Observing Log for Mike Durkin 4/27/2012 about 11:30-1:00AM, then 3:30-4:30 AM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 7/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 40-50 degrees Equipment: Meade 16 inch Lightbridge Dobsonian First light on my new Dob!! I hope I haven't bought a telescope that is too big for me. Putting it together was harder than I expected, especailly the top cage with the diagonal. I did find a trick online on how to assemble it, which I shall have to try next week. I also have to test out getting it in and out of the car. I did a rough collimation and then pointed at the moon. I also took a look at Saturn, which did look a little rough die to seeing or the fact that the mirror wasn't cooled down yet. Looking at stars, I would estimage that I was able to see as faint as around magnitude 12.5-13.0. I also tried looking at M95 and M96. I was not able to distinguish them using my larger eyepieces (40mm and 30mm), but I was finally able to just make out M95 in my 17mm eyepiece. It looked like a roughly circular patch with no distinct features. M96 was a bit easier to pick out and had a definite oblong/oval shape to it, and maybe some variation in intensity. I was a little disappointed that the galaxy didn't really pop out at lower magnitudes, but that may be common when observing from a light polluted area. 4/27/2012 about 11:30-1:00AM, then 3:30-4:30 AM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 9/10, Seeing ?/5 Temperature: about 40 degrees Equipment: Stellarvue 70mm and Hutech modified Canon Rebel XT Observed variable stars R Leo, R Vir, RS Vir, and Z UMa. Then I waited a couple of hours to take a DSLR measurement of P Cyg. 4/8/2012 about 8:00-9:30PM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 0-8/10, Seeing 4/5 Temperature: about 40-50 degrees Equipment: Hutech modified Canon Rebel XT DSLR photometry of α Ori. After that I wanted to visually observe some variable stars, but it suddenly go totally overcast. 4/8/2012 about 3:30AM-4:40 AM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 4/5 Temperature: about 40-50 degrees Equipment: Hutech modified Canon Rebel XT DSLR Photometry of P CYG. Other Log Entries <-- 2011 Jan  Feb  Mar  Apr   May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec  2013 -->