Observing Log for Mike Durkin 2/5/2005 7:00PM-9:30PM Robert Moses State Park Transparency: 9/10, seeing: 7/10 127mm Mak I was originally supposed to go out to Custer today for observatory training, but I had to do some work in the morning so that was a bust. So when I got to the parking lot at the beach, there was bits of ice all over. I drove over to the usual spot where the club meets, and noticed there was one guy there with his son also observing. He was not a member of AOS or ASLI. I had to find a spot where there wasn't any ice on the ground to set up. I first set my scope on M42 in Orion. Looked very nice and bright in a 30mm(51x) eyepeice. I then observed M48, an open cluster in Monoceros. It filled my eyepiece at 30mm(51x), making it about 1 degree in size and I saw about 30-40 stars in the cluster. After that I tried looking at M46 and M47 between Monoceros and Canis Major. I did pass over a couple of open cluster while trying to find them, however I could not specify which clusters I was observing. After that I decided to look at M79, a globular cluster in Lepus. It was fairly small and dim, I'd say about 5-10' in size. I observer with 30mm(51x) and 17mm(90x) eyepieces. After that I tried to find M109 in Ursa Major. Although I had the galaxy in my field of view, I was not able to see in. I also tried to find M81 and M82, also in Ursa Major, however I could not starhop my way to the proper location. This time the motors seemed to work better than last time once I had the R.A. and Dec cables plugged into the right motors. I was also planning to take some wide angle astrophotos, but I never got around to doing it. I left the parking lot once the other observer left and I was starting to feel cold as well. Other Log Entries <-- 2004 Jan  Feb   Mar   Apr   May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov   Dec   2006 -->