Observing Log for Mike Durkin 9/19/2020 about 9:00PM-11:00PM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 3-4/5 Temperature: about 50-60 degrees Equipment: Stellarvue 70mm refractor Visual measurements of variable stars X Oph, Z Oph, R Aql and UV Aql. While star hopping also tried to observe planetary nebula NGC 6572 and open cluster NGC 6738. For NGC 6572 I may have seen it, but it was only stellar in appearance. For the cluster NGC 6738, I saw a couple of the brighter stars, but I probably needed a biggeer telescope to really bring it out. 9/5-6/2020 about 8:00PM-2:00AM Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 9/10, Seeing 3/5 Temperature: about 60-70 degrees Equipment: Hutech modified Canon T3i Today I wanted to try an measure an eclipsing binary with my DSLR. Earlier in the day I looked on a website to find eclipsing binaries and saw that BR Cyg, should be well placed and have it's eclipse at a convenient time. The magnitude range is about 9.5-11 and I decided to use the 200mm Canon prime lens, which may be a little too small for that but I'll have to see. After setting up the Star Adventurer mount, I started setting up the SynGuider. I still had a little trouble with focusing and ended up deciding not to use it for the night even though it was on the mount. After I started taking images at 10:00PM, about every 20-30 minutes I would go check on the setup. The image did show drift between each image. The lens also fogged up a little bit and I used a hair dryer once to clear. During the latter half of the session, I saw the waning gibbous moon with Mars clearly visible just above it, probably less than a degree away. 9/4/2020 about 10:30PM-12:00 midnight Locust Valley, NY Transparency: 5-9/10, Seeing 3-4/5 Temperature: about 75-85 degrees Equipment: Hutech modified Canon T3i DSLR photometry of P Cyg and CH Cyg. It took me a little while to get the exposure and appropriate focus for photometry. For CH Cyg, clouds interrupted the series so for the last 5-6 exposures were done after the darks. I was also thinking of trying to do an exposre to show Barnard's "E" dark nebula in Aquila, but the wispy clouds were too much. Other Log Entries <-- 2019 Jan  Feb  Mar  Apr   May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep   Oct  Nov  Dec  2021 -->