Observing Log for Mike Durkin
8/11/2007 7:00PM-1:00AM
Robert Moses State Park
Transparency: 9/10, Seeing: 3/5
about 60-70 degrees
Celestron Ultima 8 PEC
A day before the Perseid meteor shower, and a really nice day, so I went down to RMSP.
Soon after I got there, a couple of other AOSers shoed up. First thing I looked at was Jupiter. Even though it was still bright out, it was possible to see Jupiter if you knew where it was. I used mostly my 17mm(118x) and 7.4mm(270x) eyepieces. One of the equitorial belts seems to have been fainter than I have seen in the past. I althought thought I saw what looked like a dark bar near the edge of the disk by the equator. I also saw 3 of the moons.
Observered M28, a globular cluser in Sagittarius. Kind of faint and I think it was about 20-30 arc minutes in size. After looking up the real dimensions, I don't think I am remembering the size correctly. I am pretty sure that I was not looking at M22, which is about 30 arc minures in size. I was star hopping from Lambda Sagittarii (aka Kaus Borealis) to M8 at the time.
I also observed M8, the Lagoon Nebula, with the 30mm(67x) eyepiece.
Mainly during the night I was taking piggyback shots with my DSLR.
I also tried looking for M20, the Trifid Nebula, but I wasn't able to see it.
Also before I left I tried tracking down a double star from the Sissy Haas book. However it was getting late and starhopping was hard without having my laptop right next to the telescope.
As for meteors, I did see a couple during the night, but it wasn't anything special.
Here are the piggy back shots I took:
 A 2 minute exposure of the Sagittarius region of the Milky Way. Plenty of deep sky objects in this field. |
 A 1 minute exposure of the Sagittarius region of the Milky Way.. Looks like I may have been lucky enough to catch a Perseid while taking a picture of the Milky Way. |
 A 3 minute exposure of the North America Nebula in Cygnus. My focus was a little off though which you can see if you look at the high resolution version of this picture. |
 The part of the sky where you can see the Coat Hanger Cluster. You can easily see the Dumbbell Nebula (M27) and M71. My focus was a little off though which you can see if you look at the high resolution version of this picture. |
 This shot of part of Cassiopeia. There was a significant amout of light pollution in this direction, which is why there is a very noticeable gradient in the upper left. In this image there are a couple of emission nebulae as well some star clusters. My focus was a little off though which you can see if you look at the high resolution version of this picture. |
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