I have a holiday weekend, lots of blood for the skeeters, the girls are dressed, the Galilean satellites await, a good box of cigars, Jamieson for warmth, and the clock is ticking...
You never forget your first girl and this is her. She's got more bubbles than a strip bar on Mardi Gras.
My second love was truly a Wild one. She took me to the stars.
I'm not too sure about this one- the new girl in town. We've only known each other for a few years.
This weekend will be the best weather window Jersey has had in months and Jupiter is finally out.
I have calculated UTC timings for the Jovian moons eclipses, occulations, and transits. Obtuse stuff. I'm not sure how the speed of light will effect my calcs. With Jupiter in opposition I think I may be 8 or 16 minutes off. It is currently about 2.9 AU away according to my calculations. My hope is to establish UTC by timing multiple Jovian events and running a best fit regression.
I have been determining the meridian by observations on Polaris in the hour or so every morning I have before work.
I'm hoping to squeeze in some latitude work tomorrow and saturday nights.
Next is longitude, if I can get my formulae to work.
Nothing but sky....and that darn tree, where's my chainsaw?
You may have inspired me to breakout my telescope.
Have you tried telling time by the moons of Jupiter? With a little practice you can tell time to the nearest second or two. The big problem these days is finding an ephemeris that gives time to the second. Most now cut the times off at the minute.
I calculated the events with the help of Meeus and the Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac in a spreadsheet.
I have no way of knowing how well I have done or how the distance to Jupiter will effect the numbers until I start observing. I can correct for the speed of light once I see any error in the range of 8 or 16 minutes though.
Doubt I got it right on the first try, but we'll see...
Dang...this makes my Sweet 16 look like a teen on a date...or like a TZero who quivered when you got close...
DDSM
(if it ain't green it shouldn't be seen)
Actually the way to tell time with Jupiter's moons is to observe the occultations - that is their disappearance behind Jupiter. Of course that presents some logistical problems of observing when the event happens.
But if you can observe one (especially IO) it will look much like the sun setting over the ocean. It keeps going down and down and then "blinks" out. And that "blink" time is what the ephemerides are set for (so you don't need to worry about speed of light). You can look at ephemerides that are 250 years old and they will have those times noted to the second.
I have actually observed one occultation at the "blink" moment and it does work. However, I'm not sure any of your scopes are quite powerful enough to effectively observe because you really need about 100X to get the full effect.
Love my T-0
It is a sweet little instrument and the best "compass" ever made.
Those are some of the keenest toys I have ever seen!
When are you going to add a T-4 to your collection?
Looks like a fun weekend, Scott. Here is a pdf with pictures from the Astronomic Azimuth class at NGS Corbin last week...
Astro Azimuth class September 2011
I am about to finish my astro pier, soon hope to be able to get out regularly to get some practice.
About 13-14 years ago while I was still at the University of New Orleans, I had a visitor from the local Pontchartrain Astronomy Society. The fellow had just purchased a brand-new (U.S. Surplus) T-4 still in its wrapping paper, and wanted some pointers about how to go about using the instrument for his hobby, Observing Occultations. I helped him for a few hours, he went off all happy, and I have never heard from the fellow since.
He informed me that there is an international society of amateurs that do occultation observations year-round.
FYI.
