Remembering Norman Edmund
© Norman Sperling, January 25, 2012
Norman W. Edmund founded Edmund Scientific Company on a card table in his home in 1942. When he retired in the mid-1970s, it had over 200 employees. He died at the age of 95 last week in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to which he had retired.
I vividly remember devouring every new issue of the Edmund catalog while I was growing up in the 1950s and '60s. The catalog always had a lot of "tutorial" segments - several paragraphs each, usually with diagrams, so the users could understand the technicalities of the equipment. They weren't particularly slanted toward Edmund products, and they taught a great many people a lot about their hobby and its hardware. Only a few catalogs (like Orion) continue to do that, though it's absolutely the best policy and should be fostered. Tutorials are NOT waste-space, and they foster brand loyalty: I trust the company that makes the effort to tell me the straight information.
I met Norm several times in the 1970s, while I consulted for his son Robert. In those years Norm kept his desk in the main office, kept a bunch of neat science-thingies around, and had appropriate input. But I also sensed that he kept his distance from daily operations, carefully avoiding stepping on toes.
What always impressed me was how nice he was. Plain, no affectations, no flaunting. And he passed all that on to the rest of his family, several of whom I met. They're all nice. They treat people well. They treated me very well. It wasn't just a put-on performance, it was genuine.
To Norman and Robert, "treating people nicely" is business policy as well as personal. While it's true that being nice to people is good customer service and good business, I think they are nice to people simply because they think that is the right way to be. I learned a lot from that.
They didn't outsource service. Callers were transferred to people who knew the technicalities they needed. Customers could get replacements and refunds.
Robert once told me "Customers will always complain. They'll complain about price, or they'll complain about quality. As long as I'm president, they aren't going to complain about quality." Which is to say, the stuff he designed, produced, and marketed would actually work well. And it did. Sure, humans aren't perfect and hardware isn't perfect, but when problems cropped up, the company tried hard to fix them, and usually succeeded.
Norman Edmund was well-respected as a leader in science business, an advocate of science education, a business leader of Greater Philadelphia, an expert fisherman, and a gentleman who "lived long and prospered". I'm really glad I knew him.
My Students, Yo Mama, and Chuck Norris
© Norman Sperling, December 22, 2011
I finally finished finals, that mad dash to pay careful attention to 60 handwritten exams in a little over 5 days. As usual, most of my students learned their material well. But the ~350 pages also harbored a few bloopers:
* Quasi-Stellar Radio Sources ... were discovered after World War II by radiologists.
* Cepheids are an example of a galaxy cluster that experiences meteor showers.
* Mars' atmosphere is too thin for gravity to hold Hydrogen to the surface. That is why we are on Earth.
* Now the Earth has a carbon atmosphere. Since there was life, it changed carbon into oxygen and nitrogen.
* A cluster of galaxies form gobular clusters. A a cluster of gobular clusters form the Universe.
...:::...
For the last 2 years, I've asked my classes to regard the extremes of astronomy in current-culture terms, by turning them into "Yo Mama" and "Chuck Norris" jokes. Their offerings:
in orbital mechanics:
* Yo Mama's so fat that when we played baseball, the ball got stuck orbiting her.
* Yo Mama's so fat that she has other fat mamas orbiting around her.
* Yo Mama's so fat that she has a Roche Limit.
* Yo Mama's so fat that she has rings of her own.
* Ancients thought the Earth was the center of the Universe. They were close: Yo Mama's so fat that the whole Universe orbits her.
in Cratering:
* The real reason for impact craters is that Chuck Norris uses the solar system as his punching bag.
on the H-R Diagram:
* Yo Mama's so fat that she's spectral type W.
in black holes:
* Yo Mama's so fat that she caused a singularity and created a black hole.
* Yo Mama's so fat that she would consume a singularity.
* Yo Mama's so fat that when she throws up, she makes a white hole.
* A black hole is the region of a singularity from which nothing can escape, not even light ... except for Chuck Norris.
