Observing Log for Mike Durkin 11/29/2014 about 12:00AM-1:30AM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 3-9/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 25-30 degrees Equipment: Canon Rebel T3i Tried to take a wide field image of the Flame Nebula, Horsehead Nebula, and the Orion Nebula region with my DSLR camera. Clouds moved in to almost completely cover the sky. In my initial inprocessed shots, M42/43 showed up pretty well. The Flame was significantly fainter, but visible. I could not make out the Horsehead at all. The temperature was wicked cold, otherwise I would have done more stuff earlier. 11/28/2014 about 7:00PM-8:00PM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 25-30 degrees Equipment: Canon Rebel T3i DSLR photometry of P Cyg. 11/22/2014 about 12:00AM-2:00AM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 9-10/10, Seeing 4/5 Temperature: about 20-30 degrees Equipment: Canon Rebel T3i DSLR photometry of γ Cas, κ Cas, ρ Cas, and ε Aur. It seemed to be a very good night for observing. I kind of wish it wasn't as cold and I wasn't as tired, then I might have done some more. 11/15/2014 about 7:00PM-12:00AM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 7-9/10, Seeing 4/5 Temperature: about 30-45 degrees Equipment: Celesctron Ultima 8 with PEC and Canon Rebel T3i A very frustrating evening. I wanted to imae M33 using the 6.3 focal reducer. I got everything set up, and the crack in the DEC motor went again, so I am going to order a new one rather than try with crazy glue again. Finding M33 was also a bit confusing. I was already in the area of M33, but it didn't show up in the viewscreen and I didn't realize that some of the "stars" I had found were either stars in front of the galaxy or part of it. Once I got the off axis guider set up, trying to get any stars in focus seemed impossible. I actually think that my configuration last night was not possible to focus the main camer and off axis camera. I did eventually play around with other configurations and got something reasonably close, using M45 since that was a star cluster so finding stars would be easier, but it still wasn't 100%. I will need to order some other T thread spacers from Orion to see if I can get both cameras in focus at the same time. Around midnight the sky started to deteriorate with clouds. Some of my equipment was covered in frost by the end of the night. 11/14/2014 about 7:00PM-11:00PM Theodore Roosevelt Nature Center, Jones Beach, NY Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 4/5 Temperature: about 35-45 degrees Equipment: 15x70 binoculars and 127mm Orion Mak. AOS public session at Jones Beach tonight. Looked at M45, the Pleiades, which I think looked fairly impressive in the bincoulars. Also saw Uranus and Neptune with the Mak and 17mm eyepiece. Neptune just looked like a background star, Uranus did look a non-stellar, but it was still too small to make out any disk. Took a quick look at the double-double in Lyra and M42. Looked at M77 (Cetus A) galaxy in Nancy R's telescope. We were able to see the core, but no details of the spirals arms. Also looked at the stars arouns σ Ori in George's scope. Before I left, I looked at the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC, 253) i the Mak and the 17mm eyepiece. I was able to make out a faint diagonal patchy area, although it required averted vision or tapping the eyepiece. I would estimate that it appeared to be about 20-30 arcminuts by 5-10 arcminutes. 11/10/2014 about 7:00PM-1:00AM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 8/10, Seeing 4/5 Temperature: about 40-55 degrees Equipment: Hutech modified Canon Rebel T3i and 70mm Stellarvue Observed variable stars Mira, U Cet, R Psc, W Peg, and α Ori. DSLR photometry of P Cyg, CH Cyg, and X Per. 11/9/2014 about 8:00PM-12:00AM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 8-9/10, Seeing 3-4/5 Temperature: about 40-50 degrees Equipment: Hutech modified Canon Rebel T3i and 10x50 binoculars DSLR photometry of P Cyg, γ Cas, κ Cas, and ρ Cas. Observed variable stars SU Cas, AO Cas, V465 Cas, RZ Ari, TV Psc, TX Psc and RW Cep. The moon started to rise and interfere a bit toward the end of the session. 11/2/2014 about 6:30PM-10:00PM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 8/10, Seeing 2/5 Temperature: about 35-45 degrees Equipment: Hutech modified Canon Rebel T3i DSLR photometry of P Cyg, R Lyr, AC Her, and CH Cyg. A very windy night and the moon was out a bit making the sky a little bright. Other Log Entries <-- 2013 Jan  Feb  Mar  Apr  May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov   Dec  2015 -->