Observing Log for Mike Durkin
4/26/2009 about 9:00PM-11:00PM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 6/10, Seeing ??/5
Temperature: about 50-60 degrees
Equipment: Stellarvue 70mm refractor
Stared by looking at the crescent moon. Able to see a few craters in the daylight portion.
Looked at Saturn with the 7.4mm(56x) eyepiece. Saturn was small, but I was able to make out the ring clearly
and probably a couple of moons.
Also looked at the Beehive Cluster, M44. Seen best with the 30mm(14x), even the 17mm(24x) was a little too much magnification. The 2 central stars seemed
to have a little more color than the rest of the cluster.
Next I looked at NGC 2281. It was a very tight cluster that the 7.4mm(56x) seemed to be not enough.
Then the globular cluster M3 to finish the night. Could clearly see that it was not an individual star,
although I don't think I resolved any individual stars in the cluster.
I am a little afreaid that my cheap camera tripod may not be ehough for this scope.
I was also disappointed that there wasn't enough back focus for 2 inch eyepiece that I have. Also
the only 2 inch diagonal that I have will only thread to an SCT. I may need some kind of
spacer tube or a different diagonal.
4/24/2009 about 11:00PM-12:00AM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 6/10, Seeing ??/5
Temperature: about 50 degrees
Equipment: Stellarvue 70mm refractor
First light with the new scope.
I just wanted to see what it might be able to do. I took a quick look at Saturn and 30mm(14x) eyepiece.
I wasn't able to distinguish the rings clearly due, but that could be because of my asigmatism. I also tried
to take a quick look to see if I could find any of the Leo Treo Galaxies, but I don't think this scope is
really up for that.
I also looked at the stars in Corvus, trying to coompare my view with the display I was
getting on my iPhone software.
4/17/2009 about 9:30PM-12:30AM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 8/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 50 degrees
Equipment: Celestron Ultima 8 with PEC
Took a quick look at Saturn before I started trying to take some astrophotos. Could clearly see the ring
that was nearly edge on, as well as a couple of moons.
After that I tried working on taking some pictures of the Leo Trio. Visually, I was kind of
disappointed with the galaxies. I could make out one of them, but I didn't take to time to
check which one it was since I was rushing.
So even though I tried to get all 3 galaxies of the Leo Trio in the field of view, I only managed to get 1,
NGC 3628. This is even with a f/6.3 focal reducer. If I rotated the camera by 90 degrees, I might have been able to.
During the session I also tried to use the off axis guider. This only seemed to make things worse since I usually
overcompensated. The image in the pickoff prism was dimmer than I was expecting as well. So I gave
up on using the off axis guider and just stayed with 1 minutes exposures. I need more practice using the OAG.
Here is the final image:
NGC 3628
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