* Chuck Norris uses worm holes to get to work.
in the Milky Way:
* That's not actually a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, that's just where Chuck Norris sets his barbells: right next to Yo Mama.
in Cosmology:
* although it is known how hydrogen, the stars and planets, and even how *we* were formed, it is still unknown how Chuck Norris was formed.
* Creation occurred when Chuck Norris round-house kicked in a vacuum, creating the Big Bang.
* The Universe exists so that Chuck Norris can exist.
* As long as Chuck Norris allows the Universe to function, we will continue to make new discoveries every day.
Going, Going, Gone
© Norman Sperling, December 12, 2011
The total lunar eclipse on December 10th gave me an experience I have only had once before, even though this was not an especially dark eclipse as seen from the Pacific and Asia.
On December 30, 1963, the eclipsed Moon practically disappeared. From the roof of my apartment house in Silver Spring, Maryland, I could see stars as dim as 5th magnitude, but the Moon turned that dark, and I had trouble spotting it with my naked eye. Through the telescope the Moon was a dark and featureless grey-blue disc.
I watched the December 10, 2011, eclipse from San Mateo, California, through a slightly hazy sky. While most of the Moon looked pretty dark about 6:20 AM, the southern fringe was quite noticeably bright. The northern edge was almost invisible, and the area in between graduated in dull reds. Within a few minutes, the lighting pattern changed quite noticeably (in total lunar eclipses, the tints always change every few minutes), with the Moon fading appreciably in the gathering dawn. The sky didn't look all that bright, but the Moon was now so dim that it was harder and harder to notice much about it. By 6:37, only the slightly-bright lower-left edge could still be found, fading like the grin of a Cheshire cat. By 6:42, I couldn't even see that any more. The sky was brightening so much that the Moon was no longer visible with the unaided eye. The Full Moon disappeared from me again!
Telescope Triplets
© Norman Sperling, November 25, 2011
For decades, I have been proclaiming that focal ratio is one of the most important characteristics in choosing a telescope. Most authorities tout aperture instead. But none of us has ever conducted a true visual test, isolating the variables of focal ratio, aperture, and eyepieces.
I propose that 3 triplets of Newtonian telescopes be made to demonstrate the effects of focal ratio, aperture, and eyepiece. They can be used for classes and at star parties to teach about the properties of the telescopes themselves. Mount each triplet so that viewers can easily shift among all 3 eyepieces to instantly compare views.
The "focal ratio" triplet should consist of 3 telescopes, all with the same aperture and eyepiece. Make one f/5, another f/10, and another f/20. For this triplet, I think 3-inch (76 mm) apertures are best: even the f/20 would be a manageable 5 feet (1.52 m) long. Users will see that Jupiter looks best at f/20, and the Great Andromeda Galaxy best at f/5. Trying this battery of telescopes on the sky's enormous variety of targets will probably reveal very few objects that look best at f/10.
A second application of this same telescope set will use different eyepieces that all result in the same magnification: a long eyepiece on the long scope, a short eyepieces on the short scope, and a middling eyepiece on the middling scope. How different are the views of different targets?
The "aperture" triplet should consist of 3 telescopes, all with the same focal length (perhaps 4 feet = 1.22 m) and eyepiece. Make one 3 inches (76 mm) aperture, the second 6 inches (152 mm), and the third 12 inches (304 mm). Users may be surprised how much even the 3-inch shows.
The "eyepiece" triplet should consist of 3 identical middling telescopes, perhaps 4-inch (102 mm) f/8. Insert eyepieces of equal focal length but different optical designs (such as Huygens versus orthoscopic versus Nagler). A second application of this same telescope array will use eyepieces of equal design but different focal lengths (perhaps Plossls of 6 mm, 12 mm, and 25 mm ...).
Make each triplet so the scopes, and their eyepieces, can also swivel to allow 2, or even 3, different people to watch through one of the scopes at a time. This is because, perhaps once a decade, some sky event brings out throngs, and the host needs to move a whole lot of eyeballs through the scopes in minimal time.
