Gryphon’s Fest was this past weekend and since I was in charge of the event I wasn’t really focused on observing. However, Jupiter was nearing opposition Friday night, so I wanted to make sure I got some observations there. While that went well, there’s still something much bigger that happened there.
First off, the observations. Jupiter was the only target for the night and Yseult joined me to make the observations. As I’ve done previously, I simply took a dozen observations to help average out the results. When we started, Jupiter was still pretty low on the horizon, so after six observations, we took a break to allow it some more time to rise as well as have a few drinks. We came back an hour later and were joined by Angela. Discussing the function of the quadrant and my project took most of the time so our observations slowed, but she jumped in on the observing as well and made an excellent first observation that was included in the data.
Overall, the azimuth needed to be adjusted by $+1.37º$ of which $0.79º$ can easily be attributed to the fact that Polaris was east of north when we aligned. The other $0.58º$ would need to be attributed to misalignment which is common.
After averaging all the results, the total error was $0.05º$ in right ascension and $0.01º$ in declination with standard deviations of $0.21$ and $0.19º$ respectively.
The bigger news came during Court on Saturday. Following my general announcements regarding the event, Their Majesties asked me to stay and I was presented with induction into the Order of the Silver Hammer. For those that aren’t aware, this is Calontir’s Grant of Arms level science order1. I’ve had a suspicion that this was coming for some time, but was floored by the scroll that was presented.
For a bit of context, Calontir does custom scrolls for grant level awards2. Typically, these are quite well done, but still fairly limited in scope.
In contrast, the one I was given was three full pages. The first of these is clearly based on Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc Berry (The Very Rich Hours of Duc Berry) which was a 15th century Book of Hours3, in particular, the month of September. This is easily among my favorite astronomical illuminated manuscripts which the illuminator certainly knew because it was done by Count Yseult. The bottom portion has been replaced with references to my own time in the SCA and is littered with references. It’s an exceptional piece4 complete with gold leaf which is absolutely dazzling in direct sunlight.
The text was written by Duke Anton Rhaghelan5 and, while well researched, is contains some notable anachronisms. In particular, the reference to Flamsteed as the Astronomer Royal is distinctly post period as he assumed the post in $1675$.
I’m truly honored to receive this award and it only strengthens my excitement to get back to work on my project now that Gryphon’s Fest is complete.
- Calontir has separate orders for arts and sciences until the peerage level.
- At the AoA level, the scrolls given in Calontir are black and white outline pre-prints that are hand painted with spaces left for names and dates.
- A collection of prayers to be said at certain times on certain dates.
- Yseult notes that it is unfinished as there was some work left to do on the illuminated letters.
- I was the Royal Herald for the reign of Anton and Yseult.