[sac-board] Re: 2005 SAC Meeting Dates?

At 08:33 PM 6/16/2004 -0700, Paul Dickson wrote:

>Traditionally the star party is 8 days after the club meeting (last
>quarter moon), which puts it on May 28th.

Wait, I thought we were talking about the June star party!


>Would anyone attend with a 5-day old moon? (I get 5 days with NM occurring
>on Monday.)

Okay, have the June star party in July, and I'll say "I told you so" when
the date comes.


>According to your chart, the difference between March and April is very
>slight, much less than a night.  While March is slightly clearer, the
>storms usually mean an extra day of drying is required.
>
>The farther south you are the clearer it is.  

Not true.  The typical mechanism for April cloudiness is the subtropical
jetstream, which comes in from the southwest and affects all _elevations_
equally, and impacts southern _latitudes_ slightly more.  The comparison
between the two months would be more pronounced down in the low country
here in Phoenix, which gets less debris clouds from the winter storms and
more of the subtropical cirrus.


>We've had rain many times in
>Phoenix while the marathon has had an almost entirely clear night.  This
>differentiation would render the Flagstaff data difficult to use for the
>AZ City site in March/April.

Many times?  So the 60 or so miles of latitude that separate Phoenix from
the Arizona City site make one of them drier than the other despite their
nearly identical elevation?  The interpretation is that the Flagstaff data
shows nearly a tie between March and April, and the deserts would show (and
have shown) horrible April cloudiness relative to March.


>107 or 109, neither is 110.  I don't expect it would make much of a
>difference to participants.  Although the choice of date is ultimately up
>to AJ.

I agree with you on that one, Paul.  It's just my opinion, but I think you
fare better with arguing about club meeting protocol than climate and
observing.

Sorry to drag you through this, SAC Board.  I hereby resolve to bow out and
let Paul have his way.

Tom

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