These triplets could be built by amateur-telescope-making workshops, such as several clubs run, or perhaps by a veteran scope-maker. Most are quite small, only one is large. Try hard to hold all but one factor constant so they really test that single variable.
A whole metropolitan area probably needs only one set. Telescope triplets can be passed around among nearby colleges, astronomy clubs, planetaria, etc., to use at their classes, star parties, and member-events.
The Metric Light Year
© Norman Sperling, October 24, 2011
My friend John Westfall, an astronomer and geographer, points out that astronomy uses several non-metric units, most prominently the "light year". Officially, that's the distance that a beam of light travels, at the speed of light, in a year's time. In metric units, that's 9,460,730,472,580.8 km (about 9.5 Pm), according to Wikipedia.
While the light year is more than 5% shorter than 10^16 meters, no celestial object more than 20 light years away has its distance known within 5%. Uncertainties out there begin at 15% and quickly grow worse than 25%.
So, as far as anyone can measure, there is no difference between "100 light years" and "10^18 meters". Let's call 10^16 meters a "metric light year".
Great Guidebooks for Scientific Travelers
Reviewed and © by Norman Sperling, October 3, 2011
Duane S. Nickell: Guidebook for the Scientific Traveler: Visiting Physics and Chemistry Sites Across America. Rutgers U. Press 2010. Paperback $19.95. 978-0-8135-4730-5.
and Guidebook for the Scientific Traveler: Visiting Astronomy and Space Exploration Sites Across America. Rutgers U. Press 2008. Paperback $21.95. 978-0-8135-4374-1.
Most of the travel books I've filtered through in planning my Great Science Trek specialize in factories, oddities, architecture, history, pop culture, technology, and politics. Travel books for scientists are rare - just a few on geology and observatories. Do you know any others? Duane S. Nickell is starting a series to fill this niche. Rutgers University Press has set up "The Scientific Traveler" series, and Nickell has written its first 2 volumes.
Each chapter begins with a gem-quality tutorial. To understand gigantic particle accelerators, start with the essay on particle physics. To get why you should examine meteorite collections, start with the essay on meteorites.
Taking advantage of his modern, tech-savvy audience, Nickell wastes no space on maps or directions. He gives addresses, phone numbers, and websites, from which visitors can get all they need. He cites admission fees as of presstime, which everybody knows can change.
Nickell found a whole lot of chemistry places I'd never heard of, and points out aspects of astronomy and physics places that I never thought of - such as rooms where important things occurred on the campus where I teach (certainly not my room). He has chapters on the scientists themselves plus their universities, labs, accelerators, museums, and monuments. "Chemicals in Industry", for example, features places that make glass, borax, paper, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, toothpaste, beer, and whiskey.
Some kinds of technology lie in plain sight but go uninterpreted. Wind farms, for example, occupy impressive stretches of hills and deserts, but none has a visitor center or even a gift counter. A display of varieties of windmills, a demonstration of a generator, and a few relevant models and publications for sale, would make a respectable roadside stop. Other energy forms with sites-to-see include oil, coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, and solar.
Astronomers flock to places with the darkest skies, and buy up all the land to prevent disturbing lights from encroaching. Several such astronomy villages have sprung up. I can only think of one other place where followers of a science build their vacation homes together: Scientist's Cliffs, Maryland. Are there others?
The books are well-produced, well-illustrated, and reasonably priced. The rare misspellings won't cause any problems. But use an actual map rather than trust a statement like "15 miles southeast" because it might not be southeast.
Science people should consult these both for novel day-trips in their own areas, and for sights to visit while traveling. I tallied the listings I've visited so far: 36 of 57 in the Astronomy/Space volume, but only 25 of 92 in Physics/Chemistry. I'm going to enjoy some more sights!
Classic Science Magazines Available in Long Sets
© Norman Sperling, September 18, 2011
In the 1970s and 80s I was probably the biggest dealer in Sky & Telescope back issues, and bought and sold a good number of related magazines, too. I continue to sell quite a number of old and antiquarian books, but the only back-issue business I've paid attention to since I started running The Journal of Irreproducible Results in 2004 is, naturally, JIR.
