Observing Log for Mike Durkin
7/10/2009 about 10:00PM-12:00AM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 4/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 60-70 degrees
Equipment: Celestron Ultima 8 with PEC
Didn't turn out to be as clear as I originally thought it was going to be, but I still wanted to get some practice with the camera.
The first picture is a piggyback shot of the contellation Lyra. There was quite few clouds, which you can see in the image:
I then tried taking some images of the North American Nebula (NGC 7000), but even after processing, you can only barely make it out. A few days later, I asked Jerry A. from the club how he got his nice picture, which was taken in Oyster bay, and he stacked a lot more than I did. So I think I need to do that for some of the nebula shots, whic were easy to come by in Alice's back yard with film.
7/5/2009 about 2:00PM-6:00PM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 70-80 degrees
Equipment: Coronado Hydrogen Alpha PST
A good time to get some solar astrophotography in.
 Prominences in Hydrogen-α |
 Prominences in Hydrogen-α |
 Sunspot region in Hydrogen-α |
 Sunspot region in Hydrogen-α |
 Sunspot region in white light filter. |
All shots were done using a Toucamm II webcam and using Registax.
Although I am satisfied with the images of the prominences, I'm not quite as happy with my sunspot images. The two Hydrogen-α images really dont show how the areas around the sunspot regions looked in the telescope. And even though the white light filter does show the sunspots well, there looks like there is some kind of processing artifacts going diagonal to the image. I don't know if that is because I used a very high frame rate, which is supposed to cause the image to be compressed.
7/4/2009 about 9:00PM-2:00AM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 5/10, Seeing 4/5
Temperature: about 70-80 degrees
Equipment: Celestron Ultima 8 with PEC
A chance to try out some of the new accessories I bought.
After I attached the 70mm Stellarvue, I added the counterweights and it seemed to work well. Except that I think I need to get some kind of lock washer for the Stallarvue on the piggyback adapter.
I tried to see if using the Canon digital camera, could I split the double-double in Lyra. Even with very short exposures, I was not able to resolve on the LCD display. Maybe collimation or processing would be helpful?
I took some images of the Ring Nebula, M57. Here is the result:
Telescope: Celestron Ultima 8 with PEC
Location: Locust Valley
Camera: Hutech modified Canon Rebel XT
ISO: 1600
Exposure: 28 images at 10 seconds each.
I didn't do any real polar alignment, which limited the length of my exposures.
I also tried to pick up some of the Veil Nebula, but I was not able to see it at all on the LCD screen.
7/4/2009 about 2:00PM-7:00PM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 9/10, Seeing ?/5
Temperature: about 70-80 degrees
Equipment: Coronado Hydrogen Alpha PST
Noticed one active region on the Sun and also a faint prominence. A bit later on in the day I was able to show the Sun in the PST to a couple of kids.
7/3/2009 11:00-1:00AM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 5/10, Seeing ?/5
Temperature: about 70 degrees
Equipment: Stellarvue 70mm SV70ED
I wanted to try out a few of the accessories I recently bought, so I decided to try out using the
short tube refractor on the nearly full moon.
I also used the old tripod that Rich H. gave me. Even though it is a little rusty in places, and
some of the catches looks like they could be better, it is a lot more sturdy than the cheap tripod
I got from B&H
The 2" diameter extention tube worked with the 40mm, 2 inch eyepice as well, although I almost thought
that it still wasn't long enough.
I also used the 2 inch T-adapter to hook up my Canon Camera to the refractor. Even though it was
cloudy, I did manage to take a couple of shots. Here's is one of them:
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