“Krider's” Red-tailed Hawk Links: 7-Aug-2007

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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!

Adirondack Birding Using Google Map API

A new site has been added to the left sidebar under ‘Birding Sites’. After searching for maps similar to the one I developed yesterday I came across a very nice implementation of a birding related Google Map API.

The site is called Birding in the Adirondacks from visitadironacks.com. To view the map click ‘Search by Map’ at the birding site.

The map is draggable and zoomable. There's an additional feature to search for birds using drop down lists. The bird chosen will filter the markers to those featuring the bird in question.

Clicking on any of the map markers will display the name of the location with an option to link to additional site details with driving directions.

Enjoy!

Life Lists and Double Stars

Lately I've been busy with a few ‘keyboard projects’. One involves retooling all posts on my blog to fit in with the new format. The changes mainly deal with colors, table sizes and the addition of labels. So far 2006 is complete which includes 50 out of 89 posts. I'm currently working on the remaining 39 posts for 2005.

Another project involves creating a ‘life list’ of all birds species I've seen to date. I've never known what this number was and have tried to get the process rolling but didn't have the proper software to get the job done right. It's a fairly involved process when you want to know where, when and how many birds were seen.

Recently I tested out eBird, which is run by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, and feel it has enough features to warrant placing all of my birding observations there. A side benefit will be to have this information pooled with others to spot population trends.

I'm adding the most recent sightings first and have completed 15 daily checklists for a current total of 90 species.

The compilation of Couteau's double star list is still in on-going. 315 of his list of 744 stars have been added to the database. The data is cleaned up and brought up to date plus additional information is being added for each star. Processing each takes from 4 to 10 minutes apiece.

Object List: 2,000 Asteroids (PftP)

Observation after creating object list: Juno at mag. 7.6 was spotted on 18-Dec in binoculars to double check my conversions of the elements for ‘Planetarium for the Palm’ (PftP). The charting of Juno was off by 11'44". The orbital elements for Juno supplied by A. Hofer (developer of Planetarium for the Palm) matched the location of Juno closely as seen in a mounted pair of Fujinon 10x70's. Unfortunately the previous elements I created were off by a ½ day. An updated file containing 2,000 asteroids with corrected & tested elements is now available below.

Since the PDA program ‘Planetarium for the Palm’ (PftP) didn't have the bright asteroid Vesta in its database I decided to add it. On my way to resolving this issue I found some recently updated orbital elements at ‘Computer Aided Astronomy’ (CA2). The Julian Date for the elements are 2453700 — November 26th, 2005.

Needless to say I translated the first 2,000 asteroids for PftP and would like to share the file. I've tested the results for 60 of the asteroids by comparing them with the desktop planetarium program ‘SkyMap Pro’ and results are spot on.

The zip file below holds a file containing all 2,000 asteroids. I will be using the file to select the brighter asteroids that are not currently on the PDA program.

Click on filename to download or alternate click (i.e. right click for righties) and ‘Save Link As...’

FILENAME	DESCRIPTION
PftP_Asteroids {1-2000}.zip	2,000 Asteroids (20-Dec-2005)

Paul Couteau's Double Star List

Stars Processed	Total Time	% Cleansed
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
• doubles visible with mounted binoculars
• doubles visible with a 10" reflector

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.

Screen Shots from Planetarium for the Palm

From ‘Observing Double Stars’ by P. Couteau:

Retain for updated database.
Verify with Washington Double Star (WDS) Catalog.
Override with WDS details.
Additions to Couteau's list.

• Running numbers from 1 to 744
• Name of double star pair
• Bayer / Flamsteed name
• Coordinates for equinox 1950
• Visual magnitudes of the components
• Position angles to the nearest degree
• Separations
• The corresponding year
• Difficulty Index
• Aitken Double Star (ADS) number
• Constellation
• Distance in light years