In the last 2 years, half a dozen retiring astronomers, my age and older, have contacted me about selling large back runs of Sky & Telescope, and occasionally other magazines.
S&T now sells a CD package with 70 years' worth of their issues, including index. Scientific American also sells its contents that way. Of course there's nothing like the real thing. The feel of the real magazines is important. You can read a whole lot more pages, with a whole lot more enjoyment, on paper than on a screen. So the magazines have value.
Right now, friends and I have S&T sets for sale near:
* Cleveland (especially eager to sell)
* Boston
* St. Louis
* Chicago
* San Francisco.
(locations are important because shipping costs a lot.)
They'd be mighty heavy and bulky to sell on my Great Science Trek, but I could probably fit one set at a time into the trailer. Should I try to sell them online? At conventions? By wide eMailing? Which institutions are on-the-make these days?
Magazine runs I want to sell to good homes, preferably by summer 2012:
* The Journal of Irreproducible Results
* Scientific American
* Physics Today
* Mercury
* Astronomy
* Sky & Telescope
* The Sky
* The Telescope
* The Planetarian
* Isis
* Journal for the History of Astronomy
* Geoscientist
* Quarterly Journal of the RAS
* Observatory
* Griffith Observer
* Leaflets of the ASP
Contact me at normsperling [at] gmail.com
Novice Astronomy Over 50 Years
© Norman Sperling, July 5, 2011
A presentation I saw on how to get into amateur astronomy showed how much has changed in the half-century since I began ... and how much hasn't. Amateurs from the Phoenix and San Jose areas explained the ins and outs to science fiction buffs at Westercon.
Stars, planets, and humans are still the same, so the principal advice is still to go somewhere dark (away from light pollution), and learn the constellations and how the sky moves. That advice is absolutely identical to what I was told in 1957, and it's right. They mentioned some recent and classic beginner books, as well as the latest 'pod apps. Light pollution is now a lot worse, so getting to a dark place is much more difficult, but the advice is the same.
The second advice is still to not dive into buying a big, complicated, expensive telescope. After the naked eye, use binoculars. After binoculars, a useful beginner telescope is now available for as little as $50 or $60. That price is relatively lower (considering inflation) than in my youth - an advantage of modern design and production. Then and now, beginners must be warned away from flimsy, incompetent, disappointing telescopes from non-specialist merchants.
They still recommend Sky & Telescope and Astronomy magazines. (OK, the latter was founded in 1973.) They still recommend finding your local astronomy club and star parties, and using red-light flashlights to preserve night vision.
They still recommend studying the richest and most informative telescope catalog – though that used to be Edmund's and now it's Orion's. The lust generated by seeing all the glorious equipment used to be called "aperture fever" and is now "Telescope Porn".
Modern optical and electronic technology has outmoded the old equipment, and enabled whole new categories of activities.
The Dobsonian Revolution made far larger telescopes affordable to serious amateurs, and they can observe deep sky objects spectacularly better than 50 years ago. Today's top Schmidt-Cassegrains, Maksutovs, and refractors deliver markedly better images than you could buy 50 years ago. Some astronomers love automatic object-finding telescopes because it's easier to observe what you want; purists consider it cheating if you don't point the telescope correctly yourself.
Electronic imaging has popularized incredible tools like webcams. Commercial mounts now mate phone-cameras to telescopes. Software now lets photographers stack multiple exposures using more skill and time than money. The best amateur astrophotography of 2011 far surpasses the best that the big professional observatories could do just 30 years ago. These tools enable amateurs to study, and make discoveries about, far fainter objects than before.
One aspect that hasn't changed is the mindset that "amateur astronomy" = observing. That wasn't true 50 years ago and it's less true today, but it's what springs to mind. Lots of non-observational aspects are wide open – history, education, tourism, and telescope making are just a few popular options. Data-mining now combs and analyzes enormous amounts of data, usually gathered by professionals. Anyone competent with a computer and an internet connection can do this. Some such projects are called "Citizen Science".
