Observing Log for Mike Durkin 12/28/2003 8:00 PM to 1:30AM Oyster Bay, about 30-40 degrees Transparency: 8/10, seeing 9/10 Ultima C8 PEC This night gonna mostly try some astrophotography. Started with some piggy back shots of the Pleiades area and then some shots at prime focus. After that took some piggy back pictures of the area around the Orion Nebula followed by some prime focus shots of the nebula itself. For all photo's I started at 5 minute exposures and then increased the next exposre by 5 minutes. After that used the digital camera to take some pictures of Saturn. Tried taking some movies, but the shutter speed was too fast and the images of the movie too dim to use. At full optical and digital zoom, showed Lily and Alice Saturn and they seemed impressed. Visually observed Saturn using a 5 mm eyepiece since the seeing seemed very good that night. Easily able to see Cassini division. I originally though I saw the C ring, but I suspect that it is really just a darker region of the B ring. The polar region of the globe was dark olive and there was an orange brown belt in the equitorial region. So far probably the most color I've seen in Saturn. All of the final shots I have taken for the night can be found here. 12/27/2003 5:00 PM to 6:00PM Oyster Bay, about 40 degrees Transparency: 9/10, seeing 4/10 Ultima C8 PEC Started with Venus using the 7.4mm eyepiece. Appeared about 70-80% gibbous. It was only about 20-30 degrees above the horizon, and there was quite a bit of chromatic abberation. I used a green filter, and that did seem to help with the abberation a little. Next observerd the Moon. Took a couple of photos at prime focus at 1/250s, 1/125s, and 1/60s. The Moon was about 20-25% illuminated. Then observed Mars using the 7.4mm eyepiece. Much dimmer and smaller than earlier in the year when it was at opposition. It also was only about 70-80% illuminated. Was able to make out some dark markings in the middle of the disk. Stopped atfer that since I was tireed from the driving range and it was cold. Other Log Entries <-- 2002 Jan  Feb   Mar  Apr  May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec   2004 -->