Observing Log for Mike Durkin 6/24/2007 about 8:30PM-12:00AM Custer Institute Transparency: 7/10, Seeing: 2/5 about 60 degrees I went out to Custer for a talk by Steve Orlando on DSLR imaging. After the talk it was a bit late, so rather than set up my own scope, I just used the AOS and Custer scopes. Bill Crispino was manning the AOS scope and we looked at M57. After than we went uip to the Custer scope in the dome. This was the first time I had seen the dome since it has been renovated. Very nice and roomy up there. Bill showed me Jupter, but the seeing wasn't very good at that time. I was also a bit surprised, that the Custer scope seemed very prone to vibrations. After that it was getting pretty late so I went home. 6/15/2007 about 9:00 PM-1:00 AM AOS StarFest Stone Tavern Farm, Roxbury, NY Transparency: 7/10, seeing: 3/5 about 60 degrees Celestron Ultima 8 PEC This was the AOS's first Star Party, held in Roxbury, NY. I got up a little early to help Geoff from the AOS, and I set up the scope and table in the field set aside for observing. Later that night, Bob Berman from Astronomy magazine gave a talk about how we percieve color. After that, when the skies were dark enough I tried to get some observing in. I also have to say that the skies there was very nice and dark. I was easily able to see the Milky Way along with some of the dark patches. Venus was clearly visible in the west, and very bright. Later on, the Internation Space Station made an an impressive pass overhead, nearly getting as bright as Venus before it faded out. I was planning on using my laptop with software as my star charts, however the glow from the screen was way to bright, so I shut it down. I made sure that before I left the star party that I bought a red screen from the vendor. I observed Jupiter, which looked nice and bright, easily able to make out a couple of equitorial bands and moons. I was able to find M6, the Butterfly Cluster, by using the setting circles. At 30mm(67x), the cluster appeared a little less than 1 degree in size. It was about 50 stars almost shaped like a clover. There were also 2 brighter stars which seemed to match up where the antennae would be. Very easy to see where it gets it's name. Alberio in Cygnus. M4 in Scorpius. It appeared small and I was not able to fully resolve. I tried looking for a couple of other objects using my setting circles, but I was getting a little frustrated. And shortly after that, things started to dew up and just about everyone on the field started packing it in. Other Log Entries <-- 2006 Jan  Feb   Mar   Apr  May  Jun   Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec  2008 -->