Overall, getting to a dark sky is markedly harder nowadays. Learning the sky and climbing above beginner status are about the same. But optical as well as electronic technology have improved spectacularly. Far greater viewing and computing power are affordable, and projects to use them multiply very fast. Nowadays the limiting factor isn't telescope size, or imaging skill, or computing talent, but the creativity to think up a new project. Go for it!
Early Astronomy Days
© Norman Sperling, May 6, 2011
May 7th is Astronomy Day. Astronomy clubs and institutions across and beyond the US invite the public to look through their telescopes, and explain assorted astronomical things to them. That brings back memories of the 1970s.
The Idea
The context included converting the Astronomical League (the US federation of astronomy clubs) from a do-little social group run by its aging founders, into a do-something group run by "young Turks", of whom I was one.
We activists knew there was a lot to do, but very few suggestions of just what to do gained wide support. Nobody thought the BAA or RASC systems were appropriate here. Our situation was unprecedented so there were no models to copy. That was just when I was running Sky &Telescope's amateur department. I joined S&T in September 1976, shortly after the AL convention. Some activists were elected that year, along with some holdover traditionalists. By 1977 Bob Young of Harrisburg, the new president, really wanted to accomplish things. We spoke by phone rather often, and corresponded a lot.
I already knew a couple of the Astronomy Day founders. Irene Sacks hosted the first Astronomy Day I heard about, at the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ. I went to a couple of her yearly events (Novembers?) while planetarium director in Princeton, NJ, not too far away. On my 1974 and 1976 drives to California I met Doug Berger, Frank Miller, and others in the Astronomical Association of Northern California, who were running Bay-Area-wide observances.
Bob Young enthusiastically agreed that the League should foster participation. Frank Miller and Doug Berger of AANC were enthusiastic about spreading the idea, as long as AANC was treated as an equal of AL. The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada quickly joined in, making Astronomy Day international (obviously with a date later in Spring), and soon a number of other places joined the fun, making it very international, which it remains today.
Constraints
One problem that cropped up immediately was climate. There is no time when the whole USA all enjoys the most favorable weather all at once. At all dates, somewhere's too cold, somewhere's too hot, and somewhere's too rainy. Winter was obviously out despite the clear skies following cold fronts; the public wouldn't come. Summer had many similar problems, including the ridiculously late arrival of darkness around solstice. That left Spring and Fall. So I talked it over with meteorologist Ed Brooks of Boston College. Brooks immediately pointed out that Fall had a problem that Spring didn't have: "thunderstorms in the MidWest" was his terse veto - I still remember him speaking those exact words, and marveled at how succinct and relevant they were. True, thunderstorms come in thin squall lines that pass quickly, but they're an afternoon-and-evening phenomenon that would ruin events in large swaths of the country.
That left Spring. And here we met some very narrow constraints. AANC wouldn't hear of anything too early in Spring, because the rainy season doesn't end here till well into April. Northern states also plugged for later dates. The South didn't seem to mind that. But the advent of Daylight Time in most of the country would push skywatching to too late an hour to attract many crowds. A consensus emerged for a Saturday in Spring, just before Daylight Time started.
We also found consensus that a First Quarter Moon is a highly desirable attraction - it is easy to see, shows lots of details, but isn't so bright as to wipe out deep sky objects that we also want to show.
Of course, First Quarter doesn't always occur on Saturdays, and doesn't always occur immediately before the switch to Daylight Time. So we agreed that every year we'd talk to one another about the best date, rather than invent a formula akin to that for determining the date of Easter. While I was at S&T, I was the one who did the phoning, on the pretext of preparing the amateur events calendar for the magazine. The news I heard from the participants fully justified the magazine's investment in my time, postage, and phone bills. After I left S&T in 1981, Gary Tomlinson of Grand Rapids, the AL's Astronomy Day Coordinator, had a long talk with Doug Berger, established dates for many years at once, and published them all in the AL's Astronomy Day Handbook.
