Observing Log for Mike Durkin 9/21/2003 about 8:00PM to 11:30PM Oyster Bay and RMSP, about 65 degrees Transparency: 10/10, seeing:6/10 Celestron Ultima C8 PEC and 10x50 binoculars The night started out very frustrating. The night seemed very clear so I went out to RMSP, hoping to find some AOSers out there, but instead I only found some guys who look like they went fishing. For the few minutes I was there, I took out the binoculars and tried to see the Lagoon and Trifid nebula again. I saw some of the Lagoon, and may have caught some of the Trifid, but I didn't break out the Mak, and started to go home. On the way home, I found out I could go to Oyster bay so I went there. I got there around 9:30 or so, and once there I set up the C8 and started to observe. It was a very good night to observe and it was clear enough to just make out the Milky Way from Oyster Bay. I eventually wrapped up because there was too much dew on the telescope and finderscope. M11: Best seen at 18mm(111x). Able to see dozens of starts, with one bright star near the middle. There almost seemed to be a couple of strings of stars extending out, almost like an octopus. M26: Seen at 30mm(67x) and 18mm(111x). Very unimpressive, about a half dozen or so stars in a small cluster. I couldn't confim it was a Messier object until I verified on a star map. Not sure why this was considered a Messier object. M15: Seen at 18mm(111x). Medium sized globular cluster, however I was not able to resolve any indiviual stars, possibly due to dew. 9/20/2003 about 10:00PM to 11:00PM Rockville Center, about 65 degrees Transparency: 4/10, seeing:6/10 127mm Mak Went out to Rob and Melissa's and decided to show Rob Mars since he hasn't seen it yet. We went as high as 7.4mm(208x), and we managed to see shadings on the bottom half of the planet, and a bit of the polar cap. After that tried to look at Casseopeia, but it clouded over. We had to leave there because of something urgent. 9/10/2003 about 10:00PM to 12:30AM Oyster Bay, about 65 degrees Transparency: 9/10, seeing:3/10 Celestron Ultima C8 PEC Seemed like a clear night, so I went out to Oyster Bay tonight. Rather than observing tonight though, I wanted to focus on taking some astrophotos. The moon was just about full tonight anyway, so deep sky observing was pretty much a wash. First checked out Mars. I was able to make out surface detail a lot easier tonight as compared to other recent nights, however the polar cap was not as obvious. Then using PSC on my Zaurus I was able to pinpoint Uranus. I was hard to make out for sure that it was a planet since it's disk was so small. The color of the disk showed up as a light blue I took digital pictures of Mars and Uranus. I also finished off a roll of film with pictures of the moon. You can find the pictures of Mars and Uranus here. I ruined the film which has the lunar shots. 9/5/2003 about 11:30PM-1:30AM Commack, about 70 degrees Transparency: 9/10, seeing: 5/10 127mm Mak and 10x50 binoculars Went out to Gary's to look at Mars again. We drove around for about an hour trying to find a good spot when it suddenly occured to Gary that there was a field by his house. It has a great view of the sky, pretty much clear in all directions. First looked at the moon with 30mm(51x) eyepiece and then the 17mm(91x) eyepiece. Gary was very impressed with the moon. I think it was the high point for him of the night. Then we looked at Mars. I went as high as 7.4mm(208x), although the seeing wasn't great. I could make out the polar cap and some shading on the surface. I also tried to find Uranus, and I may have had it in my field of view, but I'm not sure. I think I really need to get the better finderscape to help starhop. We also looked at the following: M31: Gary's first look at a galaxy. Only used 30mm(51x) eyepiece. M45 or Pleiades: Garys wasn't too impressed with them in the binoculars, but when he viewed it in the scope, he could see more stars and that did impress him a bit, even though we could only see a fraction of the cluster in the field of view. NGC 869, NGC 884 or the Double Cluster: Caught this before we left. Looked very nice in the scope, although couldn't quite get all of bother cluster in the field of view with the 30mm(51x) Other Log Entries <-- 2002 Jan  Feb   Mar  Apr  May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep   Oct  Nov  Dec  2004 -->