Fellow ASH member Rob Job may have discovered a new lunar sunrise ray. Here is the information that he passed on to me: I observed a sun ray in the crater BARROW, which was near the sunrise terminator on the moon. I estimate the colongitude to be about 356=B0. The time was 22:55 UT on February 22, 1999. Let me know if you hear of anyone else having observed this ray. Has anyone else observed a sunrise ray in the crater BARROW? Dave Mitsky ASH, DVAA--------------------
In any case, the old observers mention many rays and other tricks of illumination in this area; the BARROW ray specifically is mentioned by Goodacre. I'd say that providing a precise time of observation would allow Rob Robinson to run some quite good predictions for this one. Doug Snyder and I were observing the moon between about 0200 and 0300 UT (24th) and did not notice the ray. Our seeing was rather poor, though, and there was an observatory full of birthday party guests as well, so this didn't lend itself to really careful observing. -- Jeff Medkeff Sierra Vista, Arizona http://www.roboticobservatory.com/jeff/--------------------
The ray was just getting started when I first looked at the Moon, before full dark around 19:00 PDT (0200 UT 24th), and was pretty prominent and obvious if you happened to look at BARROW by the time I packed in around 20:30 PDT (0330 UT 24th). - Don Qualls
Using Don Qualls location coordinates, and times reported, the follow initial set of predictions were generated:
Starting Date = 2001 / 1 / 1 U.T.
Site Longitude = 122.00 Latitude = 47.00 Redmond Washington
Feature = BARROW
Longitude = 7°42' Latitude = 71°18'
Reproducing Lighting For: 2001 / 9 / 24 at 2 : 0 UT
Desired Solar altitude = 0.505° (Rising), Azimuth = 86.692°
Average Co-longitude = 353.877
In the time column, D=daylight, T=twilight
---- Moon's ----
Topocentric -- Earth's -- ------- Sun's -------
UT Date Time Alt° Semi-diam" long° lat° colong° lat° azim°
2001/ 3/31 22:46d 45.92 969.31 -4.70 0.73 358.38 -1.52 96.25
2001/ 6/28 0:52d 42.73 976.52 4.91 -6.78 353.89 -0.00 91.50
2001/ 9/24 2: 1t 19.89 927.98 7.22 -0.44 349.33 1.54 86.70
=================================================================================
This showed the desired observing time, would be with a co-longitude of 353.877 and the solar altitude of .505 degrees rising.From these parameters, the predictions for future events were generated.
Crater Description:
Barrow, +045,+949. A splendid telescopic object, 45 miles in diameter, with broken walls, bearing a crater on the south-west. On the floor is a crater south-east of the centre. On the south-east is the crater A, and east of it a little peak. Another peak lies on the south-west wall, and beyond this part of the wall is the enclosure, W. South of Barrow is a large enclosure with broken walls, and common with W. C. Bond on the south. Outside the north wall are two large prominent craters, A and B, while west of A is the small ring C, which has slightly deformed the wall at this point. - Wilkins and Moore, The Moon, Faber and Faber Ltd, 1955
