Observing Log for Mike Durkin
3/27/2011 8:00PM-11:00 PM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 30 degrees
Equipment: Hutech modified Canon Rebel XT
I took some images of some bright stars to get photometric measurements:
Aldebaran
Betelgeuse
ε Aur
ζ Gem
I didn't think Aldebaran and Betelgeuse would have enough bright stars in the fields to make good measurements,
but I was able to make some measurements, even though the standard deviation was a bit more than I was
expecting. I should see if using a wide angle lens would get more bright stars in the field.
3/26/2011 9:00PM-12:00 AM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 8/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 30 degrees
Equipment: 70mm Stellarvue refractor
Work was a little bit of an issue this weekend, so I just did some variable star measurements. I recorded ε Aur, Z UMa, RY, UMa, Y UMa, and VW UMA.
At one point I thought I was going to get clouded out, but it only lasted about 20-30 minutes.
3/19/2011 8:00PM-1:00 AM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 40 degrees
Equipment: 8 inch SCT, Hutech modified Canon Rebel XT
So I finally got to take some images of M67 in Cancer to do some calibration photometry with the 8 inch.
It is also the first chance I had to use the light box to take flats with the SCT. After looking at
some of the images I think I should have tried focusing a little better and maybe used the autoguider,
even though some of the stars in the image are definitly usable.
I also was playing around with the off-axis guider. I don't know if it was the moon, but I had more
trouble than I expected getting stars to show up in the DSI camera. I also broke a screw on one of
the rings of the autoguider which I need to replace.
And this night is the "supermoon", a full moon at a very close perigee. I took a few pictures of the
full moon through the SCT, but my focusing was a bit off.
|
| A series of 1/200s exposures stitched together. |
3/12/2011 8:00PM-12:00 AM
Locust Valley, NY
Transparency: 3/10, Seeing 3/5
Temperature: about 40 degrees
Equipment: 8 inch SCT
I wanted to do some astrophotography or maybe do some photometry calibaration with my
DSLR. However the sky kept clouding over and there were too many sucker holes. I only got
as far as trying to polar align, so at midnight I just packed up.
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