As the story below in the South China Morning Post suggests, I wasn't the only one to notice this (see post on 06/19/2006). Interesting, however, how brightly Jupiter shines through the haze -- pretty well the only celestial body apart from Arcturus that is clearly visible with the naked eye from my vantage point on most days recently. With a telescope, even its moons can be seen:
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Burning of farm straw has capital choking
VIVIAN WU
Hebei farmers burning large quantities of wheat straw recently have caused Beijing's most polluted day in six years.
Satellite pictures from Beijing's Environmental Protection Bureau showed farmers in neighbouring Hebei province were burning wheat straw last week. A strong southwesterly wind blew huge clouds of smog over all five southern districts of the capital on Tuesday night, choking residents, who called in with complaints and inquiries from 7pm.
"Air quality monitoring stations in these districts showed that the density of inhaleable particles reached 500 to 900 micrograms per cubic metre, while some places in Fangshan district reached 1,500 micrograms per cubic metre," the bureau announced yesterday.
The density of pollutants temporarily reached six to nine times normal levels in some areas of southwestern Beijing, the Beijing News reported. The newspaper quoted Environmental Protection Bureau vice-chief Du Shaozhong saying that Tuesday saw the most unbreathable weather in the past six years.
"We reported to the State Environmental Protection Administration, which is co-ordinating with its Hebei counterpart to monitor straw burning, which is banned due to its serious pollution potential," a bureau spokesman said.
A 34-year-old cyclist and resident of Daxing district complained that he could not open his eyes "or breathe after the strange smog landed suddenly".
"I had to rush back home to fetch a mask ... the air was just terrible," he said, describing how the sky turned yellow and the air became pungent.
The National Meteorological Centre at the China Meteorological Administration last week detected 154 areas in Hebei where straw was being burned.
The Beijing government is rushing to increase the number of blue-sky days in the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but dust from construction sites, vehicle exhaust and sandstorms from northern China have consistently kept goals from being met.
Jiang Gaoming , chief researcher at the Institute of Botany at the China Academy of Sciences, said straw burning had historically caused air pollution during harvest season.
Mainland farms produce 700 million tonnes of straw each year from crops such as wheat, corn, sweet potato, peanuts and beans. In the past, farmers saved it for burning in kitchen stoves, but these days, they use other fuel.
Reports had said airports and highways were blocked in some areas by the smoggy air, but the government had few effective methods for curbing the burning, only empty rules, Professor Jiang said. He suggested the straw be recycled as fodder for cattle.
After all these days of Saturn/Mars conjunction, I finally got to see them today, just after sunset. Unfortunately just too far apart to get in the same fov of my 26mm eyepiece -- 1 deg 16' or so compared with an fov of 1 deg 5'. In any case they quickly disappeared behind cloud and haze and edged out of view behind a building. They would have been entirely invisible from the back garden, from which anything below about 20-30 degrees above the horizon is obscured by trees and buildings, and hardly anything between SE and NW that isn't well overhead. A vantage point on a first floor balcony afforded my uncomfortable and fleeting view of the two planets. No chance whatsoever of seeing Mercury (which I did manage to see once early in the year by driving to a clearer site nearby -- so that's at least ticked off my list). According to TheSky 6, if I'm using it correctly, the next time Mars and Saturn will be less than 1 deg apart will be on July 10, 2008. Is that right? Less than a month before the Olympics.
Back to a blanket gray haze over the city. Driving back into it from an out-of-town trip, the haze appeared to thicken, like smoke. It turned out it was smoke, from stubble being burned on wheat fields on the plain. A spectacular sight from the air at night at this time of year, but not helpful for celestial viewing. This NASA page describes the phenomenon:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/shownh.php3?img_id=13631
-- I've found the ETX-90 very easy to set up and use (I always use two star alignment since the choice of stars from my backyard is very limited). it can be tricky centering stars, however. after moving the fov, the scope drifts by about 15 arcminutes before settling down. determining at what point the star is truly aligned is therefore troublesome. maybe for this reason i find that slewing to other stars, particularly distant ones(that is, well separated from the alignment stars), can result in the desired object appearing at the periphery of the fov or even just beyond it, requiring a spiral search. is there any way to refine the alignment in the course of a viewing session, so that any imprecision with the first two alignment stars can be eliminated later on? I assume "align succesful" on Autostar only means you've got it roughly right, not centred them precisely in the crosshairs (not that the scope has them).
-- i would like to have bayer/flamsteed catalogs in Autostar. maybe they are there, buried deep in those menus. i quick look at meade's website does not reveal any obvious way to download them
-- the battery life is very good, allowing two or three good nights of use with plenty of slewing before needing replacement. i wish the same could be said of the laptop.
Two straight nights of unusually clear viewing here, adding three more Messier objects to my collection. I have now seen a grand total of six (M5, M92, M3, M94, M57, M13) -- a long way to go, and not much more likely to be achieved in this location. August promises better viewing in the countryside, weather permitting. I remember vivid views of the Milky Way there as a child, with stars almost dripping from the sky. The ETX should have fun out there.