Another issue that we handled correctly from the beginning was the primacy of the local sponsor. Everyone feared some big impersonal "other" ordering them to do something that wasn't appropriate in their own local circumstances. So, right from the beginning, we wrote into the principles that while Astronomy Day was recommended, and the League would facilitate events and suggest things as best it could, every club should do exactly what it pleased. For many clubs, that was "doing nothing". Other clubs adapted their own observances. We got this idea by extension of the way President Ford handled the 1976 US BiCentennial celebrations. Political bickering persisted so long (partly distracted by Watergate) that no big national effort to accomplish any major celebration could be arranged. So Ford let necessity be the mother of invention, and declared that each community should observe the BiCentennial however it wanted - there was still enough time for local planning. Practically everybody seemed delighted with this - it wasn't merely coping with a political messup, it was a positive good. Making this an Astronomy Day principle meant that places that needed or wanted a different date would do what they needed, places that couldn't get an act together could skip it, no one felt hassled by anyone else, and everyone did what they felt best.
The wisdom of local primacy was immediately apparent when I suggested that the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston run an Astronomy Day. General agreement was reached on when and where (Boston Common). But that first event turned out to be on a frigid evening just after a late-season snowstorm, and a LOT of ATMoB people ribbed me for getting them into something that was not a good show. After that, ATMoB shifted to later dates with higher probabilities of pleasant weather.
Saying So Made It So: Sky & Telescope Articles
At S&T I read over 100 astronomy club newsletters a month. Snippets about somewhat-related events in a few other places could be put together and called local versions of "Astronomy Day". My first article on all this was the first time that most people ever heard of Astronomy Day: "'Astronomy Day' Sprouts Nationwide", v56 #1, July 1978, p35-39. The various participants mentioned had no idea that anyone else was doing anything, and absolutely no idea that it was a national movement, until my article told them it was. Saying so made it so. Adding official participation by the League, the following year I put together "Astronomy Day 1979: The Biggest Yet", v58 #2, August 1979, p167-169. Then "The Resounding Success of Astronomy Day 1980", v60 #2, August 1980, p149-153. And even after leaving the staff I was asked to compile "Astronomy Day 1981", v62 #3, September 1981, p265-267.
In those same years I was consulting for Edmund Scientific, and triggered their "Norman W. Edmund Award" for the best observance. I also chaired the judging, and even picked the other judges, all on the pretext of getting the information early to put into the S&T articles. The award for Astronomy Day observances disappeared for several years and then reappeared.
--==]]::[[==--
J. Kelly Beatty comments: FWIW, I think Ed Brooks blew it. IMHO the likelihood of clear skies and widespread temperate weather in the fall trumps the chance of sporadic thunderstorms. In late April or early May it's still way too cold and damp in lots of places. I brought up the spring-fall debate with the League's council a few years ago, and on the basis of that an alternate fall A-Day date has been added.
The Star Winked at Me
© Norman Sperling, April 24, 2011
Last New Year's Day I got an eMail with an old, familiar ring to it: "Spectacular graze in 98 days". A grazing occultation, a special kind of eclipse where the north or south pole of the Moon grazes by a star, can be really nifty to watch. The star is at full brightness, and then abruptly disappears as a mountain covers it up. It may reappear through a valley, disappear behind another mountain, and can do so several pairs of times.
In the 1960s, computers advanced enough to make worthwhile predictions, so astronomers learned how to make scientifically valuable observations of grazing occultations ... using portable telescopes and cassette recorders. An observer watches the star through a telescope, and tells the recorder the instant that the image turns off and on. Timing is maintained either by recording the shortwave signals of WWV or WWVH directly, or by recording a nearby clear-channel AM radio station that somebody else is recording simultaneously with WWV.
With such simple equipment, teams of observers, strung out perpendicular to the graze path, can determine the profiles of mountains and valleys on the Moon to an accuracy of a few tens of meters, from a distance of 400,000 km!
