The New York City Blackou

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From: Godel Child
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Subject: The New York City Blackout and the Milky Way
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Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 01:10:13 -0500
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GC Yes, you are correct. I remember the same post(s). It was rather
GC profound in its own way and still is. It made an impression on me even
GC though
GC I have never lived in a modern big city ......... and never will, God
GC willing!
GC
GC Garmachi wrote:
GC
GC I recall reading in this group... about a year ago, the story of
GC viewing the Milky Way during the NYC blackout of '03.
GC
GC There were also pictures of the skyline before and during the
GC blackout. The pictures were taken by a Canadian I believe, and were
GC quite striking.
GC
GC I've been googling for a while and can't seem to find those pictures.
GC Does anyone know what I'm talking about, or am I dreaming?

Having survived that blackout, I did some sky checking. (I did the
walk over Brooklyn Bridge with Avogadro's number of other blackout
bictims.) From Manhattan the sky was hazy all thru the afternoon into
night. It got to full night while I was on the Bridge, so I
purposefully stopped in midspan to look around. (The walk is on the
highest part of the deck so there is an unobstructed view in all
directions. The vehicle traffic is one level under this walk.)
The sky over Manhattan was quite hazy with the Sun setting into
schumtz. While the sky was darkish, there were only a few brighter
stars visible. New Jersey avoided the blackout for being in an other
zone of the US power grid, so it was fully lighted up. The sky was
illuminated from this light.
By the time i got to my hood, the air was clearer, whether by
distance away from the Manhattan haze or a shift of weather I don't
know. The Moon was dull in her rising, so there was still some summer
stuff in the air.
At home, on a dark street, there were oviously more stars than
usual for a summer night. But nothing even close to getting a sight of
the Milky Way.
However, from the eastern quarters of the City, I did learn of
incipient Milky Way sightings, the 'usual' brighter patches of it
overhead or in Scutum/Sagittarius.
To be nie about it all, by the time I got home I was fixing to
take a cool shower and go to bed. Need less to say, I dtayed home from
work on the next day because transit wasn't running. Lights came back
to my hood at around 19:30 on the second ay (Friday?).
New York City DOES get the Milky Way once in a while WITHOUT a
blackout! Typicly in the fall -- right now -- the air clears up and
cools enough to get rid of the moisture of summer. Then, on occasion,
we get the Milky Way's brighter reaches as diffuse pathces fixed on
the stars. To see it, you MUST be shielded from local lights and get
some dark adaption.
I can assure you that you will NOT see anything like a stippled
band atching cleart actoss the sky, unless the sky is actually free of
haze and moisture during a blackout.
As for what happens during a blackout, I had one amazing, and
chilling, vista a couple days after World trade Center. On calamity of
that disaster was the total shutdown of electric in all of Lower
manhattan. On this particular day I chanced to be on Manhattan in
evening wand was now riding home by train. This train crossed from
Mahattan to Brooklyn by Manhattan Bridge, luckily on its west or south
side, that facing Lower Manhattan. (The north or east tracks were
shut down for many months before WTC for repairs.) I looked out of the
the window to see LM.
No Lower Manhattan.
Oh, there were the nacklace lights on Brooklyn Bridge, a bit south
of me, but the bridge deadended at the Manhattan shoreline!
Throwing my hooded jacket over my to block out the lights from the
rail coach, i saw what was to me one of the more skin-crawling sights
of my life.
ALl fo Lower Manhattan was silgouetted in pitch black outline
against a flaming red skyglow of New Jersey! It was as if there was
some humongous conflagration beyond that somwhow zapped the electric
on Manhattan.
So far this year we have no certain MW sightings. On the night of
September 18-19 and 19-20 we had possible sightings, but no confirmed,
from various parts of the City after the Florida hurricanes passed by
us and sweeped out the haze and moisture for a while.
On the 18-19 the sky cleared in perdawn hours when the summer,
brighter, MW was already set. Only the much dimmer winter MW was up,
which we never in recent years see from the City. On the 19-20 the
evening sky was very dark[ish] and a few possible MW sightings were
turned in.
For more scuttlebut about astronomy in the New York region, join
the NYSkies egroup in Yahoogroups. Sign up thru the yahoo website
or send blank email to '.

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