 and 10 arc seconds derived from pLadic for the Palm. The magnitudes, position angles and separations will also be updated.
I'm looking for a way to group the doubles into subsets i.e. by separation or by difficulty index in order to keep the lists short. Some subsets I'm thinking of are:
• doubles visible in a 3" refractor
Viewing a sample of these stars with various optics will help clarify which stars belong with which lists.
Here are some screen shots for PftP with data pulled from the updated Couteau Double Star list. The star shown is 59 Andromedae — separation 16.5" / mag. 6.1 & 6.7. This double should be viewable with at least 10x binoculars.
The 1st screen shot shows the ‘Object Information‘ for 59 And. The 2nd screen shot displays a wide-field star chart highlighting the target star.
From ‘Observing Double Stars’ by P. Couteau:
Retain for updated database.
Standard abbr. used for the U.S. (Del. = Delaware). 2-letter postal codes used for countries (DE = Germany).