To organize the whole operation, Dr. David Dunham and others set up the International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA). The last half century has seen marked improvements in computers, telescopes, eyepieces, voice recorders, video recorders, mapping, and communications, and IOTA has used each to refine its procedures. The leaders have stuck with it for many decades: Dunham, whom I met in the National Capital Astronomers in the 1960s, still leads it now, more than half a century after observing his first occultation!
Here in Northern California, Walt Morgan has organized expeditions for several decades. Walt's alert commented: "For many years IOTA classified grazes as Marginal, Favorable, or SPECTACULAR! There were mighty few of the latter, and now those labels are not used at all. Nevertheless, I think you will agree with me that it would be appropriate to apply the classification to the following:
- star: magnitude 3.5 eta Geminorum
- moon: 36% sunlit
- limb: northern
- cusp angle: +14 degrees (dark)
- lunar elevation: 42 degrees
- lunar azimuth: 266 degrees (west)
- when: 9:43 p.m. Saturday, April 9, 2011
- where: Vacaville, Dixon, Davis area
"If you have been waiting for just the right opportunity to break out your occultation tools, this is the one: as grazes go, it has everything going for it, including the time of day and day of week."
One of the brightest stars to occult (binoculars would suffice), the Moon not glaringly bright, in its best, easiest situation, at a convenient hour, on a weekend, in a place easy to reach from a freeway - wow!
It's been more than 20 years since the last graze I observed - Regulus, November 30, 1988, Fremont California. So I'm not exactly in practice. Devotees measure many per year.
But the timing was perfect, the weather was clear (though windy), I had most of the equipment I needed and could easily borrow the rest. So I went. Walt's long experience has led to immaculate preparations. I checked in with him at the appointed spot, south of Dixon, at dusk, a good 2 hours in advance, and also said hello to Derek Breit and several other veteran "grazers" I'd met at various astronomical gatherings. Our observing line was well populated with 9 observing stations, and another, near Stockton, had 11 more.
I brought my Astroscan telescope, 2 eyepieces, binoculars, a small portable table, a larger card table, and a few ways to keep warm. There was a streetlight just north of my assigned position, and wind coming from the southeast. I positioned my van to block both streetlight and wind, and set the telescope on the floor inside to look out the side door. I could close the door for warmth when I wasn't observing. That wasn't very much, since the whole glorious Winter Oval was there, deserving long looks with the Astroscan. With the car radio tuned to the right station, and the borrowed voice recorder turned on, there were no hassles, and I even kept pretty warm! I ended up not needing the binoculars, either table, or most of the warmth gear - but experience has long proven that it's better to bring too much than too little.
The star winked at me! 3 times!
Walt timed my voice on the audio. First, a peak hid the star for 3 seconds. Then the star was visible again through a valley for 15 seconds. A big mountain hid the star for 1 minutes and 42 seconds. Then the star shone through a valley for just 1 second till it was hidden by another peak for 3 seconds. After that the star was no longer occulted from my location.
Others took videos, whose results can be timed to individual frames, with no "reaction time" delay from going through a human. Derek Breit, who has way more experience and way better equipment than I have, has posted this page about the event, and at the bottom you can click on his spectacular video. You can easily see the result of wind shaking his telescope. But you can also see the star not merely blinking off and on, but dimming as edges of hills barely blocked part of the star! The timing is in "Universal Time" (Greenwich, with a few small corrections). His location was a few hundred meters north of me, closer to the Moon's edge, and obviously in the perfect position to take advantage of his experience and equipment.
One really neat effect I remember from that graze a couple decades ago has been outmoded by technology. These days, most observers make videos rather than voice timings. Back then, almost everybody used voice, and at that event we had so many observers we were very closely spaced. So as a disappearance or reappearance neared me, I could hear observers from up or down the line saying so into their recorders, then I saw it, then others farther down or up the line. I heard the profile of the mountains and valleys live, in stereo!
