Observing Log for Mike Durkin 7/31/2008 8:30PM-10:00PM Waterfront Park, Freeport, NY Transparency: 9/10, Seeing: 3/5 Temperature: about 70 degrees Equipment: Orion 127mm Maksutov-Cassegrain Started the evening with Jupiter. The seeing was pretty bad early on, but got better as the night went on and Jupiter rose. At first could only see 3 moons, however soon Io popped out of Jupiter's shadow next to Europa. Before we left, some poeple were able to make out the Great Red Spot as it was about to transit. I could not clearly make it out in my scope, however I may have seen it as a light "dent" in the equitorial belt. M57 - Ring Neb: Just barely visible. Unable to see any ring structure. Double Double: I tried to see if I could split them both. I was able to split one pair, however I don't know if I quite split the other pair. NGC 6231 - The Jewelbox in Scorpius: about a dozen or so stars in a compact cluster. Not quite as impressive as I was hoping for. And I also observed M6 and M7. Open clusters seem much better targets under significant light pollution. 7/10/2008 8:30PM-10:00PM Waterfront Park, Freeport, NY Transparency: 9/10, Seeing: 2/5 Temperature: about 70 degrees Equipment: Orion 127mm Maksutov-Cassegrain First AOS Public session at Waterfront Park for the year. I got there a little late, just before 8:30PM to set up. At first the main object of the evening was the moon, since it was still pretty bright out. As the evening progressed, we were able to observer a conjuction of Mars and Saturn. I showed some people Saturn with the 17mm eyepiece. We were able to see the rings, although they are nearly edge on. Less than 1 degree away was Mars. In the telescope, it just looked like a red blob with no distinct shape or shading, probably because it's angular size is small and it was so low to the horizon. After that I showed some people Jupiter with the 17mm and 7.4mm eyepiece. I pointed out the 3 moons and alos the 2 equitorial belts. Towards the end of the evening, Larry G and some one else noticed that there was going to be an occultation of a star by the moon. I tried looking for some deep sky objects. I first tried M4 near Antares. I was only just barely able to make this out as a fuzzy patch at 30mm and 17mm, but no significant details. After that I tried scanning around Sagittaius and found a globular cluster. Bill C. confirmed for me that it was M22. M22 was much easier to see than M4, but is was still pretty washed out with all the light pollution. I was able to resolve a few stars. Other Log Entries <-- 2007  Jan   Feb  Mar   Apr   May  Jun   Jul   Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec   2